A Bridge of Shadow Read online

  He rejoined his co-workers at their desks in the middle of the room, all dressed in almost identical dark suits, white shirts, and ties. Their fingers were smudged with ink as they bent over their binders to figure, transcribe, and eventually collate hundreds of reports that had been run off on the Gestetner machine operated by the ink-spattered Millie in the back room. At precisely ten a.m. every morning a bell would ring, and they would all surge toward the coffee room for twenty minutes of camaraderie. Mary sat silent, sipping on her cup of coffee and a New Yorker pastry from the cart that came around twice a day from the cafeteria downstairs.

  The shy clerk-typist went home every night to an attic apartment which she shared with another unwed mother she'd met at the Salvation Army. Both girls were thin. They didn't eat well. Marianne Pecoski and Mary Henderson, an unlikely couple to be friends but out of necessity sought one another's companionship and a shared financial responsibility. Both dated now, Marianne a young corporal named Marcus James, in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, deployed for its second rotation in 1963, and Mary Henderson with a draftsman, Robert Scott, whom she'd met through Marcus. They often double dated. Marianne married first, leaving Mary with the run of the attic, which she decorated with orange tablecloths and batik prints. Her boyfriend, Robert, bought her a small Zenith black and white television set, which her cantankerous German landlord demanded not be set up in the bedroom, so it was put in a corner alcove under the sloping roof. The alcove was the only other area of the apartment with enough room.

  Robert also bought her a hairdryer, so he wouldn't have to wait interminable hours for her hair to dry in rollers on a Saturday afternoon before they went out.

  She cooked him fried chicken – browned it for fifteen minutes then served it. He advised her that he didn't care for chicken but ate it, pink and glossy through his white teeth.

  Grateful, Mary gushed, “I love you.” In her heart, she wasn't sure. She was so young, and so cheated of life. She yearned for her baby. Robert understood, and she was grateful for that, too.

  The attic owned a clunky old black telephone that hung on the wall. Her number was TE 1-6403. The phone was a rotary dial, of course, and she had to go through an operator on the rare occasion she called her parents long-distance. Mary's voice was often raspy as she was so shy, and unused to talking or being courteously heard, more particularly on that unfamiliar instrument which rarely rang.

  Robert would call her, but more often came right over or picked her up after work in his little red Austin Healey Sprite, but they were together every night in any case. He lived with his aunt, who had a modern turquoise color touch tone phone.

  The telephone was important tonight, because Robert had not shown up, and someone else called. The bookkeeper's voice was husky. “Mary, this is John from work. I hope you don't mind. I got your number from the personnel files in Donovan's office. He leaves them unlocked.” The message was ominous, if a little vague in the details. “Midnight, on the bridge. Come alone.”

  John Austin could mean only one bridge, the Centre Street Bridge with the stone lions at each end, perched so high that many busy drivers and pedestrians didn't realize they were there. Mary's apartment was downtown, close to Centre Street and the bridge. An acquaintance had sworn the lions followed her home at night, and hid in her closet, their large yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Mary shivered. She considered calling Robert but he lived with his aunt, and she was a jealous and interfering woman who would worm out of her nephew the reason for the call, and certainly persuade him that Mary should handle this on her own, or worse, that Mary was not to be trusted.

  She envied other people their fluid conversations. She could not bring herself to that rapt exchange which good friends ought to enjoy. Robert liked her that way. He had searched for many years for a girl who would keep her fucking mouth shut.

  She thought now of Robert and wondered where he'd gone, and she thought of John Austin and the cryptic phone call. She had no idea why the bookkeeper would be interested in such a meeting, nor if this was some kind of hoax. Mary, trained to be obedient of authority, followed her nose to what might prove to be an interesting mystery that might solve all her problems at work with the cruel Reggie Donovan. She felt that John Austin was her champion at work. Otherwise, she told herself, I am being foolish to venture out at midnight to the center of the city. She thought of John's curly brown hair and his mesmerizing eyes. Surely, he meant well. A rush of excitement coursed through her young blood.

  Mary glanced at her mother's nursing watch, which she had worn since junior high school. It was ten thirty. The short walk to Centre Street Bridge would take her twenty minutes, at most. The area was well lit by streetlights and also there would be some traffic there, even at that time of night, as it was a major thoroughfare from downtown to the north part of the city. Mary kept a small flashlight in her cheap plastic purse. Her father had advised her to carry a knife, she remembered, but Robert said an attacker could overwhelm her defenses and use the knife against her. Together, Robert and her father would make the perfect man. Mary sighed. She hadn't been home since the baby was born. She wasn't welcome; they had been clear about that. Marianne and Robert were her only friends here, and maybe John now, but what could he want with her?

  Sixty-five minutes ticked by. Mary gathered her coat around her, took her plastic purse and the flashlight, and left the house. She tottered on high heels along the dark streets, heels clacking and echoing in the fog shrouded October night. She was too innocent to be afraid at that moment, too used to walking alone in dangerous areas of the city, too used to being on her own without help or protection, to be afraid at midnight in this familiar city.

  When she got to the bridge she could see clearly through the fog from the Bow River below that a lone figure leaned against the balustrade on the south end, shrouded in an old topcoat and tweed cap. She drew closer, her breath ragged. Her heart fluttered and perspiration moistened her forehead, but with the bravado of the young, she called out, “Who's there?”

  The tall young man with the curly brown hair and eyes like violets moved into the glow of a streetlamp. “It's me, John.”

  “What do you want?” She drew her tattered coat closer around her shoulders. A cool wind swirled the fog away and she could see him clearly.

  “Thank you for coming, Mary. I'm sorry for the drama, but I had to talk to you, and it isn't right to visit a lady at her apartment this late at night, and especially a young lady who has a boyfriend looking out for her. I had to talk to you.”

  “Why the bridge?”

  “It's well lit and close to my house. I knew you live in a house on Centre Street as well. I know it's late. I wanted to give you enough time to get ready. I know ladies don't like to be rushed. They spend a lot of time in the powder room before going out, that's what my sisters always did.”

  “I live in an attic in a big old house downtown, above the landlords. I have a roommate. She knows where I am,” she lied.

  He was standing in front of her, his hands outstretched, a smile on his face that crinkled the corners of his eyes. The front of his topcoat was unbuttoned, and she could see the muscles flexing beneath his chest as he leaned toward her. “You're safe with me. Let's walk somewhere warmer.”

  “At this time of night?” Mary wished she'd worn more sensible shoes. “There's nothing open.”

  “Robin Donuts is just around the corner. They're open all night. I often go there.”

  “Do you live near here?” she asked.

  “Just on the other side of the bridge.”

  She considered this. “You don't sleep much, do you?”

  “I wanted to warn you. Don't go to work tomorrow.”

  She considered this, too. Images of the cruel Reggie Donovan cascaded through her mind. Maybe he'd finally fallen off the turnip truck, as Robert would have said.

  “Uhhhhh…”

  They walked along the side of the road, facing traffic. Occasionally a semi rumble
d past or a late-night insomniac hurried by, head huddled against the cruel wind.

  “I don't know why you asked me to come alone.”

  He didn't answer, but reached out and took her slim white hand in his sturdy fingers. “I have a better job offer for you, Mary. You mustn't come to work in the morning and face Reggie and his bullying. I can't stand it.”

  “What job?”

  The cheerful red and white doors of Robin Donuts loomed through the misty night. He opened the door for Mary and both entered. The boy behind the counter smiled at them as they entered. He placed a large tray of donuts on the rack behind him. They could see another assistant in the back of the store, behind large plate glass windows, preparing donuts for the next day's morning rush.

  “Two coffees,” John said, then lifted an eyebrow. “Is that all right?”

  “Okay.”

  He stirred sugar and cream into his and she sipped hers black. The boy behind the counter wiped his hands on his white apron and placed two jelly donuts in front of them, then returned to reading the late-night edition of the Calgary Herald. John and Mary sat in companionable silence.

  “What's Reggie going to do to me tomorrow?”

  “It's not what he's going to do tomorrow. It's how he treats you every day. I'm not going to stand for it. I've been looking around for another job, too, as a copywriter at the Herald. I spent two years as an English Major at the University of Calgary, then I dropped out to get a job. But I'm more than a bookkeeper, and that's not my passion. I submitted a couple pieces of good copy to the editor and he gave me an interview yesterday. He was very encouraging. They sat me down to write something for them, under pressure. I don't think he believed I wrote the copy I gave him, as my dad is a writer of some note.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “Yeah, I came up with something that blew his socks off. So, he offered me the job. I'm going to give notice to Ohio Standard tomorrow.”

  “It'll be funny working there without you.”

  Bobby's Girl was playing on the jukebox. The boy behind the counter threw a quarter in Mary's direction and grinned, meaning she should make her four selections, but she was too shy to get up and do that, though John urged her to choose something. Finally, she gave the quarter back to the clerk behind the counter. They continued to sit on the red leather stools together, while the boy wandered over to the shining new Wurlitzer and punched the buttons to play the latest pop music from England.

  “A new group you might like from Liverpool,” he called over his shoulder. “They're called the Beatles.” The jukebox clanked and All My Loving rang out, followed by Baby It's You and Do You Want to Know a Secret?

  John grinned. “I've heard of them. Thanks.”

  “What do you mean, you have a job for me? I have a job.”

  “Not a good one and not a safe one. I'm surprised you didn't lose your fingers yesterday when Donovan slammed the drawer. He purposely tried to catch your hand. I don't want you working for a company that's so cheap you have to fix your own typewriter. Come with me to the Herald.”

  “This is so sudden.”

  “I didn't know until tonight that I got the job. Joe, the editor, called me at home around nine o'clock tonight. A paper never sleeps. I'd be working nights and so would you.”

  “I didn't get an interview.”

  “No, but I put a good word in for you and Joe said he'd try you out. They're looking for an entry level girl and seemed pretty interested. They know old Reggie at Ohio Standard, too. He knew what I meant when I told him you deserve something better. You'd be typing up classified ads at nights and taking ads over the phone. It pays a little better than Donovan pays, too. Would you consider it, Mary?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Say yes.” He leaned over her, his sparkling blue eyes holding hers. “You don't think it's a coincidence that I took rooms downtown so close to yours, do you? Or that I happened to come into Reggie's office just as you were in there?”

  “Oh. I didn't think of that.” She initially felt suffocated, but her heart lightened and the choking sensation in her throat lessened as the reality of what was happening struck her. This attractive man really liked her, and she didn't have to marry Robert out of desperation. John Austin stared into her eyes.

  “I'm not used to somebody taking care of me,” she whispered. The jelly donuts lay untouched.

  Later, he walked her home and tried to kill her.

  They stood together at the door to her house while she fumbled with the key. He moved so that he blocked her way and his eyes flashed with an explosion of something strange. Confused, Mary buried her head in his old wool topcoat and tried to make her way around his muscular form. He grasped her cruelly with both hands and she knew there would be bruises on her shoulders the next morning. If she survived.

  “You little tramp, you deserve this. You're nothing but used goods. You owe me something. After all, I almost got you a job!”

  She fought silently and fiercely. His hands closed around her windpipe. She thumped against the stout wooden door of the old house. The two of them didn't notice a light come on downstairs and two figures silhouetted against the glass.

  The door burst open. Her landlord towered, a German behemoth, in his pajamas, with a baseball bat in his hand. “Dummkopf! Get away from her!” The man's wife stood behind her husband in the entryway that led upstairs to the attic rooms. She brandished a frying pan.

  “Whore!” The bookkeeper threw Mary into the foyer and ran, but not before the German's wife, in her flannel nightgown, struck his head a good blow with the frying pan. Her husband smashed his retreating buttocks with the bat. Mary gasped and before her landlords could stop her, she grabbed a wrought iron fireplace poker from the umbrella stand and ran out into the night. All the pent-up rage in her spilled out – against her selfish and uncaring parents, the selfish father of her child, Robert who wanted a wife who would shut the fuck up, Reggie Donovan who tried to slam her hand in a drawer on purpose every day, and now John Austin, a man who had deceived and affronted her. She ran after him, crying and laughing at the same time, until she caught up to him on the bridge and a stone lion roared so loud in her head that she couldn't stand it and she ran John Austin through with the hook of the fireplace poker and then as he lay bleeding under the arch of the lower bridge, she ran him through again and again, with the tip of the sharp black wrought iron poker, and he was so surprised and so dazed by the blows from the frying pan and bat that he didn't and couldn't defend himself. After he was pierced through a dozen times she put her dainty size nine foot on the muscular thrust of his chest and he pulled her leg to him in a paroxysm of agony. A gaggle of pedestrians gathered to watch, mesmerized, as Mary fought her demons. The ululation of a police siren interrupted the bloody mess.

  When the sheriffs arrived, they assessed the situation and informed Mary she had acted in self defense. Her landlords backed her up.

  Robert had been drinking at the Electric Toby Lounge that night. Mary elucidated him the next day of the happenings at midnight on October 23, 1963. Marianne came back when she heard that Mary needed her. In 1963 there was little talk of feminism, but Mary felt her mother's worst fears had come true.

  “I must be like Ayn Rand,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and shouted it, free at last. Mary never whispered nor apologized again. “I'm Ayn Rand!”

  About the Author: Kenna McKinnon

  Kenna McKinnon is a Canadian freelance writer, author of SpaceHive (2012), and Bigfoot Boy: Lost on Earth, as well as Benjamin and Rumblechum, The Insanity Machine; Blood Sister; Short Circuit and Other Geek Stories; DISCOVERY: A Collection of Poetry, Den of Dark Angels, and Engaging the Dragon. Her most memorable years were spent at the University of Alberta, where she graduated with a degree in Anthropology. Kenna is a member of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and a professional member of the Canadian Authors Association. She has three wonderful children and three grandsons. Her hobbies include fitness, health, drawing, read
ing, walking, music, cooking and baking for friends.

  Books by Kenna McKinnon:

  Engaging the Dragon

  SpaceHive

  Benjamin & Rumblechum

  Den of Dark Angels

  Blood Sister

  Short Circuit and Other Geek Stories

  The Insanity Machine

  Discovery: A Collection of Poetry

  Links:

  Author's blog: http://KennaMcKinnonAuthor.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KennaMcKinnonAuthor

  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KennaMcKinnon

  Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kennamckinnon

  The Witching Hour

  Mari Collier

  Raven had always liked midnight. The time and the dark skies fitted her name and her disposition. Her hair was black as midnight and she kept it long and flowing. She would like to have her eyes just as dark, but at times they could be a yellowish color. Maybe contacts would solve that. That might solve one problem, but would create another.

  It had started when she was a preteen and she and her friend would walk to the park after dinner. It was a small town and no one worried about them. They could meet friends and hang out. They no longer played tag over the bridge, but if one was delayed or didn't show, a note would be left under the small boulders and rocks used for landscaping at the bridge. If her friend left early, Raven could run for hours.

  Later she walked in the park and over the bridge with her first boyfriend. She couldn't call him her boyfriend at home, but everyone at school knew. Sometimes they would arrange to meet there after one of his football games. One Halloween they met at the bridge at the witching hour before joining the others. She would sneak back there alone when the moon was full. Then her father was transferred and the park and bridge became a memory, but soft, star filled nights did not.