The Silver Bridge

by Gray Barker

  Never could Mrs. Thomas remember a spring so wildly beautiful. There had been a good deal of rain, and the season had been earlier than usual. That probably was the reason. It seemed her garden was doing its best in many years. The flowers, which she cultivated with a zeal almost equal to that lavished upon the vegetables, were larger, brighter. Maybe it was just the season, but since April she had been filled with a beautiful tranquil calm. It was as if she knew that many pleasant and happy days would soon come. She had taken a great interest in the Bennett baby and had watched it grow from the infant to a small girl now able to walk and talk with her. She was a bright child, much ahead of her age.

  Something zoomed past her face with a loud buzzing noise. The little girl screamed and pointed.

  “That was just a June Bug. He’s large and has a bluish-green shine to him, and two little whiskers coming out of his head. Don’t be afraid of him. He’s one of God’s creatures.”

  Then Betty, as she lately was more frequently doing, put a short phrase together, and despite her age she spoke with remarkable clarity.

  “Where is God?”

  This was a difficult question, even for a lay minister who had been faced with the same queery many times. She hesitated to point to the sky, and say, “in heaven”, for that probably would just bring more questioning.

  “Where is God?” Mrs. Thomas repeated, and paused as she thought.

  “Well, I suppose you’d have to say, dear child, that God is everywhere: in front of you, behind you, up in the sky, down in the earth and all around you. God is tremendously large. A part of him is in every bird that flies, in you, in me, and throughout this lovely garden.

  “Here.”

  She plucked a flower and gave it to the child.

  “He is in this flower also.”

  The little girl pressed the daisy to her lips.

  “I love God!” she exclaimed.

  Scoutmaster James Park supervised the noisy youngsters, now and then stepping in to reorganize their play. He then decided to let them throw the shot-put, for they hadn’t done this the past few Saturdays.

  He had been glad to get his “gold ball” back from Mr. White, who found it in his back yard after an orange light flew over his house. He had tended to connect the two matters and believed it to be from space. One of the scouts threw the shot-put and lost it in that vicinity. The resulting publicity created quite a commotion in the small Ripley community, and many people, he believed, were genuinely disappointed when they learned that the bright object was in reality a large ball bearing, coated with brass to increase its weight and diameter. Park had created the “gold ball” during off-duty time at the Kaiser Aluminum Company plant at nearby Ravenswood, where he was a maintenance mechanic.

  The incident had brought him unwanted publicity. The papers referred to him as “Mr. Universe”, for that indeed had been the title bestowed upon him twelve years previous when he captured first place in the international Mr. Universe contest in London. “He has long since abandoned his body-building exercises,” one paper stated, “but still holds a great interest in building the bodies and characters of young people—hence his work in scouting.”

  He had feared the publicity might make him appear ridiculous, but instead, the people of the community, who previously took little notice of him, began treating him more warmly, and for a while he once again felt like a celebrity.

  He watched the boys playing. When he first took the position, he tried to keep up with them, but soon realized that his body was no longer young, and that he had let himself get out of shape. So he no longer tried to play as hard as they.

  The boys played roughly, but in good sport. He hoped they would always find a way to physically and mentally compete with one another in the same healthy spirit. He hoped that by the time they became men they would, along with others, find ways to conquer the monsters of violence and war.

  Conversation from downstairs awakened Jimmy Jamison. His parents let him sleep later, now that school was out; but this was much, much later, he could tell by the sun.

  He discerned two male voices, that of his foster father, and of another man with a deeper voice. The conversation sounded argumentative, though not angry.

  His foster mother entered the room, with a strange look on her face, one he had never seen before. She seemed to be very glad, but nevertheless very saddened at the same time.

  “Let’s get up, Jimmy, and get yourself looking real nice and your face scrubbed. There’s somebody here to see you.”

  “A policeman!” Jimmy shuddered.

  “No, boy, nothing like that. You’ll be very glad. Now let’s get dressed, and you be sure to brush your teeth.”

  Jimmy drew on his “mod” pants, quickly donned his socks and shoes. This was somebody who had come after him. He knew that for certain. It had happened so many times before. He liked these parents better than all the rest. If he were going to be taken by new ones, perhaps they would be mean.

  “Come on, Jimmy, I want you to meet somebody,” the woman urged. “Come on downstairs.”

  He crept down the staircase, staring apprehensively toward the source of the strange voice. Half way down, he stopped and gazed at the wiry, black-haired man, dressed in a kind of uniform. He was not a policeman, not a soldier. In fact he looked something like the television repairman.

  Jimmy froze. He stared at the man, who now was rising, and who, himself, appeared to be somewhat frightened. Jimmy took one more step, then once again held the man in his gaze. A flicker of a smile came over the man’s face.

  Then Jimmy knew where he had seen the man. He was the man in the picture! He made a motion as if he were about to hold out his arms. Jimmy stumbled down the staris and ran to the man and jumped into his embrace.

  “He knows me! He knows me!” the man shouted.

  “This is your real father,” the woman explained in an odd emotionless, almost mechanical voice. “He’s been away for a long time, but he has finally been able to come back for you. He will take care of you, boy, and you will be very happy.”

  Then she suddenly ran from the room and his foster father followed her.

  “Some day I may be able to tell you,” his dad said, “all about why I have been away from you so long. But now, I have come to take you with me. We’re going to California, where I have decided to live. It’s a beautiful place and you will like it. Mrs. Sponaugle has already packed some of your things, and a little later she’ll get all of your things out of your room.”

  “Is this our car?” Jimmy asked, as they drove toward Parkersburg?”

  “No, this one belongs to a Mr. Hertz, the fellow you’ve seen on television who puts you in the driver’s seat.”

  Jimmy laughed.

  “Back home, I have a big Mercury station wagon, and it’s a bright, fire engine red. In just no time you’ll be big enough to drive it yourself, and I’ll teach you and we’ll get you your driver’s license, and then you can help your old dad drive.”

  Jimmy looked at him again. He was not “old” at all. He was somewhat older than the guidance counselor, but not as old as the principal. He was not fat, like the coach. Although he was not a huge man, Jimmy would bet his muscles were mighty large; but he couldn’t see, under the uniform.

  They turned off Route 2, at a sign which pointed to an airport, and drove to the terminal.

  “Are we going to get on a Lake Central airliner—I’ll bet we are!” Jimmy’s eyes brightened.

  “Not exactly, but that is a surprise I’ve been saving for you.”

  Instead of driving into the parking area his dad instead went around the fence toward a hanger.

  “Look at that silver bird out there. That’s what you’re going to ride to California in, son!”

  A beautiful airplane sat outside the hangar. It was a small jet.

  “You wait here,” his father ordered, “while I tell them what to do with the car and get the checkout on the plane.”

  “Gee, I haven’t had ti
me to tell you about myself. I’m a flier. I flew in the war. I’ll tell you more about that some time. But your old man is a businessman now, a real businessman. I have another bird just almost like this. We fly people and cargo on what we call chartered runs.”

  They crossed a great river.

  “We’re over the Ohio river. If you’ll look down—no, not out there, but almost straight down, right under us—you’ll see where they’re building the great bridge. It will have four-lane traffic and will be painted bright orange.

  Jimmy looked down. All he could see were many bulldozers and excavations.

  “We’re up pretty high now, so you probably can’t see too much detail. We’re leveling out to cruising now.

  “I will tell you something else now. You thought your father was dead, but he isn’t. I am here and am taking you home. Your mother is gone, of course, before you ever knew her to remember her. She was a beautiful lady, but she is gone now and there is nothing we can do about that.

  “But you still have a mother. I have married again. She cannot wait to see you. She wants to have a strong young man around the house, and lately, every day, she has been asking how soon we could get the papers straightened out so that we could get you out of the hands of the state and prove I was your real father. I know you’ll love her very much, just as I love her.”

  The stacattoed stimuli of the morning had come so suddenly and in such great volume that by now Jimmy’s mind had become almost numb, and he scarcely knew or realized all that was happening. Still, for the first time since he remembered, he had a new feeling.

  His dad took his hands off the wheel-like control.

  “Now, you are going to fly this bird for a while. No, don’t be nervous. Just put your hands on this stick.”

  Jimmy, at first fearfully, then ecstatically, took hold of the control. He handled it gently, fearing to move it.

  “Now, very carefully, and not too much, give it a wee little push to your right. That’s a good man now. Hey! You’re going to make a good pilot as well as a good car driver!”

  A smile came over Jimmy’s face, then a joyous feeling over his entire body.

  “Pilot to co-pilot!” he exclaimed; “Viet Cong at 12 o’clock! Giving them ten rounds of bullets! Ack! Ack! Ack!”

  But he held perilously to the wheel, being careful not to move it.

  “Hey, I heard from your foster parents that you saw the ‘Mothman’. You weren’t frightened of him, were you?”

  “Naw!”

  His dad smiled impishly, and Jimmy knew he was ready to tell him a joke.

  “Jimmy, if you’ll look, you’ll see ‘Mothman’ down there below. He’s flying around and around down there. Here, let me take over and bank the plane so he’ll be on your side.

  Jimmy looked out the window.

  “Do you see him?”

  “Yeah, he’s really flying fast.”

  “I guess you will sort of miss him?”

  “Naw! Not really!”

  “Look. He’s circling and banking just like we did. He’s taking advantage of the air currents.”

  Jimmy craned his neck to get a better look at the bird. Then the happy grin came over his face again.

  “Oh ugly bird!” he addressed the creature, far, far below; “Goodbye, you great big scary creature.”

  Then, repeating a term that had been going around the school, he added:

  “Sorry about that, Mothman!”

  The golden hawk basked and circled in the warm air currents. Sometimes it dropped, at great speed, toward the ground; then, seeing no prey, rose again. To it the sun was bright and the earth exploding in a burst of green. The whine of the jet plane, which had momentarily frightened it, was now gone and far away, and once again it continued lazily in its flight.