Matt didn't expect it to be so cold on the bridge. The last time he had stood up here it was colder but that had been December at the ribbon cutting, and it was snowing. Snowing on the politicians and big whigs as they opened the new bridge over the Penobscott. It was picturesque but shameless of the weather. Now it was August and the wind was howling through his thinning hair. Hair that had once been thick and dark, the joy of many womens fingers, now receding and greying at the temples.
He looked down over the edge, damn it was cold. Long drop. A cop had told him a parametic had said you'd be dead before you hit the water. He doubted that, if it was true then how did sky divers and base jumpers survive? Some people will say anything to be the center of attention. He hadn't argued, no sense in pissing off the law. He did think it alarming that someone so gullible was trusted with a gun. The trouble was he'd seen so many people trusted with authority that didn't deserve it. How many teacher had he known that were no better than monsters. People with little control over their own tempers who would belittle students in front of the class. One old bitch named Roth lied about never having to give detentions as if that made her a good teacher. She gave Matt 3 in one year, mostly for miniscule transgressions. One day she ignored the raised hand of one student she particularly despised, he walked up to her desk and puked all over it. As fine a case of frontier justice as he had ever seen.
Matt had been born in Maine and raised in Massachussets. He learned to love the Sox, Celtics, Pats, and Bruins while longing for what his mom called "home." Dad worked as a college proffessor at MIT, while mom worked on a box of Cheese Its in front of the Guiding Light. She didn't like being a housewife but did her best, none of her four children starved to death or became a drug dealer. The home was an open one, his father never new how many children he had, at any one time there could be 10 or 12 kids running around the house and yard. A fleet of big wheels and bycycles adorned the lawn. Matt was the oldest of four, his friends liked to come over and watch the circus. Several kids would be parked in front of the 13" tv watching Speed Racer, a couple more would be on top of the two bay cinder block garage riding a bike they had dragged up there. Somebody would be crying, sometimes bleeding, an argument would be going on about who would be next to ride the Tonka dumptruck across the kitchen floor. Matt and his friends loved to torment the younger kids, one time his brother Sean had chased them all up the maple tree with a board with a nail sticking out of it. He was about to smite the slowest of Matts friends with it when Matt dismissed him with an enormous gob of spit to the back of his hand. Sean yelled "gross" and dropped the board running for the house. His pals praised his marksmanship for days after that.
Mom was named Jenny. She hated housework and proudly proclaimed to be the worlds worst cook. Once her mother in law sent some beautiful steaks for her son, Jenny was turning them with a fork. Matt said "Nanna said not to poke holes in them it lets the juice out" She just glared and poked them a few more times, frying them into shoe leather. She quietly despised her husbands mother. Nobody was good enough for Dottie Washburns children. Of her six offspring the only one who had a spouse she approved of was the youngest Gary. Gary ended up living in Venice with his gay lover. Gary didn't come back to Maine very often.
Jenny loved music, [mostly country], her family and Maine, which she called simply "home." Whenever Matts dad had vacation she would croon in his ear or bitch over the TV "can we go home?" Even though he was two when dragged away to foriegn lands Matt shared his mothers love of Maine. Reading about the Civil War he understood why Robert E. Lee couldn't fight against Virginia which he called "his country." Summers were the be all and end all of Matts life. Library books were withdrawn, class asignments written, friends bored all on the subject of Maine. Home. As soon as he was old enough he moved home.
The summer trip to Maine would begin friday night as soon as Harold J Washburn the thirds VW Beetle pulled into the gravel driveway. harold had grown up in bangor Maine working on his uncles dairy farm. That life wasn't good enough so he dragged his wife and child to Gary Indiana where he got his degree and brushed soot from the factories off his rented window sills. By the time he moved to Mass. he was bringing another son. There he would buy his house and raise his family. Matt didn't know much about his father he was the kind of stoic Mainer who didn't show much emotion, love had to be assumed. There was a roof over their head and food in the fridge. The only time Harold told his oldest son he loved him was during a fight over shoveling the drivewaw and that was only because matt told his father he hated him. As far as Matt was concerned the two best things his father ever did for him were not naming him Harold the fourth and take him camping.
The van was packed when Harold got home, argument over seating assignments were settled and they would begin the five hour drive. matt would take a seat on the bed in the rear of their Ford van. He liked to lay flat and watch the stars fly by through the long rear windows. There were no pit stops on a Harold J washburn expedition. You "went" before you left and if you had to "go" you held it. More than once Matt had to try to pee into a Coke bottle, and once he had to stick his head out the window at 65MPH to puke because of too much cookie dough before leaving.
The drive would ussually end about 11:00PM, the Paul Bunyon statue in Bangor announcing they were nearly there. matts Nana and Grampa owned a huge old house in Brewer that used to be the town hall. The third story attic used to hold dances in the old days, now it was dark and held terror for the Washburn grandchildren. Terror and fascination, there wasn't one of them that didn't want to go into the cavernous space to explore. A door at the end of the front hall led up a steep dark staircase. At the top you could see lumber and other such things scattered around, but 20 feet beyond that was darkness. Anything could be inhabiting that darkness and their imaginations populated that space with creatures inumerable. Matt slept in a bed next to that door. He loved the door despite the night horrors it emmited. Out the window was an old creepy church with an elm tree in the front yard that seemed to grow as the night came on. Matt was comfortable with these things possibly because of his other grandmother Cynthia. Cynthia loved Gothic horror and Betty Davis movies. She would watch Creature Double Feature on saturday night with Matt. The other kids weren't allowed because they were too young and it would give them nightmares. So Cynthia and Matt would stay up late while the rest of the house slept watching Frankenstein or the Mummy, once in a while they would get lucky and a Hitchcock would be on like Psycho, or the Birds. The big monster movies like Godzilla or King Kong didn't interest her, "those are stupid" she would proclaim, ending any discussion. Matt loved those movies but he never told his grammie Cynthia.
The other bond they had was playing rummy 500. Cynthia never let matt win and when he dealt she would say "if you were dealing for shit you wouldn't have gotten a smell", then she would take the lousy hand dealt her and beat his ass with it. He loved his grammie Cynthia though he fought with her constantly. Once as a practical joke he filled her coffee cup with peas. When she chugged it down she gagged, slammed down the mug and venomously declared "you ignorant slut" and stomped from the room followed by Matts laughter. She reminded him of that till the day she died, never quite forgiving hin and Matt never quite repentant.
When they arrived in Brewer Matts' groggy family would stumble from the van carrying their luggage. Up the steep narrow staircase that would bite your shins if you weren't carefull, through the shed and into Dotties kitchen full of light. Dottie, Harold the 2nd, aunt Penny, and cousins Pete and Karen would be waiting up for them. The younger kids would be put to bed but Matt would get to stay up. They would talk, laugh, smoke, and drink coffee for several hours. Sometimes Matt would sit on the stool next to the rear window listening to the adults and smelling the sultry night air wafting in from outside. Ussually Pete and Karen would steal away with Matt to search the lawns for night crawlers so they could fish for eels beneath the train trestle down the street. Those were different days children weren't locked away in vaults like they are now. Matts youth more resembled Tom Sawyers than the youth of today.
Matts cousins led him on many an adventure that his parents didn't know about. Trooping through pastures being chased by a bull, catching snapping turtles off the dam [which was no tresspassing] fistfights, smoking ciggarettes behind the barn. Smoking wasn't the only thing that went on behind the barn, Karen ,who was two years older, liked to play that they were in love. she would hang all over him and whisper in her ear, kiss him on the cheek. That ended abruptly when Matt was 14 and Karens' friend Bridgette wated to play also and ended up giving Matt a blow job in the loft. Karen didn't speak to either of them the rest of the summer. When they came home for Christmass she was still mad, so he followed her into her bedroom after everyone else was asleep.
"what do you want?" she asked
"I don't know, wish you'd stop being mad I guess."
They sat on the bed talking quietly then she took his hand and put it on her breast. He squeezed and she reached into his pants and pulled out his pecker.
"you like what she did to you?"
He nodded as she sroked, her head lowered into his lapand she swallowed his penis. He fell back his head hitting loudly against the wall. H was scared thinking they had woken the whole house but she kept on and he let her. When she finished she told him to leave. Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do, but he obediently left.
A lot went on his parent didn't know about. Being led around by his dick became a way of life for Matt. Back at school a little freshman named Pam became his first lay. She dumped him for a senior that had a car and a class ring for her to wear around her neck. After that it was Anna Maria who wouldn't let her touch her breasts let alone anything else. He followed her around like a puppy looking for a petting that never came. After six months she tired of him and slept with three guys in three weeks. He didn't like rejection much but couldn't stay away from the girls.
What Matt didn't realize then was that he was a follower, he never initiated anything. The track coach got him on the team and he did well but it wasn't his idea. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy his life he just wasn't motivated towards much. He loved sports but trying out for a team wouldn't occur to him, and his father was too busy to take him by the hand and lead him to the sign up sheet. Harold would just make comments like,
"I don't know why you aren't on the soccer team. You seem to move around pretty well.'
That was about all the mentoring Matt got from his father except for when they went camping. Harold was a different man on those trips.
Harold was a half assed Baptist. He didn't bring his beliefs outside the church but he was very active inside of it. He was a deacon and always ready to serve on any commitee. Church was a chore for Matt who would usually draw tank battles on the program during the service. He had decided at a young age that religion was a bunch of garbage designed to keep the peasants in line. It was painfull to sit next to his father and listen to him murdering the hymns. Harold had to be tone deaf, it was the only way to account for what came out of his face when he tried to sing. The only Hymn Matt liked was Onward Christian Soldiers, it conjured up visions of blood and gore. The Bible is full of violence and warfare but old man Simpson never preached the good stuff. No "smite them hip and thigh" from his pulpit, it was all "love and the glory of God." So Matt drew his war scenes and ignored the service unless his fathers vice like grip clamped down painfully on his knee bringing his attention back to the sermon momentarily.
The only things that matt liked about the First Baptist Church of Woburn were softball during vacation bible school and the Brigade. Well there was the pastors little redheaded daughter Rhonda who let him take down her top once at a Baptist youth all night swimming party.
The Brigade was like boyscouts for Baptist, and harold was the leader. They went camping twice a year.
An 18 wheeler went by nearly blowing Matt off the bridge bringing his attention back to where he was. The Penobscott looked dark and ominous as it flowed beneath him. The town was pretty seen from this vantage point, even the mill had some ascetic quality when seen from this distance. While he wandered in his mind he'd forgotten what led him up here on foot where only wheeled creatures tread. Forgetting was good. Forgetting the lasat six months, especially the last two hours. The memories of camping were like a balm on his scorched soul. Back when dad was alive and life was simple. Of course that was bullshit, life was never simple. The problems of a ten year old are just as weighty as those of a fortyfive year old. A lost baseball card or a broken marriage, who is to say which causes greater pain. The consequences of the actions arising from that pain, now those can be judged.
The Brigade camping trips began at 6:00PM friday night in the church parking lot. Harold would gather 10 to 20 kids and 2 or 3 adults for a gear check, then the vans would be loaded and they would set out north, ussually for New Hampshire. Arriving well after dark they would hike by flashlight to the campsite, heaplamps were unknown then. In those days you carried a tin cup on the outside of your pack to drink at the stream crossings. Matt loved the taste of the free moving mountain water, so cold it would numb your mouth. he would dip his bandana into the water and wash his neck sending goosebumps down his back.
Matt came into his own on those trips, his youthfull anxiety gone, he would become the life of the campfire, outgoing, funny. His speach normally reticent would become confident and the stories would flow out of him, or snatches of song and poems learned on the playground. The campfires glow would reveal a ring of happy youthfull faces even Harolds. Harold didn't say much he would just lean back against a stump with a smile creasing his face laughing easily at Matts' stories and one liners. it was during these trips He had an inkling the old man loved him. Later in their tent sharing Pop Tarts few words were spoken just a relaxed feeling seldom felt between them. Father and son is an arrangement designed to create confrontation like hitter and umpire or husband and wife.
Camping trips must end but one last moment of fellowship is shared. Before reaching home they would descend dirty, smelly and tired on a Mcdonalds for some cheap hot food. The brightly lit plastic dining area would be filled with their laughter and stories. Soon all would disperse to their respective homes and families to clean up and sleep in comfort, but for a while longer they were still a close knit band. Once home Harold and Matt would revert to being strangers. Jenny would be bitching about smelly laundry and gear cluttering her kitchen, and Matt would slip out the door to find his friends.
The brown water flowed like Matts' memories, never ceasing, turbulent. He believed that as we age we become less a physical being and more a cerebral one. Eventually memories become our life. The camping trips, the camraderie of the friends of his youth lived only in his head. Home was far away. Another memory lurked there, a more recent one, one he wanted to forget but could not.
For nine years she had been his wife. Most of his life Matt didn't think he would settle down with one woman, then he met Janis. She took over his life, gave him direction, purpose. He came out of his internal reverie around her. She was so full of life you couldn't ignore her, she was like a riptide pulling everything in her wake. Matt loved her from the first. She was a bank teller and unlike the others she had personality. She would make little off colour remarks which shocked him, everyone else at the bank was so stoic, and when she asked him out he nearly fainted with his deposit slip in his hand.They were married a year later and settled in to live the American life. Janis rose quickly at the bank, eventually making VP. matt trudged along at the hardware store where he had worked for ten years. Janis liked to camp and dreamed of hiking the Appalachian Trail, Matt had long since given up those youthfull dreams. Coming home to Maine had not been what he expected, it turned out to be just more life. Janis blew life into the old embers,they hiked the Appalachian trail on weekends and Janis helped Matt replace all his outdated 70's gear. Janis did theater and sang in a band, volunteered at the local animal shelter. Matt wondered where she found the time to be a wife, but she did. His favorite times were when he had her all to himself, in front of a campfire in the evening or bringing her coffee in bed. Matt never drank coffe but the smell of it brewing said Janis to him. She would sleepily emerge from her cocoon of blankets when he set the aromatic mug on the night stand, a fuzzy smile on her face. The first kiss would often turn into a long love making, her warm body so inviting after it's long slumber, the coffee cooling nearby.
Now Matt makes coffee every morning for strangers on their way to work, the smell haunting him. As Janis rose in the bank Matt stayed right where he was, selling hardware to people. Janis went on bussiness trips while he stayed home with the cat. The morning lovemaking ceased, coffee was gulped on the way out the door. Matt tried to go to her parties but just felt out of place. It was the normal progression of a marriage, one partner grows while the other does not. Noone is to blame but hearts that once beat as one grow apart. Sad and awfull but people go through it and survive. Ussualy.
It was over long before the end came. When the hardware store went bankrupt and Matt was unemployed was when she asked for the divorce. It was actually a demand. She stated it coldly and clearly as if he were one of her clients being turned down for a loan instead of the man who had sat in the doctors office with her waiting to find out if she had breast cancer. "Mr. Wsaburn I believe we should terminate this marriage for this reason and that." Perhaps it wasn't quite that cold but it was close.
Matt didn't argue, he'd never really been a partner in the marriage more just a minor player. She kept their nice house while he ended up in a one room apartment working in a convenience store. He preferred the graveyard shift midnight to eight AM. The long slow hours gave him time to think, his memories working on him like a slow acting poison. He couldn't go home anymore.
This morning he had punched out at work and driven to their house. Unknown to Janis he still had a key. He let himself in and walked into what used to be their bedroom. There was a skirt on the bed and Janis was going throught the closet. She was dressed in a white cotton shirt that hugged her body and green panties. He stood in the doorway quitly watching her thinking of another man cressing the thighs he loved so much fingers in her hair kissing her breasts. She turned and let out a little scream.
"Jesus you scared the shit out of me. How did you get in here? What are you doing here? What do you want?"
The questions came out of her in a flood her face getting angrier with every one. Matt didn't respond just stood there looking at her, beautiful and fierce. She threw a clothes hanger at him missing as usual, she couldn't hit the side of a barn with anything thrown. Matt tried to teach her how to throw so she could play softball but it was like her shoulder and elbow were welded shut and didn't rotate properly.
She had taken to calling him Mathew since the split.
"mathew we have been over this, I don't want this marriage, you have to move on, get your own life..."
He stopped listening, had heard this before. She wanted him to move on despite losing everything that mattered to him. His job his wife , His home. Just move on, three little words so easy to say, so hard to do.
"I can't Janis" he said
She looked at him hands on hips silent for a moment. Her eyes smouldered, her lips a thin line across her face, any second now she would be chewing her nails.
"I love you babe" he began but her finger jabed into his face.
"Don't give me that sad puppy dog bullshit. I'm sick of it. When the fuck are you going to grow up I'm not going to be your mother anymore. We've been over this time and time again..."
She was into that banker speak again that he hated so much. The reasonable "these are the facts and we have to act on them" spiel he'd heard a hundred times.
He reached back with his right hand and pulled the knife out of his waistband. It was a hunting knife with a deer horn handle, it had been his grandfathers. Matt didn't hunt but he liked the knife.
The forgiving Penobscott flowed beneath him. He reached up with both hand and removed a leather cord with a gold band from his neck. he held it to the wind and let it slip through his fingers. It flew off down stream to land where it may. matt wondered if he would be dead before he hit the water. He hoped so.
NOTES; matt has been on that bridge for nearly a year, I didn't know how to get him down or why he was there. Then my wife left me and I had my answer. My ex and I are on good terms and I have no plans to carry hunting knives around with me or stand on any bridges. It' just a story.
