The Red Bridge: Wishes Come True: Volume 2

By Garfield McAdam

The Red Bridge is real, the stories are not; they come from a confabulation of ideas and facts in my memory. All the stories have a mention of a Red Bridge in them. In some, the stories are connected to it, but in others, the bridge is but a cameo in the story.
The bridge depicted on the cover is how I remember it from my childhood. It is a sister bridge which still stands while the actual Red Bridge has been replaced by concrete, and is not near as beautiful as the original one.
I must say I am the only one with this memory and attachment to the Red Bridge. Along with memories of my Grandmother and Grandfather McAdam, it is a strong pull to my roots in my hometown of Perth, Ontario.
While there may be a hint of the real, my characters are totally fictitious and are not meant to symbolize anyone real, living or dead. They are created for fun and enjoyment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499013474

Garfield McAdam

Born in Perth ON. I spent most of my life in Northern Ontario. I returned to school in 1968 and received an Accounting Diploma in 1971 and a General Science Degree in 1981. I spent thirty two years teaching adults in the Community College in Timmins and Moosonee and retired in 2000, moving to North Bay, and in 2005 to Sturgeon Falls along the river. I am married to Maria Leclerc- McAdam, a Personal Growth counselor who also gives workshops. We have seven children between us. I have always aspired to write about those ideas tumbling around in my imagination, but never got around to it until 2007 when I started putting things on paper as part of the Win Lit contests. In retirement, besides helping Maria in her work, I take the pontoon upriver as often as possible. We like to snowshoe, x-country ski and are avid readers.

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Copyright © 2014 by Garfield McAdam.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-1348-1

      eBook         978-1-4990-1347-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/29/2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Gone In 90 Seconds

Late One Afternoon

Grandpa’s Secret Fishing Hole

Crying Like A Baby

Going Home

The Freak Parade

Mating Power

Going Down Home

Rest In Peace

Some Big Bass

Robbery Suspect

One More Time

Moose Road

The Book Of Souls

Destiny Had A Gun

Crows Don’t Scream

Foreword

The Red Bridge is real, the stories are not; they come from a confabulation of ideas and facts in my memory. All the stories have a mention of a Red Bridge in them. In some, the stories are connected to it, but in others, the bridge is but a cameo in the story.

The bridge depicted on the cover is how I remember it from my childhood. It is a sister bridge which still stands while the actual Red Bridge has been replaced by concrete, and is not near as beautiful as the original one.

I must say I am the only one with this memory and attachment to the Red Bridge. Along with memories of my Grandmother and Grandfather McAdam, it is a strong pull to my roots in my hometown of Perth, Ontario.

While there may be a hint of the real, my characters are totally fictitious and are not meant to symbolize anyone real, living or dead. They are created for fun and enjoyment.

Acknowledgements

As always heartfelt thanks to my wife Maria for her support and patience.

Moreover, a big thanks for her editing skills, suggestions and encouragement.

GONE IN 90 SECONDS

It’s a beautiful summer day in Arakoon, New South Wales, Australia, and the sun is warm on my skin as I relax in a lounger on my deck. My mind is free and clear. Free from all thoughts of abuse suffered over years and years. Clear of the guilt over sticking a butcher knife into the stomach of the one who caused much of that abuse and putting the blame for her death on her.

No one here knows who I am or where I came from. I keep to myself and don’t get very friendly with anybody. Friends mean questions, and answers often give clues, traceable harmful clues. Things might get out that I can’t afford to have known. My eyes grow heavy as I sit and relax. Despite my best efforts, my mind returns to home, the years of pain and of an evil deed.

Through the webs in my brain, I see myself seated at a table with a woman. I remember it as if it was a few weeks ago. Mousy colored stringy hair which she seldom combs. A gray track suit matches the hair making her look dowdy. She’s a snarly and angry person as she glares at me.

I’m not afraid. For the first time in my life, she no longer frightens me. I smile at this former tormenter of mine knowing that I now have the upper hand. I hear myself reply to her questions about my disappearance.

*     *     *

I was gone in 90 seconds my dear, a clean, clear break and total disappearance. Just 90 seconds, that’s all it took for me to get up from the table that day, put my jacket on, go to the car, start’er up, drive down the street and around the corner. As I crossed the Red Bridge and headed out of town I was beyond your sight and gone forever. Or so I thought.

I never meant to come back. The plan was to disappear for the rest of my life, and yours. Everything had been planned out so well, right down to the last detail; things should’ve gone off without a hitch. However, sometimes fate steps in and takes a hand in these matters. So, here I am, 90 days later, mug of coffee in hand and sitting at the kitchen table with you. What a bummer.

It was quite a surprise for you to see me sitting here after all that time, eh? You should’ve seen the look on your face when you walked in and realized it was me in this chair. Worth a million bucks it was. I wish I’d had a camera.

What’s that? You want to know where I’ve been. But of course you do, and I’m going to tell you. But you know, I’d’ve thought the why of it would be more important to you. I mean, guys, especially guys like me, don’t run off every day and without damn good reasons.

So, before I tell you where I’ve been, you’re going to hear my reasons for going and how I planned it all. Once you understand that, then you get to know where I was. Not that the knowledge will be very interesting or do you any good. It wasn’t for me. I just sat around waiting most of the time. It’s much more important that you get the full drift of why I left and why I’m going to go again after I make a few adjustments to my plan.

The whole thing started more than 27 years ago over in Kenny’s Bar and Grill where a bunch of us were… .

What d’ya mean it’s not your fault? Of course it’s your fault. Who else has ruled this house and made things miserable for everyone all these years? Was it me? No. Was it Gino? No. Was it one of your other kids? No. Was it the dog? No. Well… maybe a bit. He did take your side most of the time. No wonder I didn’t like him. It was mutual of course, but he left before I did. It’s a good thing he never bit me, because I swear to God, I’da bit him back.

Ah, my dear, you can deny it all you want, but it was your fault. I suppose I must shoulder some of the blame too. I mean, I did let you do what you did all those years without ever saying anything or talking back or voicing discontent. However, my share of the blame is minimal.

No, I didn’t poison Fido. At times, I wanted to, but no, I never did that. What a stupid name for a dog. Only an idiot would call an animal, any animal, Fido. God’s truth, I didn’t finish him off and don’t know who did. Sure, I might have let it drop over at Kelly’s that I’d be just as happy without the stupid pooch around but that’s all. It was the only act of rebellion on my part in 27 years of marriage. Until I left that is.

Oh yes, I can talk to you like that, my dear. I can and will call your dog stupid and you an idiot, or any other name I want. You’re not in an enviable position sitting there, tied to a chair, so I can do or say anything I damn well please.

But, you know, we’re getting way off track here. I’m supposed to be telling you my reason for leaving three months ago. To be truthful there is more than just one reason, more like a hundred I’d say. Don’t worry; I won’t bore you with all of them, just the most important ones.

The ones like your decision to say we were going to the city where we pretended to get married and have a honeymoon so everyone would think you had a divorce and we weren’t in what, at the time, was considered as living in sin. Had to keep up appearances, eh? Well nobody bought it except maybe your kid Gino and her siblings.

Gino is also a dumb knick-name to give a girl, even if her name is Ginette. She took a lot of ribbing over that and it was your fault. Kid’s dumb too. I mean, she still hasn’t figured it out.

Anyway, what you said then was that it was your decision and I had nothing to say about it. I should’ve known you were setting the tone for years to come. Funny what we recognize in hindsight. What’s the old saying, if I knew then what I know now, I never would have done what I did in the first place?

While that incident should’ve alerted me, made me cut and run, somehow it didn’t. What it did do was open the door for you to take over where my so called father and ugly step-mother left off, and embark on years of control, domination and abuse. The way you treated me and those kids was awful. I was an adult, and could have left, but they were kids and had no choice but to remain.

You had no reason to do all that crap and make everyone’s life so miserable and frightening. Except maybe for the fact your first husband was a bit of a drunk and treated you the same way. Revenge I guess you’d call it, but on the wrong persons.

Two things stood out as the prominent features of our years together. One was the cold icy stare you fixed on me every time you spoke to me. If it wasn’t enough to immobilize and cause me to wilt and obey, the harsh cruel tones you spat at me instilled enough fear and trepidation within me to turn me into a meek little ‘yes master’ puppet without feelings, emotions or needs. It was easy for you because I was susceptible and vulnerable when we met. The ugly step-mother was a real witch and left her mark on me.

You never did that? Huh, look at you right now. Staring and glaring like a wild animal at bay. The difference today, is that once I made a definite decision to leave, all the fear and weakness started to leave. Now it’s all gone, it was gone when I left that day, replaced by a determination to do as I please and look after myself. You will never tell me what to do again.

I don’t want to bore you, or myself, with much more of this right now, I am going to tell you what pushed me over the edge at last and made me take a stand.

One time, about eighteen years ago, in one of the few moments you let me talk or say something, I inadvertently told you of my wish to do some writing. Some short fiction I said. You laughed and scoffed, asked what made me think I could write even short stories. A fool’s dream you called it. I wasn’t smart enough for that you said. I didn’t know how to write prose, didn’t know enough about syntax and sentence structure you said.

The force and derisiveness with which you uttered those words made me cringe, pack up another dream and take it behind my wall with me. There it remained until last year when, getting ready to retire, I dared mention it again. I got the same reaction from you, my dear. You do have a scornful laugh.

I had no control over what happened next. All those times I ever thought of leaving, stuffed way down deep, jumped to the surface and out of my control. Before I knew what was happening, I’d made the decision to leave and was well into the planning stage. Then, one day I realized the plan was ready, and so was I.

What do you mean I could have told you? You would have changed. You say that now because of the pickle you’re in, but there’s not a chance. Anyway, I had tried a couple of times early on, but you shot me down. So I just told myself that’s it, let it go, and I did.

There were so many times after spats and arguments, after I’d been threatened, cajoled and harassed, put in my place yet again, that I wanted to pack a bag and leave. I never had the guts for it though. I never had the nerve. I was the Cowardly Lion until three months ago.

With my plan ready, I had to find a way to execute it. Before I tell you how I accomplished that, why don’t I run the plan past you? Like I said it was a good plan and should have worked perfectly. It would have if I’d gone straight to my final destination instead of hanging around.

First of all, in my efforts to keep everything secret, I had to name my plan. I decided to call it Arakoon, which is some ancient but lost language word for peace. Since I was to have peace once my plan was carried out, it seemed to fit. It is also the name of a fine wine from a special, secret place I now know about.

I then asked myself what was my top, my ultimate goal. Turned out the answer was to be free of you, to be gone with no burdens on my shoulders, no matter what the cost. The best way to make it happen was for me to pack up and leave, to disappear and never be found.

Don’t say it can’t be done, they haven’t found me yet, they won’t find me here today, and when I leave and go to my secret place, they never will in the future. I mean they’ve stopped looking for me, and have no reason to start again. You’ll get to know where, when I’ve told you all about the plan. However, it won’t do you or them any good.

So in order to disappear, I knew I’d have to have a place to disappear to. I searched for some time before I found it. After I leave here, I’ll go there and live out my days with no noise or chatter from you.

Now to disappear there, or anywhere, I knew I’d need a new identity and money, lots of it. I obtained the first quite easily by making friends with a homeless person who was a close double for me and didn’t have any identification, passport or government paperwork in his name. I wheedled vital statistics, birthplace and other important information from him. All it took was a few bottles of bright red nectar.

With that information, it wasn’t hard to obtain a birth certificate, driver’s license, passport, and a few other items which would help me forge a new identity. Using our address here, it was a snap. Voila, I became a new man. A few trips, as my new self, and unbeknownst to you, proved I could use my new I.D. without fear of discovery, to move about and in time, disappear. Keeping it from you was a real task, but I did manage.

As to the money, well over the years, again unknown to you, I’d been stashing some away and with a new persona, I was able to start putting more away, synchronizing it with the old. Soon there was enough and it was time to go.

Another part of my plan was to leave you with something more than the discomfort and embarrassment of my leaving. You had to hurt a little bit for all my years of suffering. I knew if I just left, it would appear as another husband on the run and everyone would feel sorry for and mollycoddle you. To put the brakes on that, I needed to throw some suspicion on you.

In the many years we were together, people knew us as an okay happy, get along good couple. No one knew of my troubles or the heavy handed ways in which you mistreated me. Not even your kids. Now I needed to change that, and expose your true self. You had to appear as the bad guy, and I succeeded in that.

What! That surprises you? You didn’t think the coppers were on you for fun, treated you like a criminal, and made you their number one murder suspect for nothing did you? Did you think they spent all that time searching for a body just for something to do? Oh no, dear. They had a reason, a very good one. When they stumbled on it, blood was found on the back seat and in the trunk of my car, my blood. There was just enough to make them suspicious without overdoing it.

The search for me became a possible homicide at that point. You became a suspect because I mentioned to some of my co-workers and the security guard at my office building, that I was afraid of you and that you might be plotting to harm me. When they told that to the investigating officers, it was natural for them to make you the number one person to suspect.

How do I know all this? Well, because it was in all the newspapers and on television. I wasn’t holed up you know. I was moving around with ease and freedom. I kept daily track of what was going on. I mean, they were looking for me as Homer, not me as my new persona. As long as I was careful, I had no worries.

By keeping a low profile, I was able to watch when they hauled you, screaming, kicking, and crying into police headquarters for questioning. Not very lady like of you. TV is a marvelous thing in that respect. The crowning glory though, came when those two mucky muck friends of yours abandoned you on the boob tube in front of thousands.

What was it they said? Oh yeah, We always knew she was bad, that something like this was bound to happen. And him, he was such a nice man. Hell, I didn’t even know them. How very pious, those two. Fancy dresses and big brimmed hats with a violets tucked into them, didn’t make them any better than anyone else. Nor did those large, sweet looking smiles they flicked on for the press. But it turned people who’d never met you, against you.

It’s a good thing you were never charged, for a fair trial would’ve been impossible. People were sure of your guilt. Even now, after the cops have cleared you, some still think you got rid of me. I kept hoping something was going to happen, charges and a trial, so I could take it all in. I never would’ve gone to the court house, of course, but, I’d have made a point to cheer for the good guys.

Why am I being so vindictive? Well now, I believe I have good reason. After all, you gave me plenty of cause. What? You mean besides doing those things I mentioned earlier?

Okay, if you’re sure you want to hear more. How about the time I was scolding Gino and you told me not to chastise her or else you’d shove a knife in my guts? Or the day you said I’d be taking my life in my hands if I took the training wheels off her first bicycle. Shows who has cause to be vindictive, doesn’t it?

It’s time I told you why I came back today. But let me recap where I’ve been before I tell you why I’m here. When I left three months ago, I went into hiding in a small town several hundred kilometers northeast of here. I figured to stay there until the heat died down and then head for my final destination. When I realized they were looking for Homer and not who I now am with short hair and a blue denim suit, I decided to get out and move around a bit.

That allowed me to keep track of things without calling too much attention to myself by staying in one place for too long. It was a hoot roaming around in the open while a full scale search was on for me. When it became apparent the search was over, that they had given up on harassing you, and your friends were returning to your fold, I decided it was time for my final destination.

Then, on the day of my departure, you had to go and get stupid. You made that statement about getting death threats and bringing attention back to me, I mean to Herman. So I changed my plans and didn’t go. Don’t ask me why not, but I didn’t. Guess I figured to stay around and monitor things until everything settled again.

Which it has of course, but for how long? If you keep doing things like that they’re going to continue to search for me. For my plan to work, things have to be quiet. You can’t continue to carry on turning attention in my direction.

I came back to see if things could be worked out between us, but I see they can’t. The look in your eye told me so as soon as you entered the room. So I need to leave again and be done with it. After today, you’ll never see me again. However, I have this funny feeling