any ideas for a better title?
William Sits in the Bridge House
Jacob Jans
William sits in the bridge house waiting for a boat to come, or a car to crash, or maybe for a train to derail and kerplunk into the river. Sitting in the bridge house, Williams wants something to happen. He wants to do his job. He wants to pull levers, flip switches, and watch in awe as massive steel beams rise into the air. He wants to do something other than sit on his work stool and scratch his flabby belly while begging for something to happen.
Outside, cars zoom smoothly along the bridge, humming brightly against steel grating then resonating with solid concrete as they leave William behind. From the perspective of the cars, the bridge house resembles a slightly oversized outhouse you might find at summer camp, or in your great-great-grandma?s backyard, or a shack hanging on some cliff in the mountains.
The bridge house sits on the western side of the bridge just south of the drawspan. It is supported by large steel beams above and below, the lower of which forms a walkway that leads to stairs down to the main ramp of the bridge. The walls are covered by weathered wood siding stained by years of attacks from birds and other elements. There is a window halfway up each of its four walls through which William monitors the goings on of the bridge and the surrounding waterway.
If the commuters on the bridge look closely, they can see William sitting on his work station stool. They might even see the tense scowl on his face. Williams?s desperation, his boredom, is growing. Not much is going on tonight. River traffic has been slow for months, and William has grown tired of the long nights with nothing to do but sit and wait.
William?s shift started at 7 PM, and as the sun fades behind the city skyline, he grows restless, wiggling his oversized body back and forth in an attempt to balance his bulging frame.
This isn?t what William imagined the first time he saw the bridge house, years and years ago when he was a tiny boy, sitting in the passenger seat of his mom?s beater sedan. At first, he couldn?t imagine what a house was doing right there on a bridge! Was someone living in there? Who could it be? What were they doing? Surely a troll didn?t live in there, it was too small, and much too grand, and besides trolls live under bridges, not in them!
Back then, its wood was painted a dramatic coppery-gold, matching the steel beams, and the steel rope that cascaded in a spider web across the blue sky. William wanted to ask his mom about the bridge house, but she was in a bad mood ? he remembers feeling waves of negative energy pouring from her. He doesn?t remember why. He must have done something bad earlier.
Of course! They had been in the car for so long that William had taken off his shoes. He hated the shoes. They were baby blue, and had smiley faces on them. And they hurt his feet. Whenever he put them on, he imagined he was wearing mice that bit him every time he took a step. Ooh, those were painful shoes. He knew that he had to get rid of them.
So, he slowly rolled down his window.
His mom didn?t say anything. It was a hot day, and the stream of air cooled down the car nicely.
He sat still for awhile, contemplating his next move. His eyes twinkled and he looked up at his mom.
She straight ahead with a solid poker face.
William slowly reached down and gripped his left shoe with his chubby hands lifting it up into the air. He spun the shoe around slowly, staring at it. He then grinned from ear to ear and began laughing.
At the same moment that he thrust the shoe out the window, he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder. His mom had caught him. But it was too late. The car behind them complained loudly, his mom yelled, and William howled with laughter like a coyote standing over his first kill.
William anything but bored imagining the shoe being run over and over by massive cars, thankful that it wouldn?t bother him anymore. He imagined it was an ugly rat, its guts splattered all over the place like the road kill he?d seen in front of his house earlier that day. He tried to see inside his head the exact moments the guts splattered. He imagined a brutal tire slamming down, then speeding by with guts in its wake, only to be followed by another tire squishing the guts more permanently into concrete, again and again.
Not only had William gotten rid of the shoe, he was also delighted with the whole process. His eyes danced, his face beamed like an atomic blast. He wiggled and giggled in his seat, unaware of his mom?s screaming ? he was simply caught up in the reverie of mischief, and the joy of knowing his feet would be happy and free from the menacing evil shoes.
His joy must have transformed into wonder when he saw the bridge house. It was such a strange sight. To Willy, it really did look like a house. It was squarish, with windows. What else does a house need? Well, a house needs people. And just as they were leaving the bridge, Willy spotted someone inside the bridge house, standing at one the windows, surveying the vast grandness of the bridge.
What William didn?t see was the monotony; the painful alienation; the lonely hours sitting in the bridge house, waiting for something to happen. William didn?t see himself being more bored than a sloth trapped in a hole, or a turtle methodically, painfully, and pointlessly crawling across a burning summer road, only to find nothing on the other side.
What William saw was the fantasy of a young boy, not the nightmare of a burnt-out drone who only wants something interesting to happen, who only wants to do his job, but can?t because no boats are scheduled to come, and no boats have called in all night, and likely won?t call in all week. He didn?t see himself sitting here tonight, bored out of his mind with almost nothing to do. The only thing William can think of is to occupy himself by unpleasantly wiggling around on his workstation stool, trying to get comfortable.
William puts his best efforts into wiggling just right, but he feels like he?s getting nowhere. The stool doesn?t want to cooperate, and with each passing moment William grows more and more agitated. The stool is a ramrod, and time its propellant. The blandness of each passing moment, punctuated by the discomfort of his stool is driving William crazy.
He grunts to himself, scratching his unshaven chin. He eyes the control panel. No lights are blinking, no beeps emanating, no voices coming from the radio. Outside the window he sees what he sees every day, the darkness of the river surrounded by city lights on the right, and cars and trucks humming along on the left.
With a knowingly futile effort he tries to conjure up the joy he felt when he first saw the bridge house so many years ago. He imagines himself smiling, and laughing, and looking up in awe at the great and mysterious structure on the bridge.
The bridge house was as grand and mysterious as the cupboard above the fridge at home, where his mom would put shiny glass bottles filled with strangely colored drinks. But now the secret is spoiled ? he?s had more than his fill of the mystery, and it has left him sick and nauseated. His imagination is tainted, the images he conjures are dark, and faded ? stained by years of boredom and quiet monotony.
But his job wasn?t always monotonous. When he first began training to become a bridge operator, he was filled so much pride that if he had any more he might have exploded. Which would have been a quite a mess, because back then he was beyond chubby. He would have splattered all over the bridge, causing many collisions. Fortunately, he was aware how dangerous too much pride could get, so he kept it in check ? only because it was the right thing to do ? the thing any strapping young lad would do.
As you know, he wasn?t exactly strapping back then, but that didn?t get in the way of his work. While in training, his boss was always surprised at how quickly William could move. He was incredibly fast at shifting his fingers among the various knobs and switches ? calibrating the stress loads, switching off the drawspan locks, turning on the warning signs, lowering the gates, illuminating the stop signs, sounding the warning gongs, toggling the electrical systems into standby mode, lift mode, or idle mode, powering the lift engines.
His boss, Mr. Vercetti was pleased to have such a good apprentice. Although, William didn?t really like his boss much. He was too easy going. Mr. Vercetti?s Italian heritage naturally collided with William?s Irish upbringing. Those were the days when such things mattered, and William couldn?t understand why Mr. Vercetti didn?t seem to care about their differing heritage.
William also couldn?t understand for the life of him why Mr. Vercetti wanted to leave the bridge. How could one grow tired of this job? The responsibility, the power, the incredible force of the mechanical structures under the control of one person was so incredibly enticing to William that he couldn?t imagine ever wanting to do anything other than be a bridge operator. He felt it in the pit of his stomach the way he felt a good shot of whiskey. This job hit him just right. Made him feel warm and jittery. The nervous anticipation, the intense moment of liftoff, the relief as the bridge opens correctly, and the majesty of a massive boat gliding smoothly through in the dark of the night ? all these things accumulated inside William?s stomach, inside his head, his chest, ballooning his pride, his joy for being the foremost controller of the one of the most important lifeline?s of the city.
William loved learning about the bridge. He used to count the number of rivets in every beam he could see. He memorized the tensile strength of every galvanized steel rope. He knew how many strands were in each rope, how many fibers were in each strand. After work, he used to walk across the bridge and run his fingers along each steel beam or steel rope that he could reach. He wanted to connect with the bridge. He wanted to understand it, to feel it as though it were a part of him, as though it was an extension of himself.
Throughout the years, he kept track of every little repair. He counted the accidents, minor and major. There were everything from fender benders, to serious collisions where cars flipped over and people died, or where hauled away in by screaming ambulances.. Four people have died in three separate accidents on the bridge, William was working during two of them.
Because William?s always had the nightshift, he?s been lucky enough to be around when people have decided to attempt to end their lives by jumping. Out of seven attempted jumpers during the time that William has worked at the bridge, only two successfully ended their lives. The other five were barely injured, suffering only from minor hypothermia. The bridge simply isn?t high enough to accommodate successful suicide jumps.
William distinctly remembers the two that were successful. Both had managed to get past the gate and climb bridge house stairs, gaining another twenty feet. He didn?t witness any of them jumping, but he heard the second one screaming as she fell. The sound was like screeching steam shooting through a tiny vent in a volcano. It made the hair on the back of William?s neck stand on end, tickling him a little bit. He thought the sound was just some strange function of a blustery storm working its way through the bridge. It wasn?t until the next day that he found out what had happened. When he found out, he tallied the death on a scorecard he keeps on the south facing wall of the bridge house.
The deceased had bounced off one of the bridge?s lower support beams, staining it with a substantial amount of blood. It had to be repainted. William tallied the repainting too. He used to love keeping track of statistics like that. He knew exactly how many times the cement had been repaved, how many times the walkways had been repainted, how many times the electrical systems had been upgraded or replaced.
He?s gone through three different control systems, each of them making his job progressively easier to do. With the first system, he was directly connected with the bridge. He would turn a knob, and feel the friction of steel rubbing against steel as the drawspan lifted into the air.
Back then, He didn?t have sensors telling him precisely the amount of pressure on each support rope on each corner of the drawspan. He had to visually account for the pressure caused by high wind, and rain.
Now, all the little things, all the nuances, are automated. A computer analyzes the pressure on each rope, and adjusts automatically, on the fly. A computer verifies the electrical system is fully functional, automatically switches each circuit breaker, verifies the necessary lift-height, automatically signals a go-ahead to the boats. All William has to do is flip one or two switches, turn a knob, and watch as everything runs smoothly. And it all runs smoothly, all the time now.
The first time William completed a solo bridge lifting, his head practically exploded from pride. He followed the procedures perfectly. He had all 13 main steps memorized. He had the dozens of sub procedures pounded into his head. He was ready. He knew exactly what to do if something went wrong. He knew the sequence of levers to pull in order to engage the emergency brakes. He knew how to reroute the electrical components in case of a blowout. He even knew how to over ride every backup safety system if necessary.
Fortunately, nothing went wrong, and as the drawspan reached the apex of its journey toward the sky, William had a chance to quietly soak in the beauty of a trans-Atlantic cruise ship floating by.
After William completed a few more successful solo runs, Mr. Vercetti was satisfied that William was more than adequately trained. Within a week he submitted his resignation and recommended that William be promoted to Master Bridge Operator. William?s dream was about to be reached. He was going to be the man inside the bridge house, controlling all that he could see.
Of course, sitting here in the bridge house tonight, William is anything but a dreamy-eyed youth filled with illusions of grandeur and pride so immense that they could blot out the sun. But maybe that is exactly what happened. Maybe his pride ballooned to such massive proportions that it did blot out the sun. Throughout the years, as his passion slowly began to fade, his pride must have floated up and covered the sky, casting a dark haze across William?s world.
And now, William is sitting here, waiting for something exciting to happen. There is still a little bit of a spark left in him. He still enjoys the process of lifting the bridge, and watching the boats float by. But, no boats are scheduled for the rest of the night. William is getting frustrated. Something has to happen, and happen soon, or he might lose his mind.
Why can?t something just happen?
William lifts his hands in prayer, begging for a huge semi to roll by, shaking the bridge, and loosening the rivets holding the steel beams above his head. The rivets would come completely loose, and splat! The steel beam would crush William into a pancake. Pancakes in the bridge house, people would scream, jumping out of their cars, running across the bridge, slobbering like hungry canines as they would pounce onto the steel beam, then lift it up, and scrape Willy off the floor.
But even that has happened a thousand times in William?s head. The pancakes he?s imagined could pile up higher than the city?s skyscrapers, could replace the river?s dams, or rival the great pyramids of Egypt when stacked just right. Even the most ridiculous thoughts are worn into Willy?s mind like the ruts on a well traveled road.
Enough of this! William hurls his elephantine body off the stool, and bounds in one quick step out of the bridge house. Lifting his snout, he pulls crisp evening air into his lungs, raises his arms towards the sky, and yawns a roaring yawn. He is an agitated lion, a shark on the prowl, an elephant screaming at the smallest mouse. As his yawn reaches the peak, and his lungs deflate, he thinks back to twenty minutes ago, when he leapt outside and yawned a roaring yawn. This time, things will be different. William furls his brow, and bunches his chin into a dimple.
As usual this time of night, a steady stream of monotonous rush-hour traffic flows on the bridge. A few tourists are straggling across the pedestrian walkway below the bridge house. Below the bridge, a small yacht is quietly making its way downstream. William can hear the faint sound of music floating up through the bridge, climbing past the sound of the cars, and into William?s ears. Could it be reggae music? Maybe Bob Marley? No, it?s a minuet, or a classical waltz.
A stout old man with pirate-leathery skin and a pure white goatee strolls across the walkway directly below. His hard sole shoes clang against the bridge. The furl in William?s brow deepens. He hunches his head down, and sinks into thought.
?Hoy, down there!? William yells.
The old man cranks his head around. His silvery eyes glimmer for a moment as a car with its brights on speeds by.
?You! Stop!? Williams voice booms.
The man turns around. The clanking gets a little faster.
?Hey!? William flails his arms. ?Let me just ask you??
The man walks even faster, and William considers giving chase. But he can?t leave his post too far behind. He might miss a boat calling in, or maybe the bridge house might actually collapse, or maybe the phone would ring, and a telemarketer would call, and he would have someone to talk to, and maybe he really does need a subscription to Road House Magazine, or a zero interest credit card with no annual fee.
No. That?s not going to happen. The only telemarketing call William has received here in all his years was a wrong number, and no, Suzanna does not live in the bridge house. No one lives there, and nothing happens there. William knows nothing is going to happen in there. What?s the point of going inside and waiting for nothing to happen? It?s time to take real a risk.
But it?s too late, the man is gone and there is nothing new to do. William saunter?s back toward his post, his head hanging low, his face pink and scrunched together, his lips protruding.
Willy forces himself to breathe short snappy breaths ? he heard on the radio that you can make yourself feel emotions by controlling how fast you breathe. As he gets closer to the bridge house, his footsteps grow heavier, and his breathing faster. He feels heavier than a dead guy filled with cement, but somehow he manages to breathe like a hummingbird. Fast, slow, heavy, quick, William tears himself apart with each step. He is filled with sand, but he?s doing his best to shake like an hourglass caught in the wheel of a train.
Just as Willy stands at the door to the bridge house, just as he leans over the precipice, just as he is about to plunge off the cliff and into a sea of wanton familiarity, just as he opens the door, and peers into the abyss, he sees the stool sitting there in front of his workstation. The round seat is grinning at him. Taunting him. Telling him to come closer, to sit down, to try and get comfortable. Deal with it, the stool tells him, there?s nothing you can do about it.
As William falls over the precipice and steps into the bridge house, he balls his hands into fists, slams them together, and begins to laugh. He laughs with a deep, booming voice that resonates through his chest, and cascades in dark waves across the bridge. He is a pheonix, rising out of the ashes of boredom. Unfortunately, he quickly transforms into a fat, unshaven man who believes he holds the key to happiness.
William feels passion boiling in his stomach for the first time in years. He finally understands what he has to do. He finally understands how to regain control of things. He understands he needs to make things happen, to stop putting up with the things that bother him.
And he is going to start with the stool.
William?s chubby arms fly through the air, and he grabs the stool. He lifts it above his head, still laughing, then runs outside and flings the stool off the bridge. It flies with the graceful silence of a rocket propelled grenade, then crashes against the lower support beam and splashes into the water.
Finally rid of the stool, William runs back into the bridge house and throws himself onto the floor, spreading his arms and legs out like a splayed chicken. His stomach pulsates in quick, jerking spurts, and his eyes spin like tops. He begins to focus his breathing, slowing it down methodically, allowing it to transform into a stream of warm emotion.
For a moment, William is happy. Lying on the floor of the bridge house, he feels the heavy cement that was weighting him down seep through his pours, and surround him in a puddle on the floor.
William had finally stopped waiting for something to happen. He thinks about all the time he wasted sitting on the uncomfortable stool, being bored out of his mind waiting for excitement, waiting for a spark. Why did he take so long to act? Was it because he saw no meaning in doing something? He really did need the stool; after all it was more comfortable than standing up for a ten hour shift.
As the feeling of excitement drains from his body along with the cement, William?s thoughts turn towards what he has to do next. His eyes are giant search lights, scanning his surroundings, searching for a path through his long night shift. He spots the suicide scorecard, and he decides to put up a mark for the stool. But it occurs to him, with the force of a bull coming out of nowhere and ramming him into the cold hard ground, that the stool was nothing new. It was less interesting than the suicides, and yet it was just like them ? a blip in his journey to be marked by a scratch of pencil on paper, a line of graphite next to two others, each weaker than the steel beams outside..
William wants to cry, but he can?t let out a breath. He wants to howl, but he just whimpers. He is lying on the floor, with no chair to sit on, no stool to hold him up, and he is facing the reality of a long shift in front of him.
Rush hour is over by now. The window of opportunity to for the usual boats to call in has passed. But William has to stay. He needs to monitor the bridge, make sure all systems are functioning ? something he can?t do while splayed out on the floor. He still has the responsibility of being the one person in charge of bridge operation.
And so, William stands up, and plants his feet in front of the workstation. His eyes scan the consoles, verifying exactly what he expected: Everything is running exactly as it should be. There are no glitches to be accounted for, no stress levels to be adjusted. No boats are scheduled to pass through for the rest of the night.
All William has to do is stand, and wait until his shift is over, so that he can go home and sleep all day, then come back to work. But he isn?t even halfway through the shift. What to do?
William begins to pace around the room. He walks to the window, and stares at the traffic flowing by. He imagines the drawspan lifting, the cars blindly speeding off the bridge, flying into the water, splashing with a big crash like whales jumping into the air, and smashing themselves against sea cliffs. Maybe the cars would hit a few of the major support beams along the way and collapse the entire bridge.
William could do it right now. He could wreak havoc, and rid himself of boredom once and for all. He could do something that could never possibly be counted as a mere statistic, a scratch on a piece of paper.
He still knows a few tricks with the electrical system. He could disable the stop sign, the warning gong. He could speed up the lift engines, probably getting the span to lift at least twice the standard speed. No need to worry about overheating, or blowouts. No need to worry about calibrating everything exactly right. He could just do it, and watch, and wait ? and wait just a few minutes until the first car came crashing down, then the second and the third, and so on.
Waiting until the middle of the night, when traffic is most sparse will be important, so that the drivers won?t see the drawspan lifting, and more importantly they won?t see the other cars disappearing, or hear them splashing into the river. They will be caught at unawares.
Cars, one after another will tumble off the bridge. Like blind mice they will go, one after another. Eventually a massive semi will come along, and tumble down with such force that the entire bridge will collapse, bringing down everyone on it, including William.
William knows destroying the bridge is the only way to release himself from the monotony of his job. His heart beats faster, adrenaline pumps into his heart ? not because he is going to do it tonight, but because he knows he will do it eventually. He knows that sooner or later his boredom will be too much to bear, and he will have to act.
William Sits in the Bridge House
Jacob Jans
William sits in the bridge house waiting for a boat to come, or a car to crash, or maybe for a train to derail and kerplunk into the river. Sitting in the bridge house, Williams wants something to happen. He wants to do his job. He wants to pull levers, flip switches, and watch in awe as massive steel beams rise into the air. He wants to do something other than sit on his work stool and scratch his flabby belly while begging for something to happen.
Outside, cars zoom smoothly along the bridge, humming brightly against steel grating then resonating with solid concrete as they leave William behind. From the perspective of the cars, the bridge house resembles a slightly oversized outhouse you might find at summer camp, or in your great-great-grandma?s backyard, or a shack hanging on some cliff in the mountains.
The bridge house sits on the western side of the bridge just south of the drawspan. It is supported by large steel beams above and below, the lower of which forms a walkway that leads to stairs down to the main ramp of the bridge. The walls are covered by weathered wood siding stained by years of attacks from birds and other elements. There is a window halfway up each of its four walls through which William monitors the goings on of the bridge and the surrounding waterway.
If the commuters on the bridge look closely, they can see William sitting on his work station stool. They might even see the tense scowl on his face. Williams?s desperation, his boredom, is growing. Not much is going on tonight. River traffic has been slow for months, and William has grown tired of the long nights with nothing to do but sit and wait.
William?s shift started at 7 PM, and as the sun fades behind the city skyline, he grows restless, wiggling his oversized body back and forth in an attempt to balance his bulging frame.
This isn?t what William imagined the first time he saw the bridge house, years and years ago when he was a tiny boy, sitting in the passenger seat of his mom?s beater sedan. At first, he couldn?t imagine what a house was doing right there on a bridge! Was someone living in there? Who could it be? What were they doing? Surely a troll didn?t live in there, it was too small, and much too grand, and besides trolls live under bridges, not in them!
Back then, its wood was painted a dramatic coppery-gold, matching the steel beams, and the steel rope that cascaded in a spider web across the blue sky. William wanted to ask his mom about the bridge house, but she was in a bad mood ? he remembers feeling waves of negative energy pouring from her. He doesn?t remember why. He must have done something bad earlier.
Of course! They had been in the car for so long that William had taken off his shoes. He hated the shoes. They were baby blue, and had smiley faces on them. And they hurt his feet. Whenever he put them on, he imagined he was wearing mice that bit him every time he took a step. Ooh, those were painful shoes. He knew that he had to get rid of them.
So, he slowly rolled down his window.
His mom didn?t say anything. It was a hot day, and the stream of air cooled down the car nicely.
He sat still for awhile, contemplating his next move. His eyes twinkled and he looked up at his mom.
She straight ahead with a solid poker face.
William slowly reached down and gripped his left shoe with his chubby hands lifting it up into the air. He spun the shoe around slowly, staring at it. He then grinned from ear to ear and began laughing.
At the same moment that he thrust the shoe out the window, he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder. His mom had caught him. But it was too late. The car behind them complained loudly, his mom yelled, and William howled with laughter like a coyote standing over his first kill.
William anything but bored imagining the shoe being run over and over by massive cars, thankful that it wouldn?t bother him anymore. He imagined it was an ugly rat, its guts splattered all over the place like the road kill he?d seen in front of his house earlier that day. He tried to see inside his head the exact moments the guts splattered. He imagined a brutal tire slamming down, then speeding by with guts in its wake, only to be followed by another tire squishing the guts more permanently into concrete, again and again.
Not only had William gotten rid of the shoe, he was also delighted with the whole process. His eyes danced, his face beamed like an atomic blast. He wiggled and giggled in his seat, unaware of his mom?s screaming ? he was simply caught up in the reverie of mischief, and the joy of knowing his feet would be happy and free from the menacing evil shoes.
His joy must have transformed into wonder when he saw the bridge house. It was such a strange sight. To Willy, it really did look like a house. It was squarish, with windows. What else does a house need? Well, a house needs people. And just as they were leaving the bridge, Willy spotted someone inside the bridge house, standing at one the windows, surveying the vast grandness of the bridge.
What William didn?t see was the monotony; the painful alienation; the lonely hours sitting in the bridge house, waiting for something to happen. William didn?t see himself being more bored than a sloth trapped in a hole, or a turtle methodically, painfully, and pointlessly crawling across a burning summer road, only to find nothing on the other side.
What William saw was the fantasy of a young boy, not the nightmare of a burnt-out drone who only wants something interesting to happen, who only wants to do his job, but can?t because no boats are scheduled to come, and no boats have called in all night, and likely won?t call in all week. He didn?t see himself sitting here tonight, bored out of his mind with almost nothing to do. The only thing William can think of is to occupy himself by unpleasantly wiggling around on his workstation stool, trying to get comfortable.
William puts his best efforts into wiggling just right, but he feels like he?s getting nowhere. The stool doesn?t want to cooperate, and with each passing moment William grows more and more agitated. The stool is a ramrod, and time its propellant. The blandness of each passing moment, punctuated by the discomfort of his stool is driving William crazy.
He grunts to himself, scratching his unshaven chin. He eyes the control panel. No lights are blinking, no beeps emanating, no voices coming from the radio. Outside the window he sees what he sees every day, the darkness of the river surrounded by city lights on the right, and cars and trucks humming along on the left.
With a knowingly futile effort he tries to conjure up the joy he felt when he first saw the bridge house so many years ago. He imagines himself smiling, and laughing, and looking up in awe at the great and mysterious structure on the bridge.
The bridge house was as grand and mysterious as the cupboard above the fridge at home, where his mom would put shiny glass bottles filled with strangely colored drinks. But now the secret is spoiled ? he?s had more than his fill of the mystery, and it has left him sick and nauseated. His imagination is tainted, the images he conjures are dark, and faded ? stained by years of boredom and quiet monotony.
But his job wasn?t always monotonous. When he first began training to become a bridge operator, he was filled so much pride that if he had any more he might have exploded. Which would have been a quite a mess, because back then he was beyond chubby. He would have splattered all over the bridge, causing many collisions. Fortunately, he was aware how dangerous too much pride could get, so he kept it in check ? only because it was the right thing to do ? the thing any strapping young lad would do.
As you know, he wasn?t exactly strapping back then, but that didn?t get in the way of his work. While in training, his boss was always surprised at how quickly William could move. He was incredibly fast at shifting his fingers among the various knobs and switches ? calibrating the stress loads, switching off the drawspan locks, turning on the warning signs, lowering the gates, illuminating the stop signs, sounding the warning gongs, toggling the electrical systems into standby mode, lift mode, or idle mode, powering the lift engines.
His boss, Mr. Vercetti was pleased to have such a good apprentice. Although, William didn?t really like his boss much. He was too easy going. Mr. Vercetti?s Italian heritage naturally collided with William?s Irish upbringing. Those were the days when such things mattered, and William couldn?t understand why Mr. Vercetti didn?t seem to care about their differing heritage.
William also couldn?t understand for the life of him why Mr. Vercetti wanted to leave the bridge. How could one grow tired of this job? The responsibility, the power, the incredible force of the mechanical structures under the control of one person was so incredibly enticing to William that he couldn?t imagine ever wanting to do anything other than be a bridge operator. He felt it in the pit of his stomach the way he felt a good shot of whiskey. This job hit him just right. Made him feel warm and jittery. The nervous anticipation, the intense moment of liftoff, the relief as the bridge opens correctly, and the majesty of a massive boat gliding smoothly through in the dark of the night ? all these things accumulated inside William?s stomach, inside his head, his chest, ballooning his pride, his joy for being the foremost controller of the one of the most important lifeline?s of the city.
William loved learning about the bridge. He used to count the number of rivets in every beam he could see. He memorized the tensile strength of every galvanized steel rope. He knew how many strands were in each rope, how many fibers were in each strand. After work, he used to walk across the bridge and run his fingers along each steel beam or steel rope that he could reach. He wanted to connect with the bridge. He wanted to understand it, to feel it as though it were a part of him, as though it was an extension of himself.
Throughout the years, he kept track of every little repair. He counted the accidents, minor and major. There were everything from fender benders, to serious collisions where cars flipped over and people died, or where hauled away in by screaming ambulances.. Four people have died in three separate accidents on the bridge, William was working during two of them.
Because William?s always had the nightshift, he?s been lucky enough to be around when people have decided to attempt to end their lives by jumping. Out of seven attempted jumpers during the time that William has worked at the bridge, only two successfully ended their lives. The other five were barely injured, suffering only from minor hypothermia. The bridge simply isn?t high enough to accommodate successful suicide jumps.
William distinctly remembers the two that were successful. Both had managed to get past the gate and climb bridge house stairs, gaining another twenty feet. He didn?t witness any of them jumping, but he heard the second one screaming as she fell. The sound was like screeching steam shooting through a tiny vent in a volcano. It made the hair on the back of William?s neck stand on end, tickling him a little bit. He thought the sound was just some strange function of a blustery storm working its way through the bridge. It wasn?t until the next day that he found out what had happened. When he found out, he tallied the death on a scorecard he keeps on the south facing wall of the bridge house.
The deceased had bounced off one of the bridge?s lower support beams, staining it with a substantial amount of blood. It had to be repainted. William tallied the repainting too. He used to love keeping track of statistics like that. He knew exactly how many times the cement had been repaved, how many times the walkways had been repainted, how many times the electrical systems had been upgraded or replaced.
He?s gone through three different control systems, each of them making his job progressively easier to do. With the first system, he was directly connected with the bridge. He would turn a knob, and feel the friction of steel rubbing against steel as the drawspan lifted into the air.
Back then, He didn?t have sensors telling him precisely the amount of pressure on each support rope on each corner of the drawspan. He had to visually account for the pressure caused by high wind, and rain.
Now, all the little things, all the nuances, are automated. A computer analyzes the pressure on each rope, and adjusts automatically, on the fly. A computer verifies the electrical system is fully functional, automatically switches each circuit breaker, verifies the necessary lift-height, automatically signals a go-ahead to the boats. All William has to do is flip one or two switches, turn a knob, and watch as everything runs smoothly. And it all runs smoothly, all the time now.
The first time William completed a solo bridge lifting, his head practically exploded from pride. He followed the procedures perfectly. He had all 13 main steps memorized. He had the dozens of sub procedures pounded into his head. He was ready. He knew exactly what to do if something went wrong. He knew the sequence of levers to pull in order to engage the emergency brakes. He knew how to reroute the electrical components in case of a blowout. He even knew how to over ride every backup safety system if necessary.
Fortunately, nothing went wrong, and as the drawspan reached the apex of its journey toward the sky, William had a chance to quietly soak in the beauty of a trans-Atlantic cruise ship floating by.
After William completed a few more successful solo runs, Mr. Vercetti was satisfied that William was more than adequately trained. Within a week he submitted his resignation and recommended that William be promoted to Master Bridge Operator. William?s dream was about to be reached. He was going to be the man inside the bridge house, controlling all that he could see.
Of course, sitting here in the bridge house tonight, William is anything but a dreamy-eyed youth filled with illusions of grandeur and pride so immense that they could blot out the sun. But maybe that is exactly what happened. Maybe his pride ballooned to such massive proportions that it did blot out the sun. Throughout the years, as his passion slowly began to fade, his pride must have floated up and covered the sky, casting a dark haze across William?s world.
And now, William is sitting here, waiting for something exciting to happen. There is still a little bit of a spark left in him. He still enjoys the process of lifting the bridge, and watching the boats float by. But, no boats are scheduled for the rest of the night. William is getting frustrated. Something has to happen, and happen soon, or he might lose his mind.
Why can?t something just happen?
William lifts his hands in prayer, begging for a huge semi to roll by, shaking the bridge, and loosening the rivets holding the steel beams above his head. The rivets would come completely loose, and splat! The steel beam would crush William into a pancake. Pancakes in the bridge house, people would scream, jumping out of their cars, running across the bridge, slobbering like hungry canines as they would pounce onto the steel beam, then lift it up, and scrape Willy off the floor.
But even that has happened a thousand times in William?s head. The pancakes he?s imagined could pile up higher than the city?s skyscrapers, could replace the river?s dams, or rival the great pyramids of Egypt when stacked just right. Even the most ridiculous thoughts are worn into Willy?s mind like the ruts on a well traveled road.
Enough of this! William hurls his elephantine body off the stool, and bounds in one quick step out of the bridge house. Lifting his snout, he pulls crisp evening air into his lungs, raises his arms towards the sky, and yawns a roaring yawn. He is an agitated lion, a shark on the prowl, an elephant screaming at the smallest mouse. As his yawn reaches the peak, and his lungs deflate, he thinks back to twenty minutes ago, when he leapt outside and yawned a roaring yawn. This time, things will be different. William furls his brow, and bunches his chin into a dimple.
As usual this time of night, a steady stream of monotonous rush-hour traffic flows on the bridge. A few tourists are straggling across the pedestrian walkway below the bridge house. Below the bridge, a small yacht is quietly making its way downstream. William can hear the faint sound of music floating up through the bridge, climbing past the sound of the cars, and into William?s ears. Could it be reggae music? Maybe Bob Marley? No, it?s a minuet, or a classical waltz.
A stout old man with pirate-leathery skin and a pure white goatee strolls across the walkway directly below. His hard sole shoes clang against the bridge. The furl in William?s brow deepens. He hunches his head down, and sinks into thought.
?Hoy, down there!? William yells.
The old man cranks his head around. His silvery eyes glimmer for a moment as a car with its brights on speeds by.
?You! Stop!? Williams voice booms.
The man turns around. The clanking gets a little faster.
?Hey!? William flails his arms. ?Let me just ask you??
The man walks even faster, and William considers giving chase. But he can?t leave his post too far behind. He might miss a boat calling in, or maybe the bridge house might actually collapse, or maybe the phone would ring, and a telemarketer would call, and he would have someone to talk to, and maybe he really does need a subscription to Road House Magazine, or a zero interest credit card with no annual fee.
No. That?s not going to happen. The only telemarketing call William has received here in all his years was a wrong number, and no, Suzanna does not live in the bridge house. No one lives there, and nothing happens there. William knows nothing is going to happen in there. What?s the point of going inside and waiting for nothing to happen? It?s time to take real a risk.
But it?s too late, the man is gone and there is nothing new to do. William saunter?s back toward his post, his head hanging low, his face pink and scrunched together, his lips protruding.
Willy forces himself to breathe short snappy breaths ? he heard on the radio that you can make yourself feel emotions by controlling how fast you breathe. As he gets closer to the bridge house, his footsteps grow heavier, and his breathing faster. He feels heavier than a dead guy filled with cement, but somehow he manages to breathe like a hummingbird. Fast, slow, heavy, quick, William tears himself apart with each step. He is filled with sand, but he?s doing his best to shake like an hourglass caught in the wheel of a train.
Just as Willy stands at the door to the bridge house, just as he leans over the precipice, just as he is about to plunge off the cliff and into a sea of wanton familiarity, just as he opens the door, and peers into the abyss, he sees the stool sitting there in front of his workstation. The round seat is grinning at him. Taunting him. Telling him to come closer, to sit down, to try and get comfortable. Deal with it, the stool tells him, there?s nothing you can do about it.
As William falls over the precipice and steps into the bridge house, he balls his hands into fists, slams them together, and begins to laugh. He laughs with a deep, booming voice that resonates through his chest, and cascades in dark waves across the bridge. He is a pheonix, rising out of the ashes of boredom. Unfortunately, he quickly transforms into a fat, unshaven man who believes he holds the key to happiness.
William feels passion boiling in his stomach for the first time in years. He finally understands what he has to do. He finally understands how to regain control of things. He understands he needs to make things happen, to stop putting up with the things that bother him.
And he is going to start with the stool.
William?s chubby arms fly through the air, and he grabs the stool. He lifts it above his head, still laughing, then runs outside and flings the stool off the bridge. It flies with the graceful silence of a rocket propelled grenade, then crashes against the lower support beam and splashes into the water.
Finally rid of the stool, William runs back into the bridge house and throws himself onto the floor, spreading his arms and legs out like a splayed chicken. His stomach pulsates in quick, jerking spurts, and his eyes spin like tops. He begins to focus his breathing, slowing it down methodically, allowing it to transform into a stream of warm emotion.
For a moment, William is happy. Lying on the floor of the bridge house, he feels the heavy cement that was weighting him down seep through his pours, and surround him in a puddle on the floor.
William had finally stopped waiting for something to happen. He thinks about all the time he wasted sitting on the uncomfortable stool, being bored out of his mind waiting for excitement, waiting for a spark. Why did he take so long to act? Was it because he saw no meaning in doing something? He really did need the stool; after all it was more comfortable than standing up for a ten hour shift.
As the feeling of excitement drains from his body along with the cement, William?s thoughts turn towards what he has to do next. His eyes are giant search lights, scanning his surroundings, searching for a path through his long night shift. He spots the suicide scorecard, and he decides to put up a mark for the stool. But it occurs to him, with the force of a bull coming out of nowhere and ramming him into the cold hard ground, that the stool was nothing new. It was less interesting than the suicides, and yet it was just like them ? a blip in his journey to be marked by a scratch of pencil on paper, a line of graphite next to two others, each weaker than the steel beams outside..
William wants to cry, but he can?t let out a breath. He wants to howl, but he just whimpers. He is lying on the floor, with no chair to sit on, no stool to hold him up, and he is facing the reality of a long shift in front of him.
Rush hour is over by now. The window of opportunity to for the usual boats to call in has passed. But William has to stay. He needs to monitor the bridge, make sure all systems are functioning ? something he can?t do while splayed out on the floor. He still has the responsibility of being the one person in charge of bridge operation.
And so, William stands up, and plants his feet in front of the workstation. His eyes scan the consoles, verifying exactly what he expected: Everything is running exactly as it should be. There are no glitches to be accounted for, no stress levels to be adjusted. No boats are scheduled to pass through for the rest of the night.
All William has to do is stand, and wait until his shift is over, so that he can go home and sleep all day, then come back to work. But he isn?t even halfway through the shift. What to do?
William begins to pace around the room. He walks to the window, and stares at the traffic flowing by. He imagines the drawspan lifting, the cars blindly speeding off the bridge, flying into the water, splashing with a big crash like whales jumping into the air, and smashing themselves against sea cliffs. Maybe the cars would hit a few of the major support beams along the way and collapse the entire bridge.
William could do it right now. He could wreak havoc, and rid himself of boredom once and for all. He could do something that could never possibly be counted as a mere statistic, a scratch on a piece of paper.
He still knows a few tricks with the electrical system. He could disable the stop sign, the warning gong. He could speed up the lift engines, probably getting the span to lift at least twice the standard speed. No need to worry about overheating, or blowouts. No need to worry about calibrating everything exactly right. He could just do it, and watch, and wait ? and wait just a few minutes until the first car came crashing down, then the second and the third, and so on.
Waiting until the middle of the night, when traffic is most sparse will be important, so that the drivers won?t see the drawspan lifting, and more importantly they won?t see the other cars disappearing, or hear them splashing into the river. They will be caught at unawares.
Cars, one after another will tumble off the bridge. Like blind mice they will go, one after another. Eventually a massive semi will come along, and tumble down with such force that the entire bridge will collapse, bringing down everyone on it, including William.
William knows destroying the bridge is the only way to release himself from the monotony of his job. His heart beats faster, adrenaline pumps into his heart ? not because he is going to do it tonight, but because he knows he will do it eventually. He knows that sooner or later his boredom will be too much to bear, and he will have to act.
I kicked around a few title suggestions but didn't come up with anything.
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