Bridge Work

After a couple hours he realized it was no good. All he could think of was the girl, how she looked with mist curling between bare legs, how her hand'd felt when she'd handed him his change, the sound of her voice in the dawn light. His fingers rested still on the keyboard.

He put Dart on her leash and they went out and got in the car. As soon as they were moving she scratched eagerly at the passenger window and he lowered it and locked it halfway down. She thrust her face and shoulders out and her ears blew in the wind. She sat back on the seat when they got on I-70 and the breeze reached hurricane force.

One exit down, he got off, turned left and then got back on the other way. After about a mile the interstate passed through a broad stretch of swamp. He pulled onto the shoulder just before the bridge. He'd often noticed where the highway went over the creek and'd pointed out to his boys certain landmarks on the far side which confirmed it to be their favorite bridge. He'd of course never stopped before.

He lifted himself over into the passenger seat and he and Dart got out. A truck roared past, its fierce breath nearly knocked him off his feet.

Before him a dirt path led down. He stepped onto it, the bridge's guardrail started just to his left. It was made of heavily dented rusted steel and cement.

The sun had come out and the shadows were hard and sharp.

Brambles rose on either side of the path. Its dirt was slick and the stones that stuck up through it black and glistening. It veered around a boulder and then back and around to the bridge. Dart nearly jerked him off his feet in her eagerness to get her nose into the bushes.

Right under the bridge was a cement shelf, deep in dirty shadow. The steel beams of the bridge understructure a mere 5 feet above it. A car roared and then in the silence he could hear the coo of doves. The shelf was splattered with bird shit. An old torn mattress lay on the shelf with a ratty sleeping bag piled at its foot. The rush of traffic, the smell of diesel exhaust and oil, mixed with his headache, gave everything he saw an unreal tint.

The brambles below the shelf were thick with discarded beer cans. He worked his way awkwardly the rest of the way down to the stream. It all looked familiar from when he'd approached in the canoe, in the dimness under the bridge he recognized where he'd splashed and struggled.

The path worked along the creek. He guessed it was kept clear by fishermen. Dart crackled and thrashed through the reeds, threatening to tangle the flexi-leash. He reeled her in with annoyance. After a few yards the path ended by the stream. He felt faint, overcome by the memory of her standing there, one hand before her sex, the other pushing her brown hair back, her breasts firm and lifted. Her eyes deep with invitation. The memory burned so vivid, he all but stepped into the water.

After a moment he bent and put his hand in the brown stream. It was cold, not like he remembered from the dream. Then he remembered how in the dream the feel had been both warm and chill

He looked at his dog and said "Shit". She was deep in the muck, eager to mix it up with imagined water rats. Her white and brown fur had become a filthy tarry color.

He slipped and stumbled up the path. Reaching the shoulder he stared dumbfounded. No car.

He had a brief thought that it'd been towed by some hyper-zealous abandoned-car crew, then he looked along the bridge and saw it rolling close to the railing, left wheels over the line into the slow lane.

A car whizzing up from behind him angrily blew its horn and angled into the left lane. Another car behind it frantically blew its horn.

He ran, desperately keeping the leash short, scared that Dart would exuberantly veer into traffic. He caught up to the car just as it reached the other side of the bridge and started to turn onto the shoulder clearly ready to roll down into the swamp. He yanked the door open and tumbled in and slammed the brake and sat panting.

Dart piled in, getting stinking mud everywhere.

The car was in neutral and the brake released. He knew he'd left it in park and he thought he'd set the parking brake. He could remember the motion of pushing it with his foot.

He shook his head and started the car and headed home, the smell of the swamp, courtesy of Dart, all around him.

Towards five he drove dogless to the convenience store. Evening was approaching, the sun hung low along Main St, making his left turn difficult. It was still warm, in the 70s. He sat heavily in the parking lot for a few moments, the car getting hot. At last he got out and went in.

The girl stood behind the counter at the cash register. The glass case on the counter beside her displayed lottery tickets. Rows of cigarettes lined the shelves behind her, just above a sign that said, "Ask about Playboy and Penthouse". The sign was low so that a child standing at the counter might not see it. Along the counter were prominent displays of prepaid phones and mpeg players, and curious electric paraphernalia in hard clear plastic whose purposes he couldn't fathom.

He stood holding the glass door. It was as if he was seeing her in the stream, the current at her knees, her pale wet skin glistening.

If she hadn't said, "Hey, you coming or going?" he might well have run for it.

Not knowing what to buy, what he was doing there even, feeling awkward and stupid in her gaze, he stumbled in. This was so so stupid he thought. He saw himself as she must see him, an apparition her father's age, more than possibly crazed looking, whom she'd spoken to twice, once really. He stuck his hand into a freezer and came out with a quart of ice cream. He resolved to buy it, go home, and sleep.

"Hey," she said, "Good choice, Trick'r'Treat Surprise."

"What?" He looked at her vacantly. She pointed at the ice cream and he saw that that was the foul flavor in his hands.

"That'll be $4.99"

When he didn't say anything she said, "The ice cream, it's $4.99. You have to like pay. You look so funny, like you've seen a ghost." Then, "I get off in like 5 minutes."

He looked at her, her words seemed to slip by him like mist.

"Maybe we could do something when I get off?"

"Yes, yes, I would," he managed. He paused stupidly, then stepped toward the door.

"Hey, the $4.99"

Flushing again he paid and stumbled out.

He sat in his car waiting. His eyes felt hot and his head throbbed. He felt like his whole day had been a dream of her, that he'd last been awake when he was asleep in bed and'd seen her in his dreams.

When she stepped out of the glass doors and onto the walk by the store and onto the black asphalt and walked toward him, color seemed to drain from the world, her light slim form formed the focus of everything.

"Sheesh," she said looking in, "That's the most disgusting car interior I've ever seen. What'd you do, like spray it with mud? It's a good thing for you I feel like a walk, I'd never get in that car. But I've been cooped up in that place all afternoon and it's been getting nicer and nicer out. Come on. And look," she showed him two plastic spoons, "I am in the mood for Tricks'n'Treats. Bring it."

They crossed Main St and walked in through the cemetery gates. She seemed to relax a little.

It was really very pretty. The grass was bright green, the drive black asphalt, the paths gravel gray, the trees a mix of reds, yellows and the dark greens of the evergreens. The shadows from the trees and stones were long and sharp edged. Here and there bright chrysanthemums glowed in their pots.

He felt awkward and dazed.

"That guy's got a street named after him, Loveret St. Pretty sweet huh? And see that statue? Of the soldier guy with his rifle? That's the only statue in town. It's like the only public art we've got."

"And will you look at that?" she pointed to a stone which read:

Marsha O'Reilly, 1960-2005,

If tears could build a stairway, And memory were a lane, I'd walk the path to heaven, To bring you home again.

"Come on, just looking at that make's me so mad, I might smash it," and she led him on to her grandfather's grave. She bent and pulled the little flag out of the ground, broke it over her knee and tossed it as far as she could.

Next to her grandfather's marker stood a small stone that just read:

Gertrude Westerly 1954-1972

"That must be your aunt?" he asked, staring at the name, "The woman who was in the store before me yesterday, she must be your aunt too right? she said that ..."

"Look," the girl said fiercely, "I so don't want to talk about it." She touched his arm, then stood on tiptoe. Looking down into her eyes he had no choice but to bend and kiss her. It was light and friendly. With her hand on his arm, she said, "Wanna lie with the shade?"

"What?" he asked.

"In the shade, I meant." Her tone was teasing in a way he didn't understand.

She pointed to the low rise on which stood four large oak trees. His dog often dragged him there because of its squirrel population's desperate need for predation. "We need to eat that ice cream."

They sat, he with his back against a tree trunk. She with her side against him. The ice cream open between them. He tried one bite. "That's awful."

"Really? I think its great."

As she ate they watched as a backhoe worked. It's rumble and whine made soft as a bee's humm by its distance. The rectangular hole was dark brown, the contrast sharp against the grass. Ripped apart roots ripped dangled within it.

"Yorick wouldn't stand a chance these days," she said. She pushed the ice cream away, the quart more than half gone, then idly wiped her fingers on his jeans, on his thigh.

"Here," she said suddenly, "Gather some sticks."

"What?" he asked. With her, he could recognize the individual words as English, but their sense often escaped him.

"Just reach for any little twig or stick you see. You don't have to like get up or anything."

She gathered most of sticks herself, getting up and going around to get some good long ones. Then she pushed four into the dirt in a rectangle and began laying the others one on each other leaning them against the four little posts. When the walls were maybe five inches high, she laid sticks across the top and scattered oak leaves on top of them.

"There," she said happily, "It's a fairy house. My Dad, when we were like little kids and we'd gone on a picnic, he'd get us to make these little houses. He said they were for the fairies to live in. He said if we didn't the fairies would like get mad and make our food taste bad and play mean tricks on us."

"Would they do something nice for you in return for the houses?"

"He never said anything about that. You were supposed to build the houses out of the goodness of your heart and because the fairies were such needy little shits and couldn't help themselves. Also, I figure it kept me and my sister busy so we weren't always bugging my mom about when the food would be ready."

She threw a leg over him, swung herself onto his lap, took his face in her two hands and kissed him thoroughly. The rich sickly sweet fatty taste of the ice cream lingered in her mouth. She took his hands and put them on her waist, resting them on her hips.

"Hey! None of that!"

They turned and saw one of the two caretakers staring at them from where his pickup truck sat, maybe 50 feet away, on the drive. The backhoe was loaded on a trailer behind. When the the guy saw the girl and their comparative ages, he shouted, "Jesus, you should be ashamed of yourself!"

Somewhat further in the dim evening light he saw a woman with a stroller. It looked like the girl's aunt.

His face flamed. The girl giggled and took his hand and pulled him to his feet. Her hand was warm and his desire took his mind away.

"Come on," she said and they hurried down the other side of the rise across the grass to the steep bank that marked the edge of cemetery. There the ground turned from grass, to moss, to oak leaves. They looked down into the creek bottom. The slope was completely obstructed with dead branches and dead leaves and dead flowers complete with pots all dumped from cemetery cleanups. Further in the brambly flood plain lay a couple of washing machines and closer to the actual stream, the chassis and engine block of an old car.

The girl took another step heading down the bank. He thought she was going to fall and tried to pull her back. She gripped his hand extra tight and tugged.

He heard a roar and a swirl of wind buffeted him. He stood on that narrow dirt track heading down the bridge embankment. I-70 right behind him.

The girl stood a step down the path. She pulled at his hand. Several cars whined behind him. The sunset stretched to his left, red behind the trees beyond the swamp. Through the trees he saw the lights of the houses of some development.

"I am dreaming again," he thought. He must really be asleep on his couch at home or maybe lying on the grass in the cemetery beside the girl or maybe lying on the grass in the cemetery alone.

She tugged again and he stumbled and tripped after her, brambles, leafless blackberry bushes, ripped at his arm.

She stopped just before the cement shelf. She let go his hand, turned and began undoing her blouse. She tossed it, then her bra onto the cement by the mattress. She looked at him, her face intense and lit by eagerness. She turned and ducking, crawled onto the mattress. She straightened the sleeping bag and stretched, slipping her jean clad legs into it. She looked at him again, serious and impatient.

"Come on," she said, she undid the zipper of her jeans, showing him a triangle of dazzling white cotton.

"My dreams have become things of wonder," he said in stupid amazement.

Something small and hard, a pebble, hit him on the forehead.

The girl turned angrily, looking into the deep gloom under the bridge. "Asshole, cut it out," she said to the emptiness.

She turned to him and said peremptorily, "Come on."

He teetered. It had to be a dream, but it seemed so unlike a dream. He felt the inescapable grim march of reality. He tipped forward and stepped stooping onto the cement and dropped to his knees on the mattress.

She took his hands and pulled him to her and they kissed and embraced. He felt so excited. He felt his cock harden. Her hands left his face and dropped down for it. His pants seemed to come alive and part on their own before her fingers. He tugged at her jeans and she lifted her bottom and he was looking down at her waist and thighs and the dark triangle between.

He licked his fingers and touched her and started to bend.

She said curtly, "Shit, not now. I need you. I need you in me."

Her hands on his cock pulled him forward and down. They stuffed him inside. She gripped his ass and pulled down and lifted her hips off the mattress.

He slid in, helpless, in hot bliss. She clutched him fiercely, her chest crushed under his, his face buried in her thick dark hair. When he didn't move, overwhelmed by sensation, she slapped his rear and ground her hips up hard against him. She lifted her legs up, she stretched them so the heels of her feet pressed down on his bottom. She seemed to be trying to stuff him bodily into her.

His hips started to push in and out on their own, struggling against her grasp. With the first slip of his cock within her tight passage, a wave of excited pleasure pulsed through him. He was not going to last a second. He started to apologize. He looked in her eyes and saw that she was in fact on the edge ahead of him. He slammed down hard on her and lost control and heard her wild cry, echoing off the bridge understructure.

And just as the pleasure twisted in him, as easily as stepping over a crack in a sidewalk, he found himself dreaming again:

"Hey, we've gotta be getting back." he says, his voice is the girl's again. It sounds natural and right, like it's always been his voice. When he glances at the mirror on the wall above the dresser on the other side of the motel room, he sees that he, the girl, is sitting naked on the bed. Steve lies sprawled next to him. Two six packs worth of beer cans lie strewn on the floor and the bed. He picks one up, feels something swish in the bottom. The smell is nauseating and he rushes into the bathroom holding his hand over his mouth.

After straightening from the toilet he looks at himself in the mirror. He hates what he sees, the wild brown hair, the pinched exhausted face, the smeared used looking lips, the so white breasts, the nipples feeling pulled and bruised. His legs ache like he's been doing the splits in gym.

His hand takes the cup on the sink, rips off the paper, fills it and he rinses his mouth out.

He looks at his ejaculate smeared pubic hair, the slight mixture of red. He feels nothing but disgust. He wants to be clean and glances at the shower. He can't bear the thought of one more minute in that motel. He feels a desperate need to get home to his room with its old worn stuffed animals and posters and albums and books.

He comes back into the room. "Steve! We've got to get back. It's after one."

"Honey, let's do it again, you were great," the guy says.

He looks at Steve with a wave of revulsion. He's so glad that soon he's going to be gone, that acceptance letter from Oberlin is a shining beacon, he thinks that if he looked out the motel window he could see it where it lies on his desk in his safe bedroom 25 miles down I-70.

He has a sharp memory of Steve earlier that night sliding through sweating bodies like they were butter and laying the ball in the hoop, of the roar of the crowd, of how excited he'd been when he'd slid into the car in the dark after the game and they'd roared down the interstate. He feels he was an entirely different girl just those few hours ago. That girl looks a complete fool.

Now he's free. He just has to survive the rest of the interminable school year and the long hot summer.

"Asshole," he says, "We've got to get back."

He bends, fishes his bra out from under a beer can, and puts it on, trying not to think of how damp it feels.

"What the fuck," Steve groans. Steve sits, groans again, takes a beer can from the bed table and drinks it down.

"You've had enough," he says.

"That's what my fucking Mom says to my fucking Dad," Steve replies with a frown. They dress in queasy silence and then go out the motel door, onto the walkway, Steve's Mustang's parked right there. The harsh parking lot light turns it's yellow white.

"Let me drive," he says, "You've had too much."

"Shit," Steve says, "And have someone see? I'd never live it down."

"It's one in the morning. No one would see."

"I'd see."

"Steve, you should let me drive."

The slap comes from nowhere and causes his head to ring and ache. "Asshole," he says.

"Get in the car. You're the one who wants to go. If you're so worried, we could go back in the room and fuck some more. The room's paid for. You could use the practice. The fucking mattress showed more bounce than you."

He feels so mad. He gets in the car and slams the door. He reaches for the seat belt.

Steve raises his hand again. "None of that, you're gonna learn to have some trust."

He sinks back, as far from Steve as he can get. He jams his shoulder in the corner between the door and the bench seat. He puts his sneakered feet on the dash. His legs are a convenient length.

He can see the night clerk in motel's office window two doors down, the guy must've heard them and is standing there looking out. "I should get out and phone Mom", he thinks. But calling from there, being picked up there, is just not conceivable. "This is the last time I go anywhere with you," he thinks. What he says is, "Asshole."

The car skids and shrieks and fishtails out of the parking lot and onto the highway. It almost doesn't make the interstate entrance and they almost leave the banked curve of the ramp. The car straightens, the lines of the cement squares click feverishly under the tires. The road is dead straight and flat for miles. Their headlight's spreading cones illuminate fast shifting signs and trees and fields.