Evan Connell - Mr. Bridge

In the privacy of his cubicle in the basement of the bank Mr. Bridge waved his hands at nothing, as if he might brush away these unhappy meditations forever. He began to think about Harriet. She was drinking too much, it was no longer possible to pretend that she was not. She kept a bottle hidden in an empty carton of soap flakes in the cupboard beneath the sink, and sometimes she tried to hold her breath while serving dinner. Something had to be done.

He thought about Ruth. He could not understand why she permitted a homosexual to spend the night in her apartment, or why she wished to associate with Greenwich Village bohemians and Negroes. What she was doing did not make sense.

Nor was she alone in the pursuit of folly. The grandiose projects of mindless pundits rolled out of Washington as regularly as doughnuts, and at the apex of this insane pyramid sat Roosevelt, dispensing fireside affability and panaceas as foolish as his hat, meanwhile packing the Supreme Court with socialists and anarchistic “liberals.” Father Coughlin called him a great betrayer and liar. The priest was not far wrong.

Progressive educators, so-called, were at work in the schools. Subjects taught for generations were being demeaned and abandoned. Psychologists, social workers, and various other apologists of lawlessness were excusing the criminal for his crime, blaming each daily outrage on those who committed no outrage. Soon enough nobody would be considered responsible for anything. What would happen next? It was violently unjust that such things could come to pass while a man spent his life and all of his energy working to achieve some degree of security for himself and his family. There was so much change, so much absurdity, so little respect for the traditions and the ideals upon which civilization was founded.

Wearily he resumed examining his stock certificates and bonds. Once more he read through his will. Everything appeared to be in proper order.

At first the snow appeared tentatively, sifting down from the clouds like flour through a screen; gradu-ually the frozen earth was covered, and the leaves beneath the maple, and the lower corners of each windowpane were rounded. By the time Mr. Bridge left the house to drive downtown the evergreen boughs were sagging.

Snow fell all day, hushing the noise of traffic. Lights stayed on in offices and stores.

Late in the afternoon he instructed Julia to call the garage and tell Mr. Buckworth to put chains on the Chrysler because it was apparent that the residential streets were going to be treacherous, and when he started home an hour later it was still snowing. He drove cautiously, stopping at each intersection, and it was six o‘clock before he reached the Union Station. He turned on the radio for the six-o’clock news. The Italians were advancing in North Africa. John L. Lewis was threatening to shut the mines again. Fire had destroyed an apartment building in the Negro district of Kansas City. A liquor store on Linwood Boulevard had been robbed and the proprietor was shot.

By the time he got to the Plaza the snow was falling thickly. Automobiles, telephone poles, shops, all were capped with snow. The tennis courts were level white rectangles. The black iron posts for the nets resembled fence posts in a farmer’s field. At the intersection of the streetcar line there had been an accident; people were gathering, and an ambulance with its red light flashing was moving slowly through the traffic. In the shopping district the stores were still open and bright with Christmas decorations and the roofs of the buildings were strung with lights as they were each year. He considered driving around to enjoy the spectacle, but the snow was getting deep.

He crossed the Brush Creek bridge and a few minutes later started up the Ward Parkway hill. After every snowfall somebody tried to go up Ward Parkway without chains. Before he came to the crest of the hill he saw what he expected: a car had skidded off the road.

At the top of the hill some children had built a snow fort, and a barrage of snowballs rose toward him but fell apart in the air.

Huntington Road had been cleared. In a little while he reached Crescent Heights, turned in the driveway, and allowed the Chrysler to coast into the garage.

He paused on the back steps to stamp the snow from his shoes while Harriet waited just inside, and as soon as he was ready she opened the door. He was puzzled by the expression on her face. He hesitated, then he asked if anything was wrong. Harriet replied in an unnatural voice that Mrs. Bridge was at the Barrons’ house. His wife spent a great deal of time with Grace Barron, there was nothing unusual about this. He glanced at her impatiently. She backed away and began stirring a kettle of soup on the stove.

“Come, now,” he said. “This has been a long day for me. I am in no mood to drag information out of you. What is going on? Is Mrs. Barron ill?”

Harriet touched her lips as though she was afraid to speak. She murmured. He was not quite certain what she said. Then very clearly he heard her say that Grace Barron was dead.

“She is what?”

“She is dead.”

“You say she is dead?”

Harriet nodded vigorously and started to cry.

Mr. Bridge placed his briefcase on the drainboard but immediately picked it up because he had laid it in a pool of water. He reached for his handkerchief but realized that Harriet had a dish towel and was trying to pull the briefcase out of his hand.

“Here, let me attend to that,” she was saying.

He gave it to her, and she dried it while he gazed out the kitchen window. He noticed that snow was piling up on the ledge just outside the glass and it occurred to him that the weather forecast had been correct. The snow was heavy and looked as if it was going to continue all night. It must be snowing throughout the Midwest.

“Mr. Bridge, you all right?” she asked.

“Yes. Oh, yes,” he said. “I’ll be all right, Harriet. This is startling news. You are positive, are you?”

She handed him the briefcase without saying anything and resumed stirring the soup. He walked out of the kitchen and went upstairs. In the bedroom he discovered that he had forgotten to take off his hat and coat. He put them on the bed, undressed, and went into the bathroom to take a shower, but presently he saw that the tub was almost full. He did not remember turning on the water for the tub; however, it did not make any difference, so he stepped in and sat down and shut his eyes. He thought about Grace Barron. He recalled the rainy day he had eaten lunch with her and how she had insinuated that he was sympathetic to the Nazis. Perhaps deliberately and maliciously she had misinterpreted what he said. He reflected that he had never liked her very much. If she had not been such a close friend of his wife he would have avoided her. She had always been contentious and unstable. She was a lost, unhappy woman. Virgil had given her whatever she wanted. She had been given too much, which might be the reason she was critical of people, critical of everything which did not coincide with her own prejudices. In fact, she had seemed critical of her own pampered existence. She was spoiled and disagreeable. She had not known enough to appreciate her good fortune, the security Virgil had provided, nor whom to thank for it. Her death was a shock, but each death is a shock, whether it is a person who dies or whether it is something as inconsequential as a gray squirrel or an old elm tree, and he concluded that he felt no particular regret.

He began to think about the snow, which would make it difficult for his wife to get home. He remembered how dark it had been all day and how the snowflakes were swirling past the streetlights when he drove through the Plaza. The flakes were as large as moths, floating and sailing everywhere in silvery profusion.