The Bridge

By Gregory Guess

A Vietnam vet returns home to an unhappy wife and after she leaves him he elects to live in the elements again, under a bridge. He had become a very rich man but still remained under the bridge with an old dog. When a stranger comes along his whole world changes and he ends up in jail charged with a murder that he knew nothing about,James Earl Smith's life seriously changed from that point on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gregory Guess
• Release date: Mar 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452303567

Gregory Guess

Greg Guess is a veteran entertainer/ musician who has traveled to 75 or more countries and has entertained for millions. He created his first work of fiction while working on a cruise ship and has turned out four more since then. He has been writing music and lyrics for many years but has learned that his real love is storytelling. He continues to write from his home near Memphis, TN. and plans to continue writing. He says his life as an entertainer and his humble beginnings on the wrong side of the tracks in a moonshining community has help create many of his characters and stories.

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Copyright 2010

Smashwords Edition

The Bridge

Greg Guess

Chapter One

James Earl Smith nicknamed Ears by a cousin that had said his head looked like a Volkswagen going down the road with both doors open, sat under the bridge looking out at the river swiftly rolling by, the soothing sounds of the water flowing over and around the rocks. This was where he had found his peace for a long time .Today it was warm but he had spent many days and nights here under this bridge when it was below freezing, sometimes even below zero. He chuckled to himself thinking about some of the times that they had endured here and the old dog looked up at him as if he were smiling but only for a few seconds and then rested his head on his paws again.

He couldn’t hold his head up at that angle for very long ever since the car had clipped him crossing West G Street. He had recovered physically except for a hardly noticeable limp in his right rear leg but remained a little jumpy around traffic and would probably always be that way.

One thing was for sure Ears loved the old dog, he didn’t understand why that old mutt loved him so much but somehow he knew that he did and it made him happy.

It would be good times again for a few months, he could take the heat better than he could the cold and so could the old dog, they both had some arthritis and that cold weather just didn’t sit well in those old bones.

This bridge had been his home for more than fifteen years now, occasionally, some transient bum would try to take up residence there but they never stayed long. It had been more like a motel to them but for him and the old dog, it was home. Why sometimes the stragglers would even try to take over their sleeping box but him and Bosco wouldn’t stand for that, no siree. He would drag a big box all the way from behind the appliance store, fill it up with fresh newspapers and they would just show up and assume that it belonged to them, or assume that it was community property, that was pretty presumptuous Ears thought, a box didn’t just find its way here and fill its self up with nice fresh newspaper.

When Ears would find that someone had taken up residence in his newspaper bed he would slap the side of that box so hard that they would be out of there in a heartbeat wanting to know what the hell he was doing. Ears would tell them in his quiet mannerly way, Son, that’s my box there yer sleeping in there. Some took it better than others did.

Ears was a peace loving man, but it was by choice, he could take care of himself should the occasion arise

. He had spotted a stranger scoping out the bridge early in the day and figured that come dark they might have some company. He reckoned him and Bosco might have to share their home tonight, and that meant sleeping with one eye open as he called it. You just never knew what kinda trash the wind might blow in, through the years they had encountered all kinds.

Ears unbuttoned the flap on the chest pocket of his worn blue jean overalls and dug down deep and pulled out his whet rock and the Old Timer knife that he kept in there, thinking that it was time for a good sharpening.

Saying to himself mostly, but looking at Bosco when he said it, Jus never know what dusk might bring boy. He spat on the rock and methodically dragged it back and forth across the sharpening stone, not that it ever got dull, it was more of a calming ritual than a necessity and after about ten minutes Ears stood and returned the knife and whet rock to its normal place and said, Come on boy.

Bosco, the part collie part shepherd stray moved a little slower than he had a few years ago when Ears had first found him wandering around town searching for food in trashcans, but he had been a pup then and once Ears had started feeding him regularly, Bosco never left his side. One extra windy Friday morning in March while the duo were crossing West G Street a car had clipped Bosco’s back end and Ears had picked him up and carried him about five miles to the nearest veterinarian clinic. After telling the old doctor that his dog needed tending to, the crotchety old vet looked Ears over and said,

Sixty-five dollars ya know for an office visit.

Ears had just said quietly, Yes sir that will be fine…jus do whatever he needs and I’ll pay ye.

The old vet scrunched up his weathered face and said, That’s in advance of any treatment, and it might be more depending on what he needs. Ears was prepared for the vet’s attitude and had already folded a crisp one hundred dollar bill and slid it into his front pocket before he had gotten there.

He produced the bill and said, Jus hang on to this Benjamin till you finish with him and if I owe ye more jus tell me what it is.

The old vet eyed Ears wearily wondering what a homeless bum was doing with a crisp hundred-dollar bill, why some people wasn’t making that for a weeks work.

At first impression Ears appeared to be just another homeless drunk as he and the old dog rambled around town, sometimes pushing a shopping cart filled with newspapers and cans of dog food but what people didn’t know was they couldn’t be more wrong. In fact only a few people knew the truth about Ears status in the community and to Edmund Cardwell, the president of the Citizens First Bank, Ears was a very valued customer. Unbeknownst to most, he was one of the wealthiest men in town. Ears had so much money that he continually had to roll his interest over into another I.R.A. and he had so little interest in money that taking care of any business would aggravate him so that he always insisted that Mr. Cardwell handle his account personally and he would only go to the bank after hours and was adamant about the banker keeping his wealth a secret.

At first the bank manager had balked at doing business after hours until Ears had said, Well I guess I’ll jus have ta move my money somewhere else. The banker saw the error of his ways and immediately changed his tune assuring Mr. Smith, as he called him, that it would be no problem.

Ears didn’t know a lot about the investment world but a squirrelly looking little fellow that he had met while on tour in Vietnam had constantly talked about it and Ears had listened patiently because he liked the boy and this little guy would get so fired up when he talked about it that Ears had found him to be rather amusing. He had promised Ears on numerous occasions that if they made it outta that God forsaken place in one piece that someday he would make Ears a rich man. Ears just went along with him figuring that if it gave the boy something to hang onto and would help keep his sanity in this stressful environment he reckoned that he could listen to him ramble.

On one hot sticky Monday night deep into Charlie country while on a routine patrol in Vietnam, all hell broke lose and a firefight ensued that left every man on the patrol dead except Ears and the young boy. One by one they had bought it and in the end it had gotten down to hand to hand combat and Ears had fought savagely sticking at least three of the small Vietnamese men with his bayonet the last of which was just about to take the boys head off.

When it was all over the young fellow just sat down and cried and finally Ears snatched him to his feet and herded him back to the base camp. Ears hadn’t thought that he had done anything miraculous but the boy wouldn’t shut up about it and eventually it had won Ears a silver star. He would constantly remind "Ears’ that he owed him his life and that he would never forget him.

After they had done their time and had in fact made it home in one piece, Ears, married and with a small boy of his own received a letter almost weekly from the young soldier reinforcing that his enthusiasm for Ears had never diminished. Ears had managed to save up about ten thousand dollars and after receiving a letter from the boy who informed him that he had some solid information on a new computer company that was going to knock America off its feet and guaranteed Ears that if he would trust him to invest his money that he would become a rich man.

Ears had a good feeling about the boy and wrote back and included a check for the ten thousand dollars telling him to do the best that he could. Several months passed and the boy wrote with regularity reassuring Ears with every letter. Finally, after about eleven months the boy wrote and Ears didn’t understand a word that he had written, he was talking about the stock splitting and was using other investment terminology that was as foreign to Ears as the country was in which he had met the boy. The next letter that Ears received was the boy informing him that they were now both millionaires. Ears just stared at the letter emotionlessly, what in the world would he do with a million dollars?

Ears had been living in East Tennessee and was working at a rental store hooking up taillights and trailers for people that had things to move. It was an ok job but it hadn’t been good enough for his wife and she had eventually taken up with a younger man and informed Ears that she thought it best that they divorce. It hadn’t bothered him that much really except for the young son that they had together.

After returning home from Vietnam, Ears was having a hard time remembering what it was about her that had attracted him enough to commit to marriage. Nonetheless, in a years time she had divorced him and taken their son who in short time had displayed little interest in seeing his father. Ears had always kept up with his son the best he could and had supported him but didn’t want to complicate his life so he elected to stay in the shadows.

Vietnam had left Ears empty as he liked to call it, it seemed that life had become very mundane after the excitement of living on the edge in the jungle fightin for your life daily and even though his army buddies had called him a hero, now that he was home, it seemed that once people found out that you had been to Vietnam they tended to shy away from you. He didn’t understand it, hell he hadn’t ever killed no babies or women like those that they had talked about on the news, but he reckoned that he did kill a bunch of them mean little bastards they called Viet Cong ,wasn’t that what they had trained him to do?

Chapter Two

Private Mooney instructed him to send him his account number and that he would transfer his money into it and that if he was in agreement that he would hold back some money and keep investing for the both of them.

Ears just smiled to himself thinking why what fool wouldn’t go along with that, the boys done and made me rich?

Private Mooney had informed him that he would be depositing 1.4 million dollars into his bank account.

Ears looked at the number but couldn’t even imagine how much that actually was, it was a lot more than he had ever dreamed that he would have, he knew that.

He had been living in Johnson City with his wife and son but after the divorce she had moved about seven miles away where her new husband lived. Ears decided that he could keep a better eye on his boy if he lived closer so he quit his job at the rental store, transferred his money to the bank over there in Elizabethton and moved under the bridge. It just seemed fitting, he was living out in the elements again and the day-to-day demands brought on by living like that kept his mind off losing his family. To Ears it was like letting a bird out of a cage, a type of freedom that only a few would ever understand.

His backpack was chocked full of things that he and the old dog needed for survival but he owned nothing of any significance and would only spend money on necessary items. The one thing that he did splurge on was food for the old dog. He would stand in the grocery store isle reading the labels on the dog food trying to determine which was the best food for