The Bridge

by D Keith Mano

  “The safety lock. Here, give me that.” Xavier Paul hesitated, then injected the clip. “I’m doing a foolish thing.” Priest put the extra clips into his thigh pouch. He took off his gloves, rubbed palms together, “Let me hold it. Let me.”

  “Damn kid. Just don’t take the safety off.” He gave Priest the .45. “Watch where you point it.”

  “Bah! Bah, you’re dead.” Priest aimed at one of the manikins. “Bah! He’s dead. Dead. Right in the eye.” He hefted the pistol; he liked its weight. “Wonder if this really works?”

  “Just wonder. Just keep wondering. God, you make me nervous.”

  “Yes? I’ve been nervous all my life. Now let someone else be nervous.”

  “Put it away, please.”

  “Hey, let’s take a ride.”

  “Slow down for one minute, will you? We need sleep and food.”

  “Get in. Get in.” The convertible was on a low dais: SUNDAY DRIVERS, CIRCA 1990. Two manikins—a male and a female—waited in the front seat. They wore goggles, complex inhalers. A papier-maché spaniel stood on four legs behind them, also goggled, masked. Priest shook the steering wheel. He opened a rear door: knelt in, sat. He laughed. He tapped the driver’s shoulder. Xavier Paul shook his head. Priest leaned forward, tongue out, a third lip. He cupped left palm under the manikin’s breast. He panted. Xavier Paul was not entertained. Then Priest reclined, heels up/on the front seat back. He patted the dog.

  “Get in.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m tired. I’m tired. That’s why I’m in here. Seat’s comfortable.” He slapped the fabric, “Soft. Get in. Don’t be an old crotch.” Xavier Paul opened the other door. He sat, the dog between them. It was nearly dark then: Priest could distinguish only a side lock of Xavier Paul’s white hair, and a bent wire, his profile, down from it. “Nice.”

  “Yes. Nice. Never enough leg room. I had a Ford. I could have driven it with my knees.”

  “There’s no gas around, huh? You don’t think—maybe they have gas in here someplace.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. What does it matter?”

  “We could make time in a car.” He hit the door. “I’d like that.”

  “Yes. Of course the roads are useless.” Xavier Paul hawked saliva. “The tires are flat. No oil in the engine. But we could take turns pushing.”

  “Oh?” Priest craned over the door’s sill. “The tires are flat? I didn’t see…” He paused. “Well, but we did good today. Tomorrow I’ll be home maybe. Don’t you think?” Xavier Paul had dozed. Priest pushed his arm.

  “Ah…What?”

  “You think I’ll be home tomorrow?”

  “Twenty miles yet. No. Day after that.” Xavier Paul rubbed his face. “I didn’t think you’d get this far. How’s the ankle?”

  “It hurts.” Priest lifted the right foot. He untied cords of his overshoe. “In the toes. Along my shin. It goes thumpthump.”

  “Good. At least it’s alive. My back’s not so hot. I wonder about tomorrow morning. I’ve been laid up for weeks at a time with it.” Abruptly Priest leaned forward. He pushed fingers under the female’s inhaler strap, caressed nylon hair. He sat back heavily.

  “She doesn’t know I’m coming. I wish she knew.” He worked the overboot off. “Maybe she’s taken the pill by now. It’s no good up there. All her friends are in the lesbian commune. They do what the guardsmen say. And Ogilvy…”

  “Ogilvy?” Xavier Paul yawned. “He—once he…” Priest contracted Xavier Paul’s yawn.

  “Well, it’s in God’s hands.”

  “I want to see her again.” Priest spoke harshly, as though Xavier Paul had some decisive influence, could be persuaded. “I want to see her again.”

  “I know you do.”

  “It can’t be…” He shook the dog. “After all that. After the bridge and the bees. The pain. The guardsmen. It can’t be she’s dead.”

  “They’re dead.”

  “What do you mean?” Priest groped at Xavier Paul’s shoulder. “What d’you mean, they’re dead?”

  “Nothing. I mean we can’t know. This world is stupid and tiresome.”

  “She’s dead.” Priest gasped. “I just got a picture in my head.”

  “You can’t know.”

  “I just got a picture. I saw it. I should never have killed them.”

  “What was that?” Xavier Paul sat rigid.

  “She was dead, and the child—”

  “Ssssh-” The main door had been opened: a draft verified the faint sound of hinges. Xavier Paul and Priest became still, heads inclined to imitate the dummy heads. Light then: a blue glow shone as if through watered milk. Two men came in. One held a chemical Phosphere. By its weak light they saw green shoulders. The guardsmen chatted with their fingers; masks had been unsnapped. Priest tugged up the flap of his thigh pouch. Xavier Paul thought this was not a regular patrol: the guardsmen dawdled; museum exhibits intrigued them. Priest had the .45 out. Xavier Paul saw its square muzzle near the spaniel’s right forefoot. One guardsman hesitated in front of the broken gun case. He held the Phosphere over a notepad for several minutes while he wrote. Priest, Xavier Paul guessed, had begun to smile, to sneer perhaps; the compact profile bracket of his mouth had opened. The guardsmen walked toward them; they were not alert. One rocked the convertible aimlessly, pumping down with two hands on its right fender. The female dummy, unbalanced by Priest’s caress, fell forward, temple against the dashboard. One guardsman jumped aside, stun can drawn. The other shoved him between the shoulder blades. Xavier Paul and Priest heard hissing: a muted, derisive laughter.

  Priest brought the .45 up. Xavier Paul closed thumb and forefinger over his wrist. Priest was astonished by the grip. His hand almost gave up the gun butt. He felt his own pulse thud in Xavier Paul’s thumb pad. They wrestled with impassive faces, arms below the front seat back. One guardsman righted the female manikin gallantly. He put lips on the unknuckled, white mitten of her hand, Xavier Paul thought he was drugged. For a moment the guardsman stared at Priest: the insect suit seemed incongruous. But it was dark, and his mistake Math the dummy had demoralzed judgment. He clicked the door button in and out. His partner swung the Phosphere on its chain like a censer above the panorama of New York City. He turned. He began walking toward the exit.

  Priest was exasperated. He cursed when the main door shut, though not audibly. Xavier Paul unwound his grip. He heard small thunder outside as the guardsmen buckled sunken car roofs. Priest hit the dunmiies. He broke the dog in half: it tore, a loaf of stale bread, across his chest. He was angered by Xavier Paul’s interference: infuriated, too, by his successful strength. The old man ignored him. The stress had referred pain to his spine. He panted, lungs taxed by the necessity of shallow breathing. Priest opened the right rear door. He stood, his back to Xavier Paul. The .45 pointed, pointed: a general accusation.

  “I couldn’t let you do it,” Xavier Paul grunted. “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “No? What if he saw me? Huh? He had a stun can.”

  “They were drugged. It was dark.”

  “You’re a coward. You’re like the rest of them.” He mimicked the hoarse, profound voice. “We’ll bash their heads in with our canes. Oh, yes—know what you are? A fake, that’s what you are. A ballsless, yellowbelly fake. I thought you had guts. Good, I said; this is a man. That’s what I thought. Stupid Priest. Stupid I am.”

  “I’m going to die soon, my friend.” Xavier Paul crossed the rear seat carefully, pushed himself upright. “I need to make peace with my God. I’m not a free agent like you. My hands aren't clean. In eighty-nine years there’s time enough for sin. Time enough. Try to understand that. You see things in flashes and explosions. You have no gendeness.” He touched Priest’s shoulder. His fingers were pried away. “I don’t blame you. I don’t. Anyway, thanks—you could have fought my hand ojBF. But you didn’t.”

  “No. I couldn’t. You were pushing down. You’re heavier than I am, you big ox.” Priest turned. He aime
d the .45 at Xavier Paul’s breast. “I could have shot them, then you. First them, then you.”

  “So shoot. Now.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Wait. I have an idea.” Xavier Paul stuck his forefinger tip in the pistol’s barrel. “Let’s eat first. Let’s have some wine. I’d prefer to be shot on a full stomach.”

  “Eat your own guts, funny man. Hey—wait a minute.” Xavier Paul glanced at the floor. Priest was staring down. “Hey.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hey.” Priest dropped the .45. He was confused by surprise. Hands trussed his abdomen, then lower, his groin. “Hey. Hey. Hey.”

  “What is it? Tell me.”

  Priest bowed, Thumbtips dug under his tough, ligamented waistband. With the noise of breaking suction, Priest’s insect-suit pants came down. Xavier Paul saw his nude groin and thighs. The pubic-hair smoke billowed over his genitals, as though they smoldered. Priest turned his legs out, rose on tiptoes. He began to urinate, spurting. He slung his member in both hands awkwardly, an amateur at this, and lashed the stream upward.

  “You old bastard. Tm pissing. I’m pissing again. Hey. Look at that.”

  Urine dashed Xavier Paul’s chin and throat; it was pleasant, sweet. Wine, hardly digested. Priest whooped, his head back, a naughty gargoyle gutter. Then the old man stripped. For a few seconds they dueled, rooting with curses, laughing, in the dead factory. Body-warm urine ran off their waterproof chests.

  ***

  It had begun to drizzle. Thunder ground overhead. The factory roof collated rain, herded it along crevice and watershed, guessing a route of subtle gravities, down. Pools swelled, canal locks filling, until they brimmed an obstacle. Here and there cascades sluiced through the roof. The windshield seemed to crack with spatters. From twenty feet up, a big wallet of rain burst noisily over the vinyl car roof. Priest and Xavier Paul were in a large sedan. They had finished one bottle of wine each. Xavier Paul slept full length on the rear seat, naked triangle shins out the window. It rained on his feet. He snored marvelously. Priest could not sleep. Hurrying metabolism had wasted the wine stupor. He heard his own voice: it blurted answers to the roof rain. His throat was sore. Priest had used it inexpertly. His body twitched in a reprise of the day’s emergencies. Legs ran, sets of two steps, before he could stop them. The swelling had ebbed: he could recognize metatarsal bones along the instep. In his abdomen—weightless moment at the crest of a fall—he was startled and restartled, adrenal responses but without stimuli. He made fists that hurt his fingers. And he was afraid.

  The picture of Mary dead had returned twice. Unreasonably Priest supposed a poleaxing blow. Mary’s limbs spastic at the instant of collapse, her sudden gracelessness more dreadful than death. Priest was suspicious of this vision. He thought it a secret wish. He tried to assemble Mary’s face, but the usual, sure devices were inefficient. He concentrated on the form of her nose and ears, simple geometry: the nose plain, wedge-tipped, a specific blush on the lip below, and, during cold days, clear drops of water there, her warmth condensed; ears shark-finned back to a point, morning-glory leaves that cut through her persistent brown hair. But now these images were useless; and for the child he had no images at all. Priest was superstitious. He felt strong desire for Mary, not sensual: her stomach, her breasts were an ostrich hiding place for his body. He burrowed eyes in the plastic seat back.

  Legs walked again. He sweated; he stank of anxiety. He said that he loved her, half a dialogue, imagining Mary present, but it was unnatural. He had never spoken to her aloud. He groaned. Priest loathed Mary for his great dependence. The snoring maddened him. Priest hurled his sodden shirt.

  “Shut up!”

  “Uh? What?”

  “Shut up. Your stupid snoring. I can’t stand it.”

  “Where is this? Oh.” Priest heard movement. “What did you say?”

  “I said, your damn, stupid snoring—I can’t stand it.”

  “Yes?” Xavier Paul yawned, smacked his lips. “Sorry about that. Mmm. I was fined for snoring once a week, back then, when I was living with people. They put gags in my mouth, made me sleep standing up. I’ve never heard it myself, though. Couldn’t wake up quick enough.”

  “It stinks. Sounds like you’re puking to death. I wanted to strangle you.”

  “That bad? Say…started to rain.” Xavier Paul drew his shins in. “What time is it?”

  “Who knows? Midnight? One o’clock?”

  “Is that all? Thought it was near dawn. At my age you don’t need much sleep. Did I wake you up?”

  “I haven’t slept yet. I haven’t had a minute’s sleep. I can’t. “Not even with the wine? The wine puts me out like a light.”

  “No.” Priest steered the car negligently with one hand. He couldn’t see Xavier Paul; it made him nervous. “My body is running. I’ve been going for so many days now. I can’t stop. I want to move.”

  “You need sleep, though. Ahhhh.” Xavier Paul sat up. “Feel like a broken-backed cat. My spine is in pieces.”

  “I’m worried.” Priest said it angrily. “I think my wife is dead.”

  “Yes. There isn’t much time left.” Xavier Paul groped in his haversack. He found a curved pipe, packed it. “My last half pound of tobacco. After thirty years I timed it pretty well. And twelve matches.” He Ht the pipe. Priest saw him: saw his selfish absorption.

  “You don’t care,” he snarled. “You’re going to die. You don’t love anyone. You’ve been alone too long.”

  “Wait.” Xavier Paul tamped the pipe with his little finger, holding the lit match pinched over it. “I do care. Mmm. I’ve prayed for you and—Mary? Mary’s her name, isn’t it? We’re all going to die. Priest. She won’t have pain. You’ll meet her again in a better life.”

  “You say that. You keep saying that.”

  “I believe it.”

  “But you haven’t baptized me. And who will baptize Mary?”

  “Baptize? Oh, you remember that. Well…God appreciates the circumstances—”

  “I don’t believe any of this.”

  “Take my word for it.” The bowl glowed.

  “Why should I? Why is this other life so wonderful? Are there bodies in this other life? Are there things to do?”

  “Things to do?” Xavier Paul puffed. “Our souls grow up, Priest. We see things differently. You don’t want die things of your childhood now, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to be a child again.”

  “Well…perhaps you do.”

  “Perhaps I do. Perhaps I do. You make me sick. You sit there making that ugly smoke. What do you care? Huh?”

  “You’re in a foul mood.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “I understand. You’re upset.” Xavier Paul changed the subject. “Look. Tell me more about Mary.”

  “You don’t want to hear.”

  “I do. I do.”

  “But that just makes it worse. Talking about her. Why should I drive myself crazy?”

  “You’ll think anyway. Talk about her. Then she’ll become part of me, too.” The bowl seemed to wink. “It’ll give her a sort of life here.” This intrigued Priest. He thought for a moment.

  “Mary is a woman.” Priest hesitated. He could not express her further. He rolled the car window down. “You know what I mean?”

  ‘Yes. Go on.”

  “Well. What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, then I wouldn’t have to ask.” Xavier Paul ticked a thumbnail on the pipestem. “Why do you love her?”

  “Why?” It seemed a pointless question. “She loves me. I love her.”

  “Is that why you love her? Because she loves you?”

  “Look—” Priest was annoyed. He extended his palm, cupped it for the rain, licked. “This is a waste of time. I don’t speak good. I show how I feel by doing things.”

  “By hitting people or kissing them? Yes.” Xavier Paul coughed circumspectly, braced his
back. “But you don’t need poetry. You can talk about her. Simple words are enough.”

  “Mary loves me. She doesn’t have to say it. She doesn’t look at me the way those other women do. As if being a man was a stupid, ugly thing. Lesbians that make sex with their mouths. I saw it once. It was disgusting. I wanted to vomit.”

  “You’re a prude, Priest. Bless your heart.” Xavier Paul laughed. “A real Mrs. Grundy, what they used to call a bluenose. The beast is a prude.”

  “Beast?” Xavier Paul heard Priest turn toward the back seat. “What do you mean by that? Beast?”

  “Keep your rubber pants on. Take it easy.” Priest saw upper lip, part of Xavier Paul’s nose, above the pipe bowl. “Men are beasts. That’s what they should be. You’re a man. Right?”

  “That’s not the way you said it.”

  “So sensitive.”

  “You make fun of me.”

  “No. No, I’m not. This interests me, that’s all. You can kill. You’re a bit superstitious about it, perhaps, but not guilty. Yet a bunch of harmless lesbians offends you. A few hours ago. Priest—you would have murdered two guardsmen, yet everything has to be proper.”

  “I say what I feel.” Priest was uncertain: he sensed cruelty in Xavier Paul’s tone. “Did you ever have a wife?”

  “No. I was old-fashioned. I didn’t think priests of God should marry.”

  “Did you ever make love to a woman?”

  “Sorry, Priest.” Xavier Paul tapped his pipe on the windowsill. “You’re not my confessor.”

  “Confessor? What is that?”

  “Before a Christian can eat the bread and the wine, he confesses. Tells his sins to a priest. Asks forgiveness. The priest is his confessor.”

  “The bread and the wine…” Priest was hungry again. “When you eat, who is your confessor then?”

  “I have none, obviously.”

  “Then I am your confessor.”

  “Ah?” Xavier Paul blew into the pipestem. “No. I don’t think so, my friend.”

  “Why not? Because I am a beast? When you die—who will you confess to? You will eat the flesh and blood then.”