Covered Bridge (9 page)

And even though they might both be on the same side of the argument, they'd argue anyway.

Then somebody started up about how hard it is to keep
up
a covered bridge! All the things that can happen
to it. Trucks hitting it. Heavy loads. Porcupines. Bark beetles. Lichen. Moss. Wind. Rain. Ants. People carving initials. Kids. Drunks. Vandals. Suicides.

And then some other people would start talking about the good stuff about the covered bridge, about how school kids could meet there to wait for the sleigh to take them to school in the winter except there were no more sleighs. And also about in the summer how kids could swing on a rope attached to a lower cord or stringer under the bridge and flip into the creek to swim and cool off; or how a farmer could rest his horses in there, stay in the bridge for a while to cool off and get their breath before they went up the other side pulling their load of hay or logs; or the advertisements you could pin up inside the wooden portals about meetings or dances; or how you could hold your breath and make a wish while you're passing through; or how at night your girl would be afraid (she was only pretending) because of the dark and you put your arm around her; and how trout would sometimes leap right out of Mushrat Creek and fall through the windows into the bridge!

And how magic it was when the bridge creaked in the wind.

And how lovers could meet in there.

And the drumming of the hooves, and the rumble of the wheels.

And then some other people would spoil it and tell how a farmer once hanged himself in the bridge because
his crops wouldn't grow. Was it true? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it was another covered bridge. What difference did it make?

And then everybody started thinking of Oscar McCracken, but nobody mentioned him. And Ophelia Brown. And nobody said her name, either.

On Friday of the week when the news came out that they were going to tear down the old covered bridge as soon as one lane of the new bridge was finished, O'Driscoll was ready.

The night before, I told Mrs. O'Driscoll and him about how Oscar would talk four times a day to his dead lover, Ophelia Brown.

“We have to save this bridge,” said O'Driscoll. “Not only for Oscar, but for Posterity. In my travels I have learned that without a past, we have no future!”

Mrs. O'Driscoll rolled her eyes. “What a Romantic,” she said.

“You'll get fired,” I said.

“No, I won't,” he said. “I'm on the side of right! The side of History!”

O'Driscoll had a plan.

Everybody knew that on Friday, about half past one, Prootoo would go to Wakefield to get the money for our pay. The bank closed at three o'clock so she always left in the truck with her husband who loved her, Ovide, to drive down to Wakefield and get the money before the bank closed.

At 1:30, O'Driscoll started taking the petition around to the bridge workers asking them to sign if they were in favor of saving the covered bridge.

I was watching him.

The first person he talked to was the biggest farmer of them all, who was a pretty good mechanic and who was lying under the generator, working on it.

O'Driscoll lay there under the generator with him. Their legs, sticking out, were the very same.

They had on the same overalls and the same boots. Almost everybody wore the same-colored overalls. Everybody bought them at the same store. There was only one kind.

The generator was right beside Prootoo's shack.

But the truck was gone. Everything was O.K. She wouldn't be back for quite a while.

We were sure Prootoo was gone in the truck to Wakefield to get the pay.

Suddenly the door of the shack opened and Prootoo stood there listening to O'Driscoll talking to the mechanic about signing the petition about saving the bridge. You could hear him explaining it.

You could tell that she didn't know
who
it was under there, but she could hear
what
it was he was saying.

She had a can of white paint in her hands. She began to lean away over to look under the generator to see who was talking about this petition about the bridge.

Some of us were watching.

We knew that if she got down on her hands and knees and looked under she would find out it was O'Driscoll doing the talking and fire him on the spot for trying to start a strike.

Just then Mr. Proulx's truck drove up in a cloud of dust. He said in French to her that they had to go. Right now! They were in a hurry! Wakefield. The bank closes at three! Tout d'suite!

Prootoo then got a very wise and crafty look on her face.

She didn't say a word to her husband as he gave her a little kiss on the cheek out the truck window. While he kissed her, she never took her eyes off O'Driscoll's pants. Then, as she walked around the front of the truck to get in, she deliberately spilled some white paint on the right leg of O'Driscoll's overalls.

Then she put the can of paint in the shack, got in the truck, and they took off.

O'Driscoll, on his back, worked his way out from under the generator.

“Thank you, Paddy,” said O'Driscoll. “That's good enough for me.”

“Did he sign his name?” I said.

“No, he didn't,” said O'Driscoll, “but he said he liked the idea of going around and asking people. He said he thought that was fair.”

I told O'Driscoll about what Prootoo did. The paint on the pants.

“I heard the truck taking off,” said O'Driscoll as he looked at the right pant leg of his overalls. “Why do you think she did this?”

And then I thought. Then the more I thought, the more excited I got. I had a funny feeling that I was going to know the answer. The answer was right around the corner! Any minute now! Don't think too hard. It might go away. Why did she do that? She didn't know who it was. She didn't know who was saying these things about the bridge because all the legs of all the overalls looked the same.

But she put on the paint. On the pants.

This is payday!

Tonight at six, we line up.

For our pay.

All our pants will be together!

She'll pick the pants with the paint!

“That's it!” I said to O'Driscoll.

“What's it?” said O'Driscoll.

“Tonight. At six o'clock! In the pay line-up! She'll check the pants. She'll make a speech. She'll fire you! Just like teachers do in school sometimes. Make an example of you...fire you in front of everybody. That's what she's like!”

Before I was finished, O'Driscoll was looking in the supply shack.

I thought he was looking for paint remover.

But no. He came out with Prootoo's can of white paint.

“An old trick I learned in the navy,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Follow me,” said O'Driscoll as he took a quick look over his shoulder. “Follow me!”

I
TRIED TO EXPLAIN
in my letter to Fleurette the look on Prootoo's face when she came out of the shack at six o'clock and saw all the farmers lined up so straight, just like in school.

Every farmer had a splotch of white paint on the right leg of his overalls.

What a coincidence! Which worker was passing around the petition?

Who knows!

Prootoo's face was like a crowbar, I said in Fleurette's letter. No, it was more like a bag of cement. No, it was like a one-by-six piece of pine lumber with too many knots, and full of bent nails.

It was like a flying sledge hammer.

It was fun writing it. But I didn't admit that I felt kind of bad. I felt a little sorry for Prootoo. She wasn't as
bad as they thought. In fact, sometimes she was almost nice. Maybe it was because I knew she liked me. I don't know.

The farmers on the bridge had so much fun that day that they all signed the petition whether they agreed with it or not.

It said this:

“I, the undersigned, refuse to tear down the covered bridge.

I would rather save it for Posterity. For, without a past, we have no future.”

Saturday at noon, while she was ringing the time-to-quit bell, Prootoo had the petition put in her hand by O'Driscoll himself.

T
HE NEXT DAY
was Sunday, and it was a day that the people of Mushrat Creek would never forget.

Father Foley started in on his usual sermon and was scaring himself half to death about Hell. Then he paused and changed the subject a bit. He started talking about Obedience. About following the rules about doing as you're told. About how Satan was cast out of Heaven because of Pride and about how Adam and Eve, especially Eve, were kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they wouldn't do as they were told and how the Lord once sent a big flood to drown all the people who wouldn't do as they were told which was just about everybody and the way Father Foley told it, it looked like God could hardly get
anybody
to do what they were told.

Then Father Foley whipped out a long sheet of paper.

It was O'Driscoll's petition!

“It has come to my attention,” shouted Father Foley, “that the workers who are working on our spanking new bridge are refusing to honor part of their contract. Their
Duty
. This, my parishioners, is a disgrace to this fine community. Mr. Proulx is a fine businessman and an excellent craftsman. He has been hired and is being paid by the provincial and local authorities to do his duty. He will do his duty. And you will do yours! As God is my witness, the covered bridge will be torn down when the time comes for it to be torn down! And this foolish petition is now null and void!”

Father Foley then tore the petition four or five times and threw it down at his feet in the pulpit.

The way Father Foley told it, it sounded sort of like God wanted the farmers to tear down their own bridge that their fathers had built.

Everybody was shocked.

But not as shocked as they were a few seconds later when a voice came from the back of the church.

“That bridge is none of your damn business, Father Foley!” the voice shouted.

Everybody turned around.

It was Oscar McCracken doing the shouting. Quiet Oscar McCracken was almost screaming in Father Foley's church!

“What happens to the covered bridge is none of your damned business, Father Foley!” Oscar was choking and crying.

Oscar McCracken, who never said boo to anybody, was yelling and
swearing
at Father Foley in Father Foley's church!

“I wish you were
dead
, Father Foley! I wish you were dead and burning in Hell!” screamed Oscar McCracken and ran out the open doors, knocking over the pile of collection baskets on the table there.

When I looked back up at Father Foley, everybody was looking down. Not looking at anything.

Ashamed of Oscar McCracken.

Afraid of Father Foley's rage.

For the rest of the service, nobody would look at Father Foley. Everybody looked down at their feet.

When we left, Father Foley wasn't at the door to wish us goodbye.

That evening, under the rowanwood trees, we were quiet. There wasn't much to say. Nobody spoke to anybody, it seemed, since Oscar stood up and swore at the priest in church that morning. People moved out of the church quietly, not speaking much of anything to anybody. Some of the mothers maybe told their kids to hush up or hurry up or don't do that, but that was about all anybody said.

And we were sad. Sad for Oscar and Oscar's family. Because now, for a while anyway, nobody was going to talk too much to Oscar, even though they liked him and everything. Now, when he'd deliver the mail and maybe they would be out at their mailboxes, they would maybe
say good afternoon and then look down at their mail right away so as not to look into Oscar's shame in his eyes.

And we were worried. Now that the bridge was going to be torn down for sure, maybe everybody in Mushrat Creek would say to us, I told you so, I told you that old relic would be nothing but trouble, and maybe people would think we were strangers, poking into their business, especially O'Driscoll with his petition. Maybe they'd start to say he tricked them into signing it and that now they were in trouble because Father Foley saw every one of those names on the list and knew every one of them and had visited every one of them when they were sick and when their kids were sick or the old folks were dying and Father Foley prayed for all of them and loved them and now they turn around and do something like this? Be Disobedient? And maybe they'd say it was all because of those new people, the what-do-you-call-'ems, the O'Driscolls.

I tried to change the subject, maybe get O'Driscoll talking.

I asked him a question.

“What did you mean when you said you learned that trick about the paint on the pants in the navy?”

“Oh, that,” said O'Driscoll, taking a quick look behind him at Nerves, who was walking by with one of our hens. “That was the way you could come in late at night, a way after you were supposed to, past curfew, run
right past the Duty Officer, you roar right down into the mess where your hammock is already slung, give all the full hammocks a swing as you go by, then get into yours without even taking your clothes off. A few seconds later when the Duty Officer sticks his head in the hatch to get your number,
all
the hammocks are swinging! Get it? Who just came in late and got in their hammock? Just about everybody, sir!”

It was something but not the real O'Driscoll.

Mrs. O'Driscoll sighed.

The bridge would be gone. Nothing would be the same. Maybe we'd have to move again.

Hopeless.

Nerves was back from walking the hen to the hen-house and was sniffing some plants alongside the house.

I tried O'Driscoll again. “What are those plants Nerves is so interested in over there?”

I knew that if O'Driscoll didn't know the answer he would make something up.