The One-Way Bridge

by Cathie Pelletier

  Orville stared down at the cell phone in his hand, at the nine numbers that represented speed dial. There had been a little memory device he had used in picking those numbers for certain people, a personal attachment to each that made sense. For instance, he’d chosen the number one for his home phone since that meant Meg. And he’d chosen number two for Marcy since she was his second child. But now he couldn’t remember who the rest of the numbers were for. Marcy had warned him about this when she gave him the cell phone for his birthday. “Write the names next to the numbers on the card so you can remember them,” she said. “It’s not about age, Daddy. We’re all forgetful.”

  Orville studied the numbers from three to nine. On a whim he pushed eight, listened to the phone ring twice, and frowned as Debby answered. She was his firstborn, and he never wanted to call her on his cell phone since she now lived in Arizona and his low-rate calling plan only worked on his home phone. Why did he even put Debby in there in the first place? Probably because if Marcy happened to mention to Debby that she was on her father’s speed dial, it would hurt Debby’s feelings to learn that she was not. Orville hung up on Debby. He pushed four, although he was quite certain it was not a number he had assigned to the ambulance service. After a couple rings he heard Ernie Fisk say, “Fisk’s Garage, this is Ernie, can you hold a second?” Ernie put him on hold. Good. Orville clicked off the connection. The number three stared up at him, teasing him. Sure, Orville could call someone and ask them to look the number up. Or he could go ahead and dial 9-1-1 and set the scanners to buzzing all over northern Maine. But something in him born of his ancestor’s genes, those stubborn old Mattagash genes, made Orville want his speed dial to work, damn it. He knew he had to hurry. Not that the dead body was going anywhere, but Ray Monihan might, such as up to heaven from a heart attack.

  Instead of pushing three, Orville decided to eliminate one more number first, giving him better odds. He pushed six, just to be sure it was the request line at the country music radio station in Watertown.

  “WWTR, for the best country music in northern Maine,” said a woman’s voice. “What’s your request, please?”

  Orville looked around, making sure no one had arrived on the hill to hear him.

  “Can you play that song by Faith Hill?” he asked. “It’s called ‘Breathe.’” It wasn’t so much that he liked the song, even though he requested it twice a week. He just liked saying Faith Hill’s name from the top of Cell Phone Hill.

  Orville hung up and stared at the three, the five, the seven, the nine. Now he was certain of nothing. Could it be possible that the two was not Marcy? He punched the two and Marcy answered on the first ring.

  “Sorry, honey,” said Orville. “I dialed the wrong number.”

  “See, Daddy, I told you to write down the names of—”

  Orville pushed End and left Marcy in midsentence. What good was speed dial if it took so damn long? He pushed seven and heard Frank Finley answer at the St. Leonard Fire Station.

  “Frank, it’s Orville,” he said. “Sorry, I dialed the wrong number. I’m trying to call the Watertown ambulance. It’s an emergency. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up. If he had told Frank Finley there was a dead body lying on Dump Road, Frank would’ve started up the dusty fire truck and knocked down a couple mailboxes on his way to Mattagash. The brake linings on a fire truck should be reserved for a fire.

  Orville looked back down at the list of numbers. He had three, five, and nine left. He studied them, and then picked the five.

  “Taylor’s Lumber Company,” someone said. Probably Lester Taylor’s son who worked for his father. When he and Meg built a back porch on the house that past summer, all their supplies had come from Taylor’s. “We’re not here to take your call right now, so please leave a message at the beep.”

  Orville clicked off the connection. He stared cautiously at the nine and the three before pushing the nine. It rang once before Orville remembered that nine was Hair Today, the salon owned by Verna Craft where Dorrie Mullins worked as receptionist. Horrified, as if the phone had actually burned his hand, he pushed End. It was bad enough he had to talk to Dorrie once a month, when he made an appointment for his regular trim. Then he remembered that it was Sunday. The salon would be closed.

  One number left. As his finger was about to push three, which he now knew for certain would cause a phone to ring at the ambulance service in Watertown, Orville’s own cell phone bleated. It surprised him so that he threw the skinny thing onto the floor of his car. Maybe the dead body itself was now ringing him up. “Hey, Bud, where’s that ambulance?”

  The phone rang four more times before Orville managed to find it, down there among the floor mats and knobs and levers. He pushed the Receive button.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Orville, did you just call Hair Today?” Dorrie Mullins herself.

  “No,” Orville lied. He hung up and pushed the three before Dorrie could make his cell phone ring again. He listened to two bleats before Ray Monihan Jr. answered, with that girlish voice of his.

  “Blanche’s Café,” said Ray Ray. “Can I help you?”

  Blanche’s. When had he put that number in speed dial? It wasn’t like he called ahead to have his blueberry pie waiting at the end of a workday. Regardless, he now had Ray Ray on the phone, and Ray Ray was even more excitable than his father.

  “Hello there, Ray Junior, this is Orville Craft,” he said. “How are you this morning?”

  “Crazy,” said Ray Ray. “We just finished the breakfast rush.”

  “Is Blanche there?”

  “She’s off today,” said Ray Ray. “I’m busy here, Orville. Talk fast.”

  “Ray Ray, listen to me,” said Orville. “I’m on official business, on your father’s orders. I need you to look up the Watertown Ambulance phone number for me. Can you do that?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Ray Ray, very impatient. He must have put the phone down on the counter, for Orville heard the clatter of dishes in the background. A woman laughed loudly. He figured it was one of the two waitresses who worked the Sunday after-church breakfast rush. Then Ray Ray was back.

  “I can’t find the phone book,” he said. “I’ll have to call you back. But Daddy knows the number by heart.”

  “I know, but he had to stay with the dead body,” said Orville. Then he winced.

  “What dead body?” asked Ray Ray.

  “Get me the fucking number,” said Orville.

  “Did you just swear?” Ray Ray asked.

  Orville clicked off the phone and closed his eyes. Not even on the baseball team or in the locker room during his high school years had he ever used that word. He slid his window down an inch and let in cold air, the kind that clears your nostrils just to breathe it. His phone bleated again, and again Orville jumped. It was such a whining, sniveling sound, nothing like an old-fashioned phone. It sounded in pain, maybe because it was so skinny and thin. Malnourished. Anorexic, even. Thank God for Ray Ray was what Orville was thinking when he said hello and heard Dorrie’s voice.

  “Did you just hang up on me again?” Dorrie was using her annoyed tone.

  “No,” Orville lied a second time. He could be easily unnerved by Dorrie. When they were kids in school, she had the largest scab from her smallpox shot of the entire class.

  “Then why did your number come up twice on this phone?” Dorrie asked. “Besides, we’re closed. I dropped by to pick up some shampoo. What did you want?”

  Orville sighed. Technology had not been invented for the likes of Dorrie Mullins, she who was credited with first bringing feng shui to Mattagash. With eyes on the back of her head and equipped internally with radar, Dorrie didn’t need any help from science.

  “I wanted you to not call me back, Dorrie,” said Orville. “That’s why I hung up before you answered.”

  “So you did hang up on me,” said Dorrie. “
Be sarcastic all you want, Orville, but this phone’s been ringing off the hook for the past five minutes and it’s all your fault. Getting everyone in town all riled up over a body.”

  “And what body would that be, Dorrie?” Orville asked.

  “The one Ray Monihan found lying dead in the middle of Dump Road,” said Dorrie. “Thanks to me, the ambulance is on its way.”

  Orville felt despair creeping in as he sat there in his car, a skinny apparatus stuck to his ear, alone up on Cell Phone Hill. From up there, he could look down at the world. He could even see the spire of the Protestant church where he and Meg had gotten married, and where both his parents now lay buried in the graveyard behind. Meg’s parents were buried there too. He could see the old school with its red bricks and its black-shingled roof. He could even see the small building that was now Hair Today, with its lavender sign out front that held the salon’s full name. Hair Today, Curls Tomorrow. He imagined Dorrie inside, resting on her plump elbows as if they were pillows as she talked on the phone. Why Booster got a prescription for Viagra was another of those mysterious ways under which God often worked. Saltpeter would be Orville’s choice.

  “It was Frank Finley who called me first,” Dorrie was saying now. “He wanted to know why you needed an emergency ambulance. So I called the sheriff’s house and there was no answer. So I tried Gretchen’s number, and Gretchen said you went tearing off the bridge like you were Paul Revere. Then I called Meg and she has no idea where you are, but she did get a call from Debby down in Arizona that you were trying to reach her. But Debby couldn’t call you back ’cause your cell phone’s been busy. So I called Rita Plunkett and asked her to do a drive-through. Rita found Ray Monihan standing by the sign to Dump Road. He told Rita she couldn’t go up there because she might run over a dead body and that you had gone to call an ambulance.”

  Orville had almost gone to sleep, lulled by cold air seeping in the crack of his window and meeting up with warm air coming from the car’s heater. He was also lulled by the lullaby of Dorrie’s droning voice. This was his own fault. He had to hint to Frank Finley that something big and dramatic was afloat in the morning air, didn’t he? He had to brag, giving in to that ages-old battle between the fire station and the post office, they with their shiny, yellow coats and loud, red truck and important-looking hats. Miles and miles of hose. Those tall boots. That ladder. The occasional Dalmatian if someone happened to buy one as a pet. How can stamps and envelopes and a pen hooked to the counter by a chain compete with all that?

  It had been his own bragging that did him in.

  “Big mouth,” Orville said, forgetting that the cell phone was grafted to his ear.

  “What did you call me?” Dorrie asked.

  ***

  At the mouth of the road leading up to Cell Phone Hill, Orville braked to see if any traffic might be coming and there certainly was traffic. He sat and waited while the St. Leonard fire truck went flying by, its red light blaring and its siren wailing. Driving the truck was its usual driver, John Rainey, one of St. Leonard’s volunteers. On the back of the truck was Frank Finley himself, hanging on to the ladder and wearing that shiny, yellow slicker his wife had bought him for Christmas.

  Faith Hill was singing the last chorus of “Breathe” as Orville crossed the bridge. At the sign that said Dump Road, he saw that a dozen cars were parked pell-mell along the roadside. Ray Monihan’s car was driven lengthwise across the mouth of the road, blocking traffic, its blue light swirling around inside the glass bubble on top. Ray was leaning against the hood, looking all hands-and-feet nervous. Spectators were out of their vehicles and standing around in the road, talking to Ray or smoking cigarettes. Orville pulled over and parked where he would be least seen. He picked up his cell phone again and glanced down at the numbers on it. He took a deep breath and pushed number one. When Meg answered the phone, he would assure her that he was all right. He would tell her using that male voice he brought out for family emergencies—a baritone but calm so as not to frighten her—that he would be home once the dead body has been removed. He heard someone answering at the other end of that invisible wire.

  “Watertown Ambulance,” said a female voice. “Is this an emergency?”

  ***

  “People!” Sheriff Ray Monihan shouted, his hands cupping his mouth. “Please listen. I’m going back to wait by the body until the ambulance comes. I’ll take Frank Finley and the fire truck with me. I want the rest of you to stay here like well-behaved citizens.” When Ray got into his car, a disgruntled roar went up from the spectators. They had waited ten minutes and felt that was enough time for any well-behaved citizens. As Ray’s car turned and headed back up Dump Road, its blue light flashing, a couple dozen cars were following him.

  The dead body hadn’t gone anywhere, and it was most definitely dead when Ray leaned over it, cautiously, and gave it a good look. He had already run a crime-scene ribbon across the road, tying one of the yellow plastic ends to a spruce on the left side of the road and a leafless aspen on the right. That’s when he realized that he should take some photographs. Where was his camera? On his kitchen counter, that’s where. Ray Ray had borrowed it to take pictures of a chipmunk that was coming to their bird feeder. He watched as Frank Finley backed the dusty fire truck up to the yellow ribbon, an attempt to hold back the spectators and keep the crime scene pristine.

  “Come on, Ray, we won’t touch him,” said Bobby Fennelson.

  “Maybe we can identify him,” said a tall, willowy man Ray had never seen before.

  “Hell, I can’t even identify you,” said Ray. He blamed this on the fact that too many sons-of-bitches were moving to Mattagash, buying up land on the river and populating the woods with camps and noisy four-wheelers.

  “Does he have a wallet?” asked Rita Plunkett. “His license will have his name on it.” With each question and comment, they pressed forward as a group, some whispering, others talking loudly. Ray heard a radio playing somewhere.

  “Stay back, folks, this is official business,” he said. On the words “official business,” the yellow ribbon broke and one end went curling back to the leafless aspen. Before Sheriff Monihan could issue another useless order, people had crowded around the body and were gazing down at it. Gasps were heard. Verna Craft began to cry. Sounds rose up of more cars coming, gravel spitting beneath tires in a hurry. One engine sounded like a loud mosquito as Ray Ray’s little red VW Bug screamed to a halt behind Tommy Gifford’s truck with its gigantic tires.

  “Step back so I can guard the body!” Sheriff Monihan shouted now. But no one seemed to be listening to him. If Dorrie called the ambulance only ten minutes earlier, it would be another half hour before it arrived. How could he contain a mob for that long?

  Orville Craft stepped up to the line of people circling the body. He had planned to go home, disappointment in his pockets, but that need to see brought him back. A quick look and he’d be on his way, beat the traffic jam that was sure to occur.

  “Who is he?” someone asked. And that began a new refrain that rippled through the crowd with more people offering their opinions.

  “He looks like a hoodlum,” said Phillip Craft.

  “Do you think it was murder?” asked Mickey Hart.

  “There’s no sign of foul play,” said Ray. He felt better now, calmer, the sight of the dead man wearing off as others were now repulsed by it.

  “He could be a terrorist,” said Dorrie Mullins. She was staring down at the body with great solemnity, one of the few women who was able to scrutinize it without any crying or screaming, or even fainting, as Verna Craft had just done.

  “By the looks of that rum bottle,” said Ray Monihan, “I suspect the only thing this man terrorized was his own teetotaling mother.”

  “That’s Bacardi,” said Tommy and before Ray could say anything, Tommy Gifford had leaned down and picked up Exhibit B, the body itself being Exhibit A.

>   “Give me that!” Ray grabbed for the bottle, but Tommy passed it to Kenny, who passed it to Ray Ray, who passed it to Rita, who passed it to the tall, willowy man who, when he’d had a good look, finally passed it to Frank Finley.

  “Here,” said Frank, and gave the bottle to Sheriff Monihan.

  “Gosh darn it,” said Ray. “How many fingerprints do you suppose this bottle has on it now? That makes all of you accessories after the fact. Is there anyone left who hasn’t touched this bottle who would like to?”

  “I haven’t touched it,” said Orville.

  “Orville, I was joking,” said Ray. He took the bottle by its top, holding it with two fingers as he placed it in the trunk of his car.

  “Want me to load him into the fire truck?” asked Frank. “Just till the ambulance gets here?” He gave Ray Monihan a hungry look that told Ray all he needed to know. Frank the fireman wanted the body, as Orville the postman had wanted it. But Ray the sheriff was going to hang on tight to his first dead man.

  13

  SUNDAY, HIGH NOON

  Harry and Blanche had enjoyed a late breakfast, this time with Harry sitting at her kitchen table, rather than on one of the four café stools. He kissed her good-bye at the front door.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said.