Jacob’S Bridge

By Barbara Sousa

In the year 1868, in Brooklyn, young Jacob Knickerbocker is torn between two loveshis wife Nelly and building a bridge across a treacherous river. Employed as Scribe to a famous bridge builder, he has no idea that his journey through hell is about to begin.

Jacob is thrust into a world of steam-powered engines and political corruption. After quicksand is found under the river bed, he takes it upon himself to study caissons disease as men descend nearly sixty feet beneath the surface. Despite the horrors of work, Jacob and Nelly are thrilled when she becomes pregnant. But Nelly and her newborn son die horribly in childbirth. Grief-stricken, Jacob creates an imaginary world, writing to his deceased wife in a secret journal. Drinking laudanum (opium), disillusioned and dissolute, he walks the streets of New York and disappears.

Will the disheartened Scribe return to his Brooklyn Bridge? How will his monumental endeavor find footing in those wild and turbulent waters?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781458202918

Barbara Sousa

Barbara Sousa lived and worked in New York City, but now enjoys a greener lifestyle in the Poconos. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Northwest. This is Barbara’s debut novel.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Brooklyn, 1868

I’d be thought daft if I said Mr. Roebling could build a bridge across our river. I’m talking about Brooklyn’s East River with its wily, dangerous twists and turns. He said it would be the Eighth Wonder of the World. You must know who Roebling is. Why, John Augustus Roebling, our Master Bridgebuilder.

The river’s always been a long stretch of water without a bridge. Farthest I’ve ever traveled was from Webb & Bell Shipyards at Hell Gate south to the great Ocean, by carriage or by horse. Men tell tales of savage storms battering her shores, clippers and tugs toppled by fierce winds, likely sunk in mighty troughs. Growing up I’d sit on the Fulton Street Pier imagining myself aboard an awesome schooner, her Captain seeking the China trade.

That was then, long ago, another time. Our Master Bridgebuilder offered me a position today. At this very moment I stand ready to serve John Roebling with his bridge of wondrous, lengthy proportions.

Some people impugned my new position, say it’s a political favor owed my benefactor Alderman Zebulon Mullholsen. My Alderman’s a virtuous and forthright man who could never stoop so low. Why then, people ask, would a young man, barely 16, be so favored by the acclaimed Mr. Roebling? Personally I think it’s the ferry ride I took to New York to attend a lecture at Cooper Union. What happened? I will explain. A hat, crushed a bit, soared like a raging swallow at my midsection.

What’s this, a bloody hat?

A sketch I was drawing dropped to the floor, out of reach. Crossing the East River I draw or sometimes read. Reading one of Mark Twain’s books leaves me feeling agreeably good, so does penciling a sketch. Were our esteemed Reverend Henry Ward Beecher to peer over my shoulder, he would admonish me severely. That’s the truth. He’s strict and bad-tempered. Forsake your lackadaisical ways, he’d rage, you’re headed to the poor house, worse yet, the prisons! I confess, beats me why they call him Reverend.

You’re wearing my hat!

He’s an older gentleman with a wild eye and beard to match. I take no note of his accusation. It’s hardly a hat I have placed on my head, considering its shape. I introduce myself. Our conversation settles on conventional discourse, winter’s ice jams rocking our boat, its engine heaving. I make an attempt to straighten his hat. He continues to exhibit a constrained appearance, bends over, retrieves my sketch.

I see you’ve drawn a bridge without a mid-way truss, young man.

I did. Being that a force at rest is balanced by some other force or by its own reaction.

A simple law of physics, is it?

Simple enough to me!

Here’s what I later heard from my benefactor. The man with the wild eye was John Augustus Roebling, Master Bridgebuilder. After making inquiries at City Hall that very morning, Roebling informed my benefactor he wanted Knickerbocker as his private Scribe. Was I surprised? I should think so! Did catching Mr. Roebling’s fine hat prompt his decision? No, the hat was crushed. Was it my sketch then, my bridge without a mid-way truss? I believe it was. He borrowed my pencil, scratched Knickerbocker on the back of my sketch, pocketed it, before disappearing into the crowd. Later at Cooper Union I listened to a most fascinating discussion about John Augustus Roebling’s diagnostics for building his great suspension bridge!

Let me continue. After departing the ferry that night at the Brooklyn slip—I remember the night well—I hurried on my way to Brooklyn Heights. There was the baker pulling shut his door. I wave. He returns my salute. Several streets beyond I would be at the Alderman’s house. But I linger, watch lamps lit in parlors, their glass shades adorned with rosebuds.

Dora at the foyer window, my dear Aunt Dora. She opens the door, swishes her graying pigtail.

Aunt, I am late, tell me you held supper?

Mighty late, Jacob!

I hug her, kiss her ruddy cheeks, she slaps my back with her pigtail. Home is my Aunt Dora’s kitchen. No other room in the Alderman’s fine house so comforts me. Here it is, warm with lanterns and modern installations. Take, for example, our new wooden pump with iron fittings, smartly set on the sink on a scrubbed wood draining board. Dora says she feels pampered in her kitchen. But I notice this new pump requires a hefty pumping mostly near a half hour. But the pump is not what has enabled this young man to pour out his heart during childhood years. Nor is it warmth from her new kitchen range set in the vestibule of our oldest fireplace. (The boiler works well for a kettle’s rush to tea!) Nor in her summer geraniums on the window sill catching the evening breeze. No, not in these or in those listed. It’s dearest Aunt Dora, bearing the fragrance of hams hung in the rafters, her heavyset arms hugging me.

Two glasses of beer with supper, I explain my day at New York’s prestigious Cooper Union where I hugely marveled at Roebling’s vision of a bridge.

The butler’s bell suddenly rings in Dora’s kitchen. It is the Alderman in the library.

Jacob, get your runnin’ shoes on.

Tonight my benefactor waits for word of today’s lecture. We have enthused discussions days I board the ferry to the city. I tap on the door, slide the door open. My Alderman is at the humidor in his frock coat, his lengthy white hair draped over his shoulders.

Jacob, I read in the Eagle today, Scientific American’s editors are sour on the bridge, say a tunnel would do as well.

That so? I reach across the desk. May I draw a match for your cigar?

Alderman Zeb puffs, continues his discussion on what else, the future bridge. Truth be told, we share this dream. It has become our one bonding affection, outside of Miss Pearlie, his wife, deceased these many years.

Tell me, Jacob. You were there today. What did they say? Is it true, Roebling’s engineering ideas are fallacies?

Fallacies! I am shocked.

That’s their word, Jacob, the New York Polytechnic Society. You favor John Roebling’s designs, don’t you?

Dora taps on the slider, offers my benefactor his dessert sherry, carries it to his desk.

Yes sir, it did play out badly. Not to my liking, their engineers are against the bridge. Every seat taken, an impressive number of reporters present, Brooklyn Eagle, Tribune, the Times, two fellows from The Nation.

Didn’t we expect as much? Aren’t men’s habits slow to change? What about your feelings, Jacob, they remain strong? At City Hall I hear Mr. Roebling intends to put Brooklyn on the map. Think he can do it?

Alderman, John Roebling’s ideas sound fallacious to some, but his designs, his mathematics? He is a genius, to be sure! Roebling built the Niagara Bridge, the Covington-Cincinnati Bridge. Like you said, they haven’t toppled into the river. No sir, Mr. Roebling’s rhetoric is overblown, but he’s down-to-earth with his mathematics. And rhetoric aside, his figures are not libelous!

Soft clapping outside the library doors.

My benefactor’s smile is noticeable. No rebuttal from the great Master Builder then?

I heard he received no invitation.

No invitation? Improper, I’d say. Have you ever met this great man, Jacob?

Regrettably, sir, I have not.

The Alderman reaches below his desk, cradles his cat, a gray mangy fellow without a name.

Have you tried the new product, I ask, very decent on mange I’ve read?

Still stand by boric acid, Jacob, add a little water, soap it in.

It works? I ask. For the longest time, he strokes the cat. I must say it’s a pretty picture.

The cat curls on the desk, sleeps. Her rumps a bit resistant, the Alderman says, she’d be best served by my being more consistent.

Alderman Zeb now offers an interim of silence, also not foreign to my nature. Silence is thinking, he reports, discussion is neither less diligent nor neglectful if one seizes a moment ’to think.’ His eyelids close. His head slightly forward, rests on his heavy beard. So, we think. I honor such resolve, fasten attention on those leaded stained-glass windows behind his desk, a congenial selection of reds more than greens. Yellow, too, is favorable. There lamp light coerces a spirited march toward an ivy border. This room is strangely bereft of drapes. Wood is dark, wall polish wears thin since Miss Pearlie died.

When a boy, I navigated impatiently around Alderman Zeb’s quiet periods, found a wait longer than three minutes an annoying inconvenience. I’m older now; the Alderman’s contained nuances have become second nature. For example, his lack of eye contact, the downward station of his mouth. Yes, Alderman Zeb has his quiet moments to think. I am alright with that. But I admit to being uneasy the times my benefactor stares for long periods at paintings of Aunt Pearlie, in this room where all these dark walls covet paintings of the Alderman’s wife.

Alderman Zeb’s eyes open. He smiles. I will say, that’s a good sign.

I met your Mr. Roebling today, Jacob.

The Brooklyn Gas Light Company

Here’s a perfect a day, albeit we’re in a freezing month with clouds conjecturing snow. We are at the Gas Light Company near a Brooklyn pier. I stand beside my employer as he lays his drawings on an old oak table. His graying hair and beard catch light from the window facing the river; breezes blow across a partially open transom on the street-side door. I squeeze between my employer and his son Colonel Washington, a handsome man having not long ago served in the Civil War, our Union side of course. Being impulsive and curious I reach across, hold my palm against the edges of Mr. Roebling’s diagram. His slender fingers point to the towers, three solid columns of granite borne by steam-powered derricks. Massive blocks to be stacked on a wooden caisson? Caisson? Why, that’s a name for a wooden box! My God, here’s a flimsy foundation! Engineers here seem dumbfounded, question with no hesitation.

The river’s a raging horror, John, pot-holes fifty feet deep. There’s Hell Gate where two tides come in. You’re going ta sink a wooden box downstream? Tides’ll smash her. Can’t be done, John!

Caissons are used in Europe, successfully, Titus. And I will add, building the bridge on the Mississippi, you’ve heard of Captain James Eads?

Now John Roebling speaks of bridge cables, wire ropes slung over each tower attached at ground level to slabs called anchorages. I lightly touch his New York tower, follow the line of dried ink to the top. My employer reaches for another sheet, slides it over the pack.

One endless span, I say, no mid-way truss?

Your law of physics, Jacob.

Good Lord, I have addressed the Master. I shall consider this later, have a decent talk with myself about respect. Let me interject though, I learned physics well from my Alderman’s tutor. A great tutor will make a difference, as opposed, let’s say, with one who’s mediocre. Ripley Hawkins chose studies to catch my fancy. No, I mustn’t say catch, but studies which captivated me, Analytical Geometry, Solids and Fluids, Spherical Projections. But never forget the classics, I say. Or Walt Whitman, Brooklyn’s fine poet. I know, it is an unconventional lot, so was Ripley Hawkins. Well along in my schooling Ripley said,

Education is like making love, Jacob, there must be passion.

Gas lamps sputter, I turn them up a notch; snow on the window frame slivers to the ledge. Shadows ride sand barges on the river. There’s smoke from a tug boat’s funnel. Inside we hold to the table, some dissent, others remain silent. My employer holds refuge in his finely engineered diagrams. He’s stridently fired up.

Steel suspenders like strumming harps hold secure the promenade, wending above topside vessels below.

Cables made of steel? Iron’s the way to go, John. Show us any bridge in this country using steel. None! And no building in New York City neither.

The room stills, gas jets settle.

Metal of the future, Horatio, my employer says.

No end to this hankering, who said bridge trains are impossible, too much shaking? There’s a sewer man here. He swears strong winds will snap Roebling’s span to pieces, happened to the Wheeling Bridge.

I am John Roebling’s Scribe, passionate about a simple law of physics. My say doesn’t count. I have much to learn. But I’ll bet you I’m going to be at Mr. Roebling’s heels, and I say build the bridge! Oh yes!

Have I time for another stroll to the window? Who has patience for this wrangling? Who in this room bears an eye to see John Roebling’s vision?

Snow’s falling, hefty amounts. Havoc at the ferry slip. I hear the Fulton Street Tower clock, ten o’clock. Our gas jets, flames die and smoke at their shut-offs. Put another copper in?

No, hurry home!

I look up at the sky. Snow fastens on my eyelids, my heart is pounding so!

Oh Moon, beautiful girl! Rise up, wide and pearl-like. Spread yourself where our bridge will play out across the river. Hold there, where these engineers see two towers and wire ropes strumming air like harps.

CHAPTER 2

John Roebling Succumbs to Lockjaw

June 28, 1869

Gulls fly over Brooklyn, as gulls do over New York. Here in Brooklyn gulls find a complaisant plateau, as grassy bluffs formed by glaciers exhibit today a less threatening visage.

Walt Whitman dreams at the harbor, writes verses. It is a likely spot, this warm June day, with comely breezes pursing the ferry slip. My employer is shouting across the river to Colonel Paine, surveying a location for our Brooklyn tower. I carry with me a fresh tablet, sharpened pencils.

John Roebling steps from a piling onto a beam. Mr. Roebling? I yell. Sir, the ferry is approaching. Step back! But John Roebling makes no move. I scream now, seeing his boot caught in the beam’s bulging outgrowth. Mr. Roebling, your boot’s caught! To no avail, and I am too late to reach my preoccupied employer. I would have thrown myself upon him, loosened his boot had I arrived in time. But no, I am too late. The ferry rams the piling, the beam, and crushes my employer’s boot. John Roebling rises, shows no anguish, shouts across the river,

Colonel Paine, we will finish the survey! after which he collapses.

Colonel Washington assists my hobbling employer into a waiting cab. A physician’s office is on Fulton Street. I’m running in hasty pursuit. My employer’s frockcoat bundled under my arm, his silk top hat I hold with a secure grip.

As the coachman reins in his sorrel, Colonel Washington leaps to the street, grasps my employer’s injured leg. Blood splashes on the Colonel’s boots. Has my employer whimpered, is there some outcry? My God, he suffers in silence! Reaching across Colonel Washington, I cradle Mr. Roebling in my arms (Colonel Washington being a smaller man), carry him to the doctor’s office and gently lay him on a bed. Our physician, seemingly a worldly man, is quick, wields a sharp knife, slashes my employer’s boot. Blood is spurting on his leather apron. One should not judge me, I am horrified, having never seen so inviolate a wound.

John Roebling pleads, Sir, I insist you procure a tub of cold water; I will immerse my foot within to staunch the flow of blood. Striking his fist to the wall, he spawns a vibration so strong as to extinguish our gas light.

Hydropathy, Colonel Washington reports hoarsely. Mr. Roebling believes in the healing power of water, regularly goes to the Turkish baths.

My employer braces himself on one elbow, grips the doctor’s arm, Amputate ‘em! You hear, amputate my toes!

Our physician flattens him with his free hand. I must call in a colleague regarding such a drastic procedure!

Then do it, do it!

I am weak, my knees are buckling.

A second physician agrees. Amputation is the proper resolve. I would run out the office door, but the horror would follow, as if a beast was ready to slash my own toes.

What did John Augustus say?

Doctor, no anesthetic! I say, no anesthetic!

Colonel Washington motions we press John Roebling’s shoulders to the bed. I do so. Our doctor tightens a leather belt about his ankle, a tourniquet to quench the blood. He raises his scalpel, slices under the skin, creates a flap.

The doctor notes my pasty face, points to the wall. Young man, if you’re going to vomit, look at that painting on the wall. I look up, stare bleakly at a physician tending to a bedridden child.

What do I hear? Our physician’s rasping saw, animal teeth working John Roebling’s bones. He’s a man beholding to no one, not one whimper as his toes are dispatched into a bucket. Fresh blood now accessible, exposed, warm and running gives off a sickly smell.

Colonel Washington notices I am green at the gills. The surgery’s nearly over, Jacob. Hold fast!

Did he say over? Not quite. Not quite at all, another puking, noxious odor. Burned flesh.

John Roebling now boosts himself up, reaches for a towel, binds the wound.

I carry him to the carriage. (Oh, fresh air!)

A gentle gait heading to Hicks Street, Colonel Washington’s home.

Colonel Roebling, Mrs. Roebling calls at the top of the hallway stairs, might we offer my Father-in-law our chamber-room? I think that would please him." I am near the top step with my employer in my arms. Mrs. Roebling smiles in my direction.

Jacob, you will stay, won’t you, assist Colonel Roebling? Find it in your heart to do so? I will send a note with my stableman to your Alderman.

Yes, I will remain at my employer’s side. Mrs. Roebling opens the bedroom door, so light on her feet, this comely patrician lady. The Colonel’s a lucky man. Carefully I lower my employer to the bed. His eyes are closed.

At the shaving table she lights a ceramic, large-globed lamp. It’s pleasing, its glow. The table I notice is built with integral mirrors making reflected light substantial. Removing my employer’s boot I stand it beneath the bed. Mrs. Roebling excuses herself to attend to the chamber room, holding a fine mahogany commode. Everything must be in order, Jacob, this lovely lady whispers. Both she and I look elsewhere as Colonel Washington assists John Roebling with nightclothes.

Days pass with uncertainty. I assist my employer, change his bed clothes, apply warm soaks and clean dressings. I give him my shoulder crossing to the commode. Today I am told to lower the shade should sunlight cross his eyes. I do so. Feverishly my employer dictates to our Colonel, fingers his diagrams.

I have my tablet to note his directives which he states often. It is difficult caring for an ill person. Strangely one loses fidelity, that sense of time, days end by default. Paradoxically John Roebling sheds one winter greatcoat for another, the second resembles a shroud. Worse about John Roebling is a horrific stench coming from under his sheets.

Tonight I carried him to the commode, forgot to restrain him on the seat. I’m staring at honeysuckle wallpaper and a gilded mirror, thinking what a handsome water closet. In the mirror my employer is sliding off the commode seat to the floor smeared with excrement. Only a man ill with fever would do that. A thought sustains me, he is not himself. Hence the disagreeable task of wiping John Augustus clean. I do so with equanimity, head to the marble washstand, pour a full basin of water from a china pitcher, grab towels and perfumed soap. Perfumed soap, otherwise my hands will smell. Foolish, I know.

This task done, I scrub the seat and floor, remove the chamber bowl heavy with contents outside the bedroom door, cover it with a sheet.

John Augustus’ gaze rests solely on Mrs. Emily Roebling. At the bottom of the bed I apply cool soaks to his heated limb. Has he reached for my arm? No, and I linger for his handshake, his look of gratitude. I am ashamed writing this.

Why this voice in my head? You should have thrown yourself before the ferry, Jacob!

We all know it’s my conscience.

Comes the fourth week. I behaved badly. Like a child, I hid behind one of the window drapes in the bedroom.

Why are you hiding behind that drape, Jacob?

I cannot bear to see his pain.

You must not let Colonel Roebling see your tears, Jacob. He will be home soon.

How can I hide these tears? The man is dying. Behind the bedroom drape seems an honorable place to hide. Doing so provides one a moment to drift into a lighter subject. On this day I have an enlightened thought: Why must a man hold back tears in the presence of women? Women are born privileged to cry. I recall Aunt Pearlie would say looking over her glasses, Be a good little soldier, Jacob. A soldier doesn’t cry.

Soldier, what war, Auntie Pearlie? The British nearly won the last. I’d surely cry if the states lost.

Mrs. Emily Roebling moves with a tender heart, coming upon me the way she did. He’s dead, Mrs. Roebling. He lies so still.

He’s a strong man, she says. Besides the Lord is not inclined to take a man destined to change the world. Now let us bathe his foot, Jacob, before the Colonel arrives.

Shall I draw the drapes? I ask.

Yes, the light hurts his eyes.

I do have a penchant for direct statement. For example, here we have not sunlight striking the outside window ledge bothering my employer, but it’s the stench from his foot that pervades the air entering one’s nostrils. Colonel Washington built a cage of sorts. John Augustus’ injured foot lies beneath bearing no friction from the above sheet. It is an ingenious device, allowing my employer less intense discomfort.

No look of distain crosses Emily Roebling’s face. She lifts the starched sheet from the cage. The stench is grossly pervasive. Her face holds its pleasant countenance. I swear I’ll be strong. John Augustus’ breathing is tortuous. He’s not given to a moan beseeching petition for comfort. I move to the head of the bed. His face is so gaunt, skin stretched over cheekbones, in places it sags disproportionately. His eyes beg for relief, hold the ceiling for hours or see nothing, then close shutting out the light.

I wring a towel with cool water, bathe his face.

Emily? my employer hisses, teeth clenched. As I said, he sees only Miss Emily. She reaches for his hand.

I’m here, Father.

Do not grieve for me, Emily. There is no such thing as chance. All’s wisely ordered.

She leans, kisses his cheek. John, you will get well.

Drapes are drawn, a splinter of brightness peeks through.

Nights I am here, sitting upright on a near chair, disposed like a guardian soldier. At night I relieve Colonel and Mrs. Roebling of endless requests for water therapy. John Augustus suffers constant headaches, thrashes. His lips crack, bleed into his beard. He’s makes gurgling sounds, sucks his tongue. I pry apart his teeth, instill spoonfuls of water. A horrible entity hovers in my employer’s ectoplasm, parches his cells. Its name is the dreaded lockjaw. My hands fearfully shake should morning light splash on John Augustus’ face. Behold, a terrible grimace!

I suffer and weep behind the drape when alone.

Days pass, his end is close upon us with dervish fits at the turn of a knob, the shade rattling, a child in tears on the street. The Colonel, Mrs. Emily and I watch, horrified, as my employer’s body writhes on the bed, he uttering not a word.

July 22nd

With this Night at its zenith, John Roebling lurched, convulsed and fell into the arms of Colonel Roebling.

My employer will receive the undertaker sometime near dawn.

Yes, I weep. It’s not a cowardly thing to do.

CHAPTER 3

Alderman Zebulon Mullholson’s House

Alderman Zebulon Mullholson’s splendid Federal-style house is one of the most spacious at our Brooklyn waterfront. It has a huge Italianate chandelier hanging at the entrance door. The interior was decorated by the Alderman’s late wife, Mrs. Pearlie Mullholson. It is a home I love; in the beginning I found it strange, absent of any familiar whatnot, and in my then untutored opinion, a home