THE WORK

the bridge builder reflects on retirement

By Max Paradise
Illustration by Kris Ciampitti

Early in my career I built bridges with metal and wired string. In the summer months I hung cloth from my bridges to give the impression of the sails of a sailboat or curtains fluttering in an open window. Later I built bridges to connect cities, royal residences, and military bases. Bridges of sheet metal laid over moats, bridges of barbed wire that no one could cross, bridges of corrugated concrete! I once designed a small bridge between trees in our backyard to function as both signpost and hammock.  The hammock for resting, and the signpost to signify our lives together in the nearby farmhouse. When you moved in, I purchased my first and last queen-sized mattress for our bedroom. I learned to share a galley kitchen, and to leave you sleeping in the morning while I brewed our coffee in silence. After you left I moved my trundle bed to the upstairs study to sleep nearer to the floor.

When you promoted me to the corner office, I proposed a land bridge to Asia to declare to all the listening world I Am Here. I designed a bridge of adobe in Guadalajara to remind the world You Will Forget Me. I imagined a glass bridge between office buildings to function as a smoking lounge for middle management, so that I might invite all to Sit Down, Relax, Enjoy Yourself as You Like! Despite my best intentions you were never one for relaxation.

Each bridge traced back to my teen years spent wintering with my father in Canada, when I packed snow to form a bridge of ice connecting my window to Anne Cylinder’s window. I travelled across that bridge to hold her, share her warmth, and declare to any and all interested parties: I Will Be Present, No Matter the Obstacles or the Time of Day, When You Need Me. In a moment of panic I attached an escape slide to my ice bridge to reassure myself that I could exit whenever I wished. Ever since I have built bridges between the doorways of each of the mothers of my children, so that I can leave before the night turns to morning lest they misconstrue my intentions. With you, I once designed a bridge when I felt compelled to speak but also shy. Later you confessed you did not remember your bridge, even though I’d named it after you. You believed I was too sentimental for my own good, and in retrospect I cannot disagree.

You rejected my proposal to build a bridge between our corner offices.  “It might be seen as inappropriate,” you said. Smiling your Executive Smile, the same you had studied in the mirror for years upon years. You explained the importance of boundaries between the personal and the professional. I was too embarrassed to look you in the eye and returned home alone.

During my last annual review, I confessed to you directly: I am unmoved by the actual. Each realized bridge has been a shadow of the conceptual bridge preceding it. Each a moment of fraudulence. With every attempt I am momentarily certain that here is a bridge that no one will ever travel across, or comment upon, or review in the New York Review of Bridges.  The pinprick of certainty that the bridge might collapse when unveiled, crushing the adoring crowds. I used to explain my occupational calling at dinner parties amid the tinkling wine glasses and shushing of silk dresses against marble floors. The guests would purse their lips and consider: a glorified construction worker! 

My final day at the office a retirement party no one attended. Your office dark, your desk abandoned. The smell of stale coffee near the breakroom.

I will build one more bridge, a bridge that announces to the world I Am Done with Bridges! It will begin in the backyard behind the farmhouse and scale upwards for hundreds of feet before sprinting to the horizon. I will announce the opening of the bridge in the local paper, inviting all curious enough to attend. I wonder what you will make of your invitation? Perhaps one day you will travel across the bridge, stopping to picnic or catch your breath while enjoying the view from one of the liberally placed benches. At the end, I hope you find a heaven, or an Oz, or a childhood hometown only somehow warmer and greater than the beloved memory of your true hometown, the city limits extending to all your tomorrows. When construction is complete I will return to the farmhouse to retire for the evening. In the morning I will bake a single tray of sweet and savory scones and steam the milk for flat whites. (On our lone business trip to London, you remarked that you preferred the ratio of espresso to milk in the flat white; of course, I have not forgotten.) Instead of a suit or construction helmet, I will wear a bathrobe tied loosely around my waist, my hair tied into an orderly gray ponytail. Perhaps you will attend.

I imagine you there at the kitchen table, sipping coffee with care and blowing the steam across the edge of the cup. While eating your scone you explain that you make an exception for carbs when the occasion calls for it.  You laugh and smile your Executive Smile as we clean. “Your bridges were always best when they were humble,” you say. All I can do is blush. We finish our cups of coffee, place our dirty dishes in my already-forgotten sink, and walk across the bridge together. Will we hold hands? I await your decision.

Max Paradise resides with his wife in Northern Virginia, entirely too close to the Pentagon for his own comfort. He has previously been published in now defunct websites and local magazines, and is deeply ready for spring.