The One-Way Bridge

by Cathie Pelletier

  As he backed out of the drive, Harry waved and saw Blanche wave back. Then he gave the truck some gas and headed for the bridge, on his way home to the house that sat high on the hill.

  When Orville Craft reached the mouth of Dump Road, he turned left, in the direction of the bridge. He hoped Meg wouldn’t be too disappointed when she heard how her husband had sat like a cuckold on the top of Cell Phone Hill. Orville had no doubt that the events of this day would be told over the years, a story passed down from generation to generation, like a fragile egg. And that’s what was on his mind, that and the general feeling of despair that seemed to follow him around since he retired.

  Harry Plunkett passed Cell Phone Hill and then Orville and Meg Craft’s little blue house.

  Orville Craft passed Tommy Gifford’s house with its chained dog and then glanced down to see Billy Thunder’s car sitting beneath a blue tarp, next to his camper by the river.

  Harry Plunkett’s front tires hit the lower end of the Mattagash bridge as Orville Craft’s front tires hit the upper end. Perhaps if a camera had been filming the event, using photo finish as is done at horse races and car races, a technique to tell which horse’s head or which front bumper was first, there would have been a definite answer as to who had the right-of-way that day. But there were no such cameras. There weren’t even witnesses since they were all up on Dump Road staring down at a dead man.

  To Harry, it appeared that his tires had hit the bridge first and therefore he had the right-of-way. The same thing appeared true to Orville, about his own tires and his own inalienable rights. The maroon pickup truck rolled slowly across the bridge toward the blue car that was rolling as well. When no more than ten feet separated the vehicles, they both stopped.

  Harry sat behind the wheel of his truck, staring at Orville, who was staring back. When Orville tooted, Harry tooted back. Orville tooted two more times, to which Harry answered with two toots of his own. Orville put his car in park. He got out and slammed the door. He would be teased about speed dial to eternity. And he was certain the story of his being fed a blue pill by Billy Thunder was all over town. To have these insults topped by Harry Plunkett forcing him to back off the bridge was too much to ask any man. He approached Harry’s window, which Harry promptly wound down.

  “Is something wrong with your reverse?” Harry asked.

  “Back up,” said Orville. “I was on the bridge first.”

  “No, you weren’t,” said Harry.

  “Listen, Plunkett,” said Orville. “This is more serious than you realize. The Watertown ambulance is about to come flying up to this bridge any second now. Ray Monihan found a dead body on Dump Road this morning. Some tourist.”

  Harry figured this was true, or it wasn’t.

  “Then you’d better back up,” he said, “so the ambulance can get through.”

  “I’m not going to do it,” said Orville, and he was pleased to hear that his voice sounded as if he meant it. Maybe this was what Billy Thunder’s best gift to him had been. He was a man again, the head of his house, a husband. Twice a month. Two times in thirty days. “You’re breaking the law.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Harry. “I was on the bridge first.”

  “No, you weren’t,” said Orville.

  They were blasted with the sound of a horn and Harry looked into his rearview mirror to see Buck Fennelson’s old green pickup waiting to cross the bridge. Harry leaned out his window.

  “Orville won’t back up!” Harry yelled.

  Another car was approaching the bridge behind Buck’s truck, and Harry saw that it was his nephew, Roderick Plunkett.

  “Back up, Orville!” shouted Buck.

  Orville strode back to his car, got in, and turned off the engine. As if his hand couldn’t help it, he laid it on the horn and let the thing blast for several seconds. Then he again got out of the car. He dangled his keys in the air so Harry could see them before he turned and flung the keys off the bridge.

  Harry, Buck, and Roderick watched in amazement as the keys reached their apex, sun catching the pretty silver, before they dropped below sight and into the river below. Then Orville got back into his car and slammed the door. Harry didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t the mailman he knew. He had actually been ready to tell Buck and Roderick to back up, so he could too. He had been about to let Orville win this one. But Orville had just stepped on his good intentions.

  Harry pulled his own keys from the ignition and slipped them into his jacket pocket. He opened the door to his pickup and slid out. He walked over to Orville’s car and tapped on the glass. But when Orville hit the window button, nothing happened. No keys meant no ignition, and no ignition meant no window going down. Orville peered out through the glass at Harry.

  “What is wrong with you?” asked Harry.

  “What’s wrong with you? Back up so we can both go home.”

  “Well, you’ll have to get a ride,” said Harry. “You threw your keys in the river.”

  “That would be my problem, wouldn’t it?” said Orville. As Harry watched, he hit the lock button and locked his door. At least those still worked.

  Harry stood staring down at Orville Craft and thinking. Buck appeared at his side.

  “Can’t we push him off the bridge?” asked Buck.

  “Not if he keeps it in park,” Harry answered, “and his foot on the brake.”

  “How about a tow truck from the other end?” asked Roderick.

  “That could work,” said Harry. “Maybe Tommy Gifford’s pickup could do it.”

  Orville was listening to all this and wondering why he had thrown his keys into the river, why he hadn’t backed up before anyone saw the gridlock on the bridge. He could be home with Meg, using up one of those two monthly guarantees to help him over the blues he was feeling. Harry was right. What was wrong with him? He saw Myrtle Hart’s car pulling onto the upper end of the bridge and rolling slowly toward him. Myrtle stopped a couple feet from Orville’s bumper, put the car in park, and got out.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked.

  “Orville threw his keys off the bridge,” said Buck.

  Myrtle tapped on the glass of Orville’s car.

  “Are you okay, Orville?” she asked.

  “He can’t put his window down,” said Harry. “He’s a product of our modern age.”

  “Tell Plunkett to back up so we can all be on our way,” Orville shouted out at Myrtle, who turned and looked at Harry.

  “Back up, Harry,” said Myrtle. “You’re being childish.”

  “I was on the bridge first,” said Harry.

  In his mirror, Orville saw more cars pulling up behind Myrtle’s.

  “What’s going on?” he heard someone ask.

  “Orville Craft threw his keys into the river,” said Buck.

  “Orville won’t back up,” said Myrtle.

  How does it happen, Orville wondered, that a man can be driving home to his wife one minute, and the next he’s trapped on a one-way bridge, keyless, an object of ridicule? But maybe this latest pitfall would turn things around for him. Surely, growing cold and hungry, bored with the sight of a wounded and bleeding mailman, a retired one at that, the rabble would then turn on Harry Plunkett. That’s when he saw Harry reach into his jacket pocket, pull out his own keys, and toss them over the side of the bridge. Orville watched, entranced, as the keys flew high into the air, turning ass over end, until they fell toward the river below. He felt locked inside a slow motion dream and not a real-life Mexican standoff on the Mattagash bridge. In his rear mirror he saw irritated faces peering at him from behind windshields. Why were people so angry these days? Angry and in a hurry. What had happened to the world that there now existed something called road rage? Had there been horse rage or maybe wagon rage in Grandfather Craft’s day? No, of course there hadn’t. It was as if the whole planet was now on some kin
d of speed pill.

  Myrtle tapped on Orville’s window.

  “Do you want me to get Meg?” she asked. Orville dreaded to even think of this happening. He hadn’t considered Meg, had he, when he hurled his keys over the railing of the bridge? Harry caught the look on Orville’s face.

  “That’s a good idea,” Harry said. “Go get Meg. Just walk on across the bridge and you’ll be at her house in less than two minutes. Won’t she, Orville?”

  Orville felt the small car growing dizzy around him. Sure, Harry Plunkett would love to get Meg Hart out there on the bridge to see her husband humiliated. That was the source of the trouble between them in the first place, the teasing, the jealousy. Orville had stolen Meg at the school dance just as Harry Plunkett was about to make his move on her. Meg was the spoils of war. Go get Meg, indeed.

  Myrtle gave Orville a sharp look before she headed off, walking, across the bridge.

  “You’re really gonna get it now,” said Harry.

  Orville felt as if he might cry. How did he get into this mess? A mixture of things. First the impending retirement, then the transmuted moose mailbox, then the Viagra, then the real retirement, then Meg’s amazing promise, then the dead body, then speed dial. Looking back, it was a wonder he was as calm as he had been until Myrtle went to squeal on him. That’s when he saw the purple Bronco belonging to Dorrie Mullins pulling up behind the line of cars that had accumulated behind him, at the upper end of the bridge.

  Orville clicked the lock that would lock all the doors on the car.

  Dorrie came up alongside Orville’s car and peered in at him, as if maybe he were an exotic animal trapped in glass.

  “Move it,” said Dorrie. “And move it now.”

  Orville imagined his little car being lifted up in her hands, another of those stories where human beings find amazing strength in times of stress. Or maybe she would use feng shui on him, what her husband had been calling feng shit, ever since Dorrie began moving his favorite chair around the living room in search of better chi. She would hurl Orville over the bridge, and he would land upside down in the river, able to peer out his window and see his keys lying next to some fish before he drowned. He put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  “Orville, wake up.” It was Ray Monihan peering at him now through the glass. When news arrived of the standoff on the bridge, Ray had left the body up on Dump Road with Frank Finley riding shotgun over it. He wasn’t worried since Frank couldn’t go anywhere with it if the bridge was blocked. “The ambulance is gonna need to get through.”

  Orville cracked his door open an inch.

  “Make Harry back up,” he said. “I was on the bridge first.” Then he shut his door again and locked it.

  Ray turned to Harry, who shook his head. Bets were now being placed by Roderick and the others as to who would back up first. That Meg might be on her way to the bridge had made the game more interesting.

  Ray went around Orville’s car to the passenger door. He heard the clicking sound that meant Orville had unlocked it, so he opened the door and got in. Orville clicked the lock back on as Ray settled into his seat.

  “What’s going on here?” Ray asked.

  Orville hunched his shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I guess I ran out of self-control.”

  The sheriff nodded. There was nothing more pathetic than a man in that position.

  “This thing with you and Harry,” said Ray. “What’s the cause of it anyway?”

  “It started in 1962,” said Orville. He could hear the painful wail of the ambulance now. It must be close to the house where he and Meg had lived peaceably for so long. “Harry was going to ask Meg to dance, but I beat him to it.”

  Ray looked over at Orville, studied his face.

  “Harry Plunkett wanted to dance with Meg?”

  Orville nodded.

  “We were at the graduation dance at school,” he said. “It was the year both Meg and Harry graduated. Someone put ‘The Mashed Potato Song’ on the record player, and Harry started walking toward Meg, you know, to make his move. That’s when I stepped in and asked Meg to dance with me instead.”

  “Is there really a Mashed Potato dance?” Ray asked.

  “Sure there is,” said Orville. “First, you grind one foot down on the floor, like you might be putting out a cigarette butt and trying to pull it back toward you at the same time. Then, you step down on the other foot and do it all over again.” Ray said nothing for a few seconds. He was thinking back to his own school dances. He wished the school was still up and running, like the old days. He listened to the sound of the siren getting closer. Harry and Meg? He couldn’t see it. Nor could he imagine Harry Plunkett doing something called the Mashed Potato. A waltz, maybe. Possibly the twist.

  “And then,” Orville continued, “I wouldn’t let him fish at my pond and you know how Harry likes to fish.”

  “There’s trout all over northern Maine,” said Ray. “Lakes and rivers chock-full. Harry don’t need to fish in your pond.”

  The ambulance roared up to the end of the bridge and screeched to a halt. The driver had turned off his siren now, seeing that the bridge was impassable.

  “But my pond is stocked,” said Orville. “Big trout begging for the hook. And it’s my pond and Harry’s got it in for me over Meg.”

  “Well, the ambulance is here,” said Ray. “You gonna back up?”

  “Sorry, Ray,” said Orville. “Besides, my keys are in the river.”

  Ray got out of the car and heard the door lock behind him. He walked over to Harry’s pickup.

  “Any chance you might back up?” asked Ray.

  “There’s already five hundred dollars in the pot,” said Harry. “I can’t do it, Ray. These guys work hard for their money.”

  Ray nodded that he understood. He saw the driver of the ambulance now making his way past the line-up of vehicles on the bridge, headed for the middle. Dorrie came up from the rear and tapped Ray on the shoulder.

  “You need to get everyone to back up, one at a time, and then get the tow truck to pull these two cantankerous fools off the bridge,” said Dorrie.

  “I’ll handle this in my own way,” said Ray.

  “Are you the sheriff?” the ambulance driver asked. He had someone else with him, one of those important-looking medics, all anxious to give mouth-to-mouth.

  “My guy is deader than a doornail,” said Ray. He was thinking fast. “We got us a plugged bridge here, as you can see. I’m gonna have to walk the body across to the ambulance. You got one of them stretchers you can lend us?”

  “Are you insane?” asked Dorrie. “Pull Orville and Harry off the bridge.”

  “Dorrie, I’m the sheriff in this town,” said Ray, “and I’ll make the decisions.”

  “You’re only the sheriff until our next town meeting,” said Dorrie.

  “I need five or six strong men!” Ray yelled to the crowd and saw Tommy Gifford and Buck Fennelson step forward from the lower end of the bridge. Phillip Craft and Kenny Barker and Mickey Hart moved in from the upper end.

  Meg Craft came running past the pickups and cars until she reached the middle of the bridge. She looked at Harry, who was leaning against his truck, drinking a soft drink. Then she looked at Ray.

  “Where’s Orville?” she asked.

  “In there,” said Ray. Orville waved when Meg saw him. She went over to the car and rapped on the window.

  “Orville, have you gone wacky?” she asked.

  Buck and Phillip arrived with a stretcher, and Ray motioned them to take it on across the bridge.

  “My car is parked over there,” Ray said. “And Tommy’s got his pickup. You can put the stretcher in the back of the pickup and ride with me.”

  Ray looked then for the driver of the Watertown ambulance and saw him talking up Li
ttle Lucy, who was now twenty-two and probably the prettiest girl in Mattagash. All curves and blue eyes. Ray went over to the driver.

  “Wait for us,” he said. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes with the body. We gotta walk it a quarter of a mile.”

  Orville wished he could turn on the radio, block out conversation that might cause him to buckle. It was time to make a stand or leave town forever. But Meg banging on his window and urging him to give up was not helping matters. If he could turn on his radio and if his cell phone worked from the bridge, he’d press number six and get the country station to play Faith Hill again. He imagined Faith singing and that helped him concentrate. I can feel you breathe, washing over me. Meg was pounding on his glass now.

  “Damn it, Orville, this has gone on long enough,” she said. “Back this car up.”

  “I don’t have any keys,” Orville shouted out at her.

  “What?” asked Meg. “What happened to your keys?”

  “He threw them in the river,” said Harry. “They’re probably lying right next to where I threw mine.”

  Meg turned on Harry now.

  “You,” she said. “This is your fault, always teasing him. Why don’t you grow up, Harry Plunkett?”

  Orville smiled. Meg taking up for him like that, and against Harry, the man she might have married if Orville hadn’t been able to do the Mashed Potato so well.

  “I was on the bridge first,” said Harry.

  “Who cares who was first?” said Meg. “You’re not teenage boys, for heaven’s sake.” She looked back at Orville and pointed her finger at him. “You’re in big trouble, mister.” She turned and went back past Harry Plunkett’s truck and the dozen other vehicles, along with the ambulance, that were now piled up and waiting at the lower end of the bridge. Orville watched her elbows getting smaller until she disappeared into the crowd.

  ***

  Billy Thunder had been sleeping in as usual until the thought of a late breakfast at Blanche’s pulled him awake. He had showered in the cold and cramped bathroom, then blow-dried his hair so that it wouldn’t freeze to his head. Pulling on the winter jacket Buck had given him, he grabbed his pack of cigarettes and stepped outside. He was about to pull the tarp off the Mustang and fire it up until he heard voices coming from the bridge.