Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [49]
Douglas nodded. “Yeh. Especially with this wind.”
“Isn’t that Bob Tipton?” Mrs. Bridge asked.
“Yeh, I saw him. That’s him.”
“That is ‘he.’ ”
“Okay, okay,” Douglas said, and looked down at the boat in his arms.
Bob Tipton walked over. He was chewing a wad of pink bubble gum.
“You entering?” Douglas asked.
“Might as well,” Tipton said.
“Where’s your boat?”
“My folks have got an eye on it. There sure are a lot. Jeez, Doug, I never figured there’d be this many, did you?”
“Nope,” Douglas said. “Is Boggs entered?”
Tipton nodded and blew a balloon of gum that exploded and clung to his upper lip.
“I bet Boggs sinks,” Douglas remarked thoughtfully.
“Could be,” Tipton said. He pulled the gum off his lip and stuffed it into his mouth. “Some guy on the other side has got a real beaut.”
“What school?”
“Don’t know,” Tipton said. “I think he got help. No kid our age could get the deck as perfect as that. I guess his manual training teacher worked on it for him. Sure looks that way.”
“Did he try it out yet?”
“Don’t think so,” Tipton said.
“Maybe it only looks good. Those boats that look so hot don’t always sail fast.”
“Could be.”
“They’re awarding twelve ribbons, so we got a chance.”
“They ought to award about fifty,” Tipton said.
A few minutes later Douglas said to his parents, “Me and Tipton are going around on the other side and get ready. I’ll meet you here afterwards. Maybe if you get closer to the bank you can see better.”
Mrs. Bridge answered that they could see well enough from where they were, but Mr. Bridge took her by the arm. “Good idea. We’ll move up.” And as Douglas and his friend were disappearing into the crowd he called after them, “Good luck to you both!”
The race did not start for another half-hour. Then not many of the spectators were certain it had started, but more or less all at once the flotilla was drifting away from the opposite bank. The breeze had grown stronger. The little boats nudged each other and began floating in different directions, rocking and listing, except for a few which locked sails and clung together with sodden desperation. Here and there one fell over and lay on its side while others flopped upside down like feeding swans so that only the hull and the keel could be seen above the water. But out of this wallowing armada sailed several stout boats—firm on their course with sails billowing, cheered by the crowd. Onward they sailed, dipping their bowsprits as if headed for the New World. Among them the boat Douglas had built could not be found.
The boat Douglas built was eventually located in the exact center of the pond where it stood as solemn and motionless as a stork. Occasionally its sails trembled, the brass curtain rings knocked delicately against the boom, and the boat listed a few degrees, as though contemplating the race and perhaps wondering whether or not it ought to compete. But then with a little shudder it would resume its stance.
Over a period of minutes the boat was observed to drift, but it refused to sail. It leaned and it rocked against the waves and it quivered, and once it turned completely around. But that was all. Whether it had sailed by itself to this point in the middle of the pond, or whether it had been pushed or towed or merely followed another boat, nobody could say, because of the confusion at the start. But there it was, no matter how it had gotten there, and there it evidently planned to remain, possibly forever. On the shore stood its maker with a green felt button-studded crown set somewhat crookedly on his head, standing there alone in corduroy knickers, a new sweatshirt showing a flag and the triumphant legend ALL AMERICA, and frayed tennis shoes and no socks, with his arms dangling at his sides as though they were broken, staring out to sea.
The great race did not end with much more finality than it had begun. It disintegrated. There were rumors of disagreement about the winner because several boats touched shore at the same time. But none of this concerned