Evan Connell - Mr. Bridge

He opened the garage door and stepped inside but instantly hesitated, sensing that he was not alone. He snapped on the light but did not see anybody. A cat or a dog might be under one of the cars, so he got down on his hands and knees and looked, but nothing was there. Somewhat puzzled, he got to his feet ready to admit he had been mistaken, when he felt again a strong intuition and glanced up and discovered his son almost directly overhead straddling a plank which lay across the rafters.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “Good morning up there!”

Douglas nodded but did not speak. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and he was holding a magazine. The magazine made Mr. Bridge suspicious.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

Douglas shrugged and murmured. Occasionally he climbed up into the garage rafters and stayed there awhile, but Mr. Bridge had never thought this particularly strange because he remembered how he used to enjoy climbing. He had attempted to explain this to his wife, who did not like their son going up into the rafters or very high up in trees; but women could not understand because they lacked the instinct, or urge, or need, or whatever it was that impelled most boys and a good many grown men to climb things, to get as high as possible. There was a peculiar airy excitement in reaching for a branch or a foothold. And a thick pleasure flowed like syrup through the blood. However, these things could not be explained; either you understood, so that no explanation was necessary, or you could never understand. But now something else was going on. Mr. Bridge stood just inside the garage door and squinted up into the diagonal shadows.

“What are we having for lunch?” Douglas inquired, swinging his feet. The cigarette still drooped from his lip, but he was sliding the magazine out of sight.

Mr. Bridge said, “Come down here.” He snapped his fingers.

Douglas pretended bewilderment. He blew a large cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Come along. Be quick about it. Bring that with you, whatever it is. No more of this nonsense.”

At last he got up, his arms outstretched for balance, and walked the rafters like railroad ties until he reached the wall, lowered himself to the top of the stepladder, jumped over the hood of the Chrysler and nearly landed on the snow shovel.

The title of the magazine was California Sunshine. It consisted of pictures taken at a nudist camp.

“Where did you get this?” Mr. Bridge demanded. “And throw away that cigarette.”

Douglas expertly flipped his cigarette out of the garage. He said he had gotten the magazine downtown. “I think I just put my knee out of joint when I jumped,” he added, grimacing and rubbing his knee. “It sure hurts. You better call Dr. McIntyre.” However, as this did not distract his father, he began to stamp his feet and blow on his fingers and he said, “Wow, it sure is cold. It must be about zero.”

Mr. Bridge was turning the pages three and four at a time. “How long have you had this thing?”

Douglas stuffed his hands into his hip pockets and leaned against the fender of the Lincoln.

“Couple of weeks, I guess. I don’t know. I forget. Why? What difference does it make?”

“Get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it?” he echoed in a squeaking voice.

“You heard me.”

“It cost fifty cents.”

“You made a poor investment. We won’t have this sort of junk around the house.”

“Well,” Douglas said, “I can’t just dump it in the trash.”

“If you can’t, I can,” said Mr. Bridge, and he did.

Spring came earlier than usual. High overhead the Canadian geese streamed northward. In the yard pale shoots of grass appeared unexpectedly. Neighborhood boys threw baseballs back and forth. Little girls uttering shrill cries roller skated up and down the sidewalk.

The arrival of spring pleased Harriet. She did not like winter. Winter created retractions in the blood and noticeably interfered with the system. But now warm weather was on the way, so she sang as she worked while robins and sparrows and a pair of glossy blackbirds fluttered through the arbor and alighted from time to time on the rim of the birdbath. And when she had finished cleaning up the kitchen and hidden the newly baked cinnamon tarts where Douglas could not find them and vacuumed the carpets upstairs and downstairs and made the beds and telephoned for groceries, she thought it might be pleasant to spend a while outside. It might be nice to spend half an hour watering the flowers. Since nobody else was home she changed from her white uniform into a halter and plaid skirt, which she was not supposed to wear, and presently she stepped outside with a daiquiri in one hand.

She turned on the water, picked up the hose, and wandered back and forth humming and chatting with herself while she sprayed the begonias, the tiger lilies, the chrysanthemums, the hollyhocks, a side of the garage where it was streaked with dirt, and Goethe, the Edisons’ German shepherd, who gave her a bleak look before trotting away, and several robins which did not mind very much.

Soon the daiquiri was gone. She stepped inside just long enough to prepare another, then she took up the hose again.

She sprayed the kitchen steps and the basement steps, the trunk of the old elm and the evergreens, and the irises planted beside the porch, and about half of the yard, and a number of windows, and when everything in sight was wet she directed the hose nearly straight up to see if she could create a rainbow, which she did. She waved the hose and the rainbow drifted. She felt pleasingly damp and refreshed. She hung the hose over the clothesline while she went inside to fix another daiquiri and after sampling it she floated outside just as the Chrysler turned in the driveway. Mr. Bridge was home early.

She held the kitchen door open for him, but he stopped before entering the house. He stared at the hose hooked across the clothesline with water pouring from the nozzle. He looked at the dripping trees, at the flooded basement steps, the sparkling flowers, the wet garage, the pools of water on the driveway, and at Goethe who had returned and now sat observing the scene from the shade of the hollyhocks like a saturated coyote. He looked at the glass in her hand, and he said:

“What is going on here?”

Harriet said, “Well, I have been watering.”

“Indeed?” he asked.

“Yes,” Harriet said. “Things seemed to require it.”

He remained standing on the back step. Once more he looked around. The Edisons’ dog regarded him with deep attention, obviously waiting to learn what would happen next.

He said, “Harriet, I think everything has been watered sufficiently.”

“Well,” Harriet said, “it does appear that way.”

Then he said, indicating the daiquiri, “If by any chance you are not planning to drink that, I believe I might. This has been a rather difficult day.”

Turning through the evening Star he noticed on the society page a photograph of Mrs. Paul A. Cornish, whom he had never met, although he was acquainted with her husband. Frequently she appeared on the society page for one reason or another — at a benefit for crippled or retarded children or at the opening of a flower show or having luncheon with friends or attending a reception for somebody. She did not look as young as she used to. She had gotten stout and she wore her hair differently now, in a chignon which emphasized her classical features but at the same time pointed out the damage of the years. He noticed that she had begun wearing glasses. Perhaps she always had, but not in a photograph; they were attached to a little chain looped around her neck so that she could let them rest on her bosom whenever she did not need them. This more than anything else seemed to signify the end of youth. Yet these changes did not make her less attractive, and as he observed her cool patrician face he felt mysteriously close to her. If, years ago, before either of them had married, he had crossed a certain street or waited for the next elevator — what then?