Over the Bridge
by Suzanne Halmi
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Dan had just taken the physical exam his job required, and now he was standing near the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the boulevard ten floors below. His doctor was writing him a prescription for anxiety medication. He wouldn’t use it. He wasn’t anxious. He liked to think he’d repressed that. The doctor said something behind him and he had to ask her to repeat herself.
“Are they still there?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” Dan said, looking down on the protesters. The police had shown up in the last few minutes, and the scene playing out was one he’d seen caught on video many times before. A protester shouted into a cop’s face, more cops stepped forward, it all went downhill from there. Once the vans arrived, that was all she wrote. He was glad he was parked in the garage at the back of the building and wouldn’t have to wait for all that to clear before he could go home.
“Listen, Dan,” the doctor said, “if you don’t get your heart rate spikes under control, we will have to start you on medication for that. I’ve sent the script over to the pharmacy, and I assume you use a delivery service? Anyway, take the pill once a day, at bedtime. Get some exercise.”
The doctor sat back in her chair. “Have you reconsidered therapy?”
It took forever to get away, and he could tell she was hardly reassured by his answers, but he doubted she would be thinking about him after seeing another patient. He drove out of the garage and through the mostly deserted streets of the city. Fifteen miles out, he found himself heading for the bridge over the Sett River, which divided the town of Milford proper from his own residential area.
Once he was over the bridge, he could breathe more easily, even though he felt more anxious. He wished he could keep a secret from the doctor, or his company, or anyone, anymore, really. But Dan, like everyone else employed these days, could not. You signed your contract and, if you wanted to eat, you had to let everyone know what was on your plate.
The sight of the protesters lingered in his mind. He knew a lot of people didn’t have jobs, knew most people didn’t make much money. Those deserted streets... No one with money lived in the city anymore. Everyone paid through the nose to get out. He and his wife, once they passed through their age of idealism and reached the age of fear, had settled in Milford and shut the door on their old life, their old apartment, their old friends... Perhaps some of those friends had been at that protest.
The gated town of Milford, where he’d lived for the past ten years, wasn’t as quiet as the city. People walked around sedately, shopping, dining, enjoying the fresh air. The cops here were unobtrusive, but he knew they were everywhere, monitoring the citizens. He glanced at the hangtag on his rearview mirror, and fought the temptation to try to twist around to see the sticker on the side window of his expensive car. By their fruits ye shall know them, he thought.
Dan’s house was on a quiet side street. There were old, leafy trees everywhere, cracking up the sidewalks, dug in on the front lawns, and holding tight with their branches to the sky above. The house had been built in the middle of the last century, and it, too, was a middle sort of house: not old, not new, but a mix. It had spacious rooms with high ceilings, a kitchen with linoleum under the newer layer of dark, highly polished wood, and a pull-down ironing board for any masochism lurking in the homeowners. It’s a bad day; why not make it worse by ironing something? It was not built in any style, this middle of the last century, middle of the block, house. Each owner, himself included, painted the clapboards white, the shutters black, the door red.
He pulled into his own garage, closed the door behind him, and then got out of his car. The garage was cool and slightly damp, just as this spring had been, and he stood with his hand on the doorknob of the entrance to the house, wondering if he should run the dehumidifier. But he was tired from the trip, and having blood taken always wiped him out, so he shook his head, opened the door and went into his quiet kitchen and his silent house.
After a snack and a nap, Dan walked around the house, straightening things. He noticed a little dust on the tabletops, and he wiped them down with a microfiber cloth. Should he mention this to the maid service? No, he wouldn’t do that. He never did that kind of thing. His wife used to. He put the cloth away and sat down to read an old Clive Cussler.
After seven, he took a bottle of wine from the cellar and walked over to Fred and Maria’s house. Maria had long since stopped kissing him on the cheek, for which he was eternally grateful, and Fred merely nodded and thanked him for the wine. Their house was next door, and they’d known his wife pretty well. Now, they were moving, downsizing to a condo in town where they could walk to everything. “Let someone younger take care of this old place,” Fred said, smiling in a ghastly way. He’d been downsized, too, and Dan doubted Maria made enough to carry the house and put their three kids through college.
“Come on downstairs,” Fred said. “Steve and Karl are already fighting over the pool table.”
“No way is Karl bringing that home!” His wife called from the living room where the women had gathered. Dan could never remember her name. “Just tell him no way!”
“Sure I’ll tell him,” Fred muttered as they went downstairs, closing the door behind them. “Anyway, I have to get rid of stuff and I figured I’d give you guys the pick of it. See if you want anything. We can all help each other move it.”
Dan, who was rarely invited over anymore, realized this was why he’d been invited to this party. He shrugged mentally.
The basement had been Fred’s pride and joy for years, and Dan could remember, early on, some truly great parties. His wife had been good friends with Marie, and they’d often come over to hang out. Fred had devoted a lot of time and money to the basement, converting it from a big empty space in their 1960’s colonial revival with its neo-classical front. From the pool table to the wet bar, the home theater to the arcade machines, the man had it all, state-of-the-art toys.
Dan greeted Steve and Karl and then followed Fred around as he extolled the virtues of his belongings. Dan figured the least he could do was listen
“These seats, here,” Fred said, starting his tour where he usually did. Of course, Dan had had to listen to all of this before, when Fred had found security in his possessions. “These seats were salvaged from old Yankee Stadium. “Man, think about who might have sat in these seats!”
“Yes,” Dan said, nodding his head and moving his bottle of beer from one cold hand to the other.
“So, there’s those...” Fred moved onward. “And this, this amp. Um, my kid took the guitar but he already has an amp, so—”
“I don’t play,” Dan said, “anything.”
“Okay, I knew that. I think. Anyway, I have a ton of beer steins, if you’re interested. No? And that framed jersey from the... Oh, I think Steve wants that. Um, what else? Come on, I’ll show you the Ms. Pacman my wife had to have and then never played. Here. Nobody seems to want it. And also that dartboard my kids got me. Maria says I’ll kill her trying to play that in the condo, so it’s got to go. And, oh, yeah,” he said, with a dying fall in his voice. “The machine.”
“Which one?” Dan asked. He took a swig of beer. The raised voices of Steve and Karl, as they argued over these items, made him anxious. Okay, so he hadn’t repressed it entirely. If he drank the beer, could he take one of those pills? No, he wouldn’t take the pill. He took another swig. Damnit, why did he have to tell the doctor everything?
“Here. Here,” Fred said, beckoning to Dan. “They already said no.” Here was a small room off the main room of the basement where old furniture had long accumulated. Beneath a sheet, pulled out from the wall, stood a lumpen item. Fred took the sheet off to reveal a strange contraption, something that looked like another arcade attraction to Dan. Perhaps a photo booth. It was shaped liked a small booth or carriage and had wheels to make it easier to move. Inside, there was one seat with a seatbelt and what seemed to be a touchscreen. “This baby should go to a good home.”
“What is it?” Dan asked. He didn’t care what it was. He wanted to get this over with. He had no idea, now, why he’d come.
“Time machine,” Fred said.
“What?”
“A time machine. Look, seriously, I paid a ton for this. I’d like to see it go to a good home.”
“And it works?” Dan asked, trying to go along with the joke. He couldn’t see what it really was.
“Yes,” Fred said firmly. “Although I can’t really give this one away. I’m asking about three grand for it.”
“Three thousand dollars for a time machine.”
“You okay, Dan?” Fred peered into his face. “You look kind of pale.”
“Sure.”
“So, you want it? I’ll help you move it over to your place.”
Suddenly, Dan knew the real reason he was there. To buy this “time machine” from his neighbor whom he’d called friend for years. Although, not so friendly since his wife... Not so friendly now he wouldn’t have to live next door. He thinks I’m a sucker, Dan thought. A loser and a sucker.
“Tell you what,” Fred lowered his voice, “because we’re friends, you know, I’ll make it two.”
“I don’t need a time machine.”
“Nobody needs a time machine, man. It’s a luxury. But what a luxury!” Fred smirked. “You should see some of the stuff I’ve seen!”
Dan doubted Fred had seen much except a lot of TV and movies about how awesome it was to travel through time and also to cheat your neighbors. People you’d known for years, Dan thought with more than a little agony.
And here was Maria with the clincher, the women behind her in the doorway, each with a frosty glass of fruity booze, staring at him. “Dan, you are the best! I told Fred, not to ask Dan, he’s so nice he’ll buy it just to be nice! And now” — she came over and kissed him on the cheek — “you are the best!”
He ended up paying twenty-five hundred for it. He wasn’t sure how that happened. The next morning, Fred and Karl brought it over the grass, staggering under its awkward weight, and the three of them managed to get it past the pool and over the lip of the sliding glass door into Dan’s family room.
But there was no way it was heading down the narrow hallway to the basement door, and there was no outside access. Karl ripped the carpet a little and smoothed it with his foot as if Dan wouldn’t notice. “Nice place you have here,” he said, nodding as if giving his approval. “Big, too.”
“Not big enough,” Dan said, staring at the machine now occupying a large portion of his favorite room.
“You’ve got the whole world at your fingertips!” Fred said, in what seemed to be his parting shot.
Copyright © 2021 by Suzanne Halmi
