Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [59]
“So? What’d he want, a handout?” Douglas asked.
“I’ll get around to what he wanted in a moment. Keep your shirt on. As I say, to the best of my knowledge I never had seen this person before. The first thing I knew, he was walking along beside me as if he had dropped straight down out of the blue.”
“My word!” said Mrs. Bridge while selecting a roll from the silver basket Harriet was carrying around the table. She placed the roll on her butter plate. “Tell us what happened next.”
“I think I’ll make a long story short,” said Mr. Bridge. “Briefly, what it amounted to was that this fellow proceeded to offer me a bribe. There, now! You inquire every once in a while about my work, so what do you think of that?”
“Horrendous,” said Carolyn.
He looked at her and firmly shook his head. “This is not a joke. I was offered money. Two thousand dollars.”
Douglas rocked back in his chair and slapped himself on the face. “Oy Oy! Two grand!”
“Oh, goodness, that is something. I trust you didn’t accept,” Mrs. Bridge said. And she began buttering the roll.
“I most certainly did not.”
Ruth asked what he was supposed to do in return for the money.
“Grind the face of the poor,” Douglas muttered, and Carolyn jabbed him with her elbow.
“I was asked to do a thing I have not the slightest intention of doing, now or at any time in the future.”
“Uk, yuk, yuk!” said Douglas.
“Mother,” Carolyn said, “can you please excuse him from the table? Why do we have to put up with him? Daddy’s trying to tell us what happened, and this moron keeps interrupting.”
“Ho-ho-ho, who’s talking!” Douglas said. “Old fat frumpy rumpy, in person.”
“We’ll have no more of that,” Mrs. Bridge said instantly. “You certainly will be excused from the table.”
Douglas clasped his hands. “Velly solly, velly solly. Numbel one boy excluse, pliz.”
“Behave yourself,” his mother said. Then she returned the conversation to her husband. “What a dreadful experience that must have been! You read about these things, but you simply can’t imagine them happening.”
Ruth asked if there were any witnesses.
“As far as I know, there were none,” he said.
“How come you didn’t take it?” Douglas asked.
Mr. Bridge considered his son. Then he said, “You do not let yourself get mixed up with such people. Not under any circumstances.”
“For two thousand smackeroos? Ho, ho, ho!”
“Explain yourself.”
“Everybody’s got his price.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t know. It’s true, though. Everybody’s got his price. So what’s yours? Fifty grand?”
“I have no price. I am not for sale.”
“How about a hundred grand?”
Douglas and his father looked at each other for a long time.
“Holy cats,” Douglas mumbled, “it was a joke.”
“I don’t care for your sense of humor. Hereafter find a more appropriate subject.”
“Solly. Excluse again, pliz.”
63 The Dawn Patrol
With his friends Tipton and Vandermeer, Douglas went to see The Dawn Patrol, and before the movie ended all three of them had sworn to become pilots. It was obvious to them that aviators were in every possible way infinitely superior to other men.
Just two things were required to become pilots: money, of course, for flying lessons, and their parents’ permission. After the show they agreed to arrange for these things so they could go to Fairfax Airport the following Saturday to take the first lesson.
As he wandered home Douglas reasoned that if he could get permission he could raise the money. There was not much left of his inheritance from crazy Lulu; however, there were the ten shares of stock in the Kansas City Power & Light Company. That ought to be enough. So the important problem was how to get permission. As he walked from the streetcar line to the house he was arguing aloud with his father. His argument was successful: his father admitted he was right and not only gave permission but offered to pay for the lessons. This was the way the argument ought to go, he could think of no reason it should not go this way; nonetheless, he decided to approach his mother first.