The Bridge

Parish

Chapter 22: The Bridge

The bridge is the US-84 bridge over the Mississippi River between Vidalia, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi, a cantilever bridge built in 1940 and rebuilt in 1988, the rebuilding being the replacement of the old two-lane bridge with the new four-lane bridge, the replacement being the parish's most significant infrastructure event of the century, the event that changed the crossing from the ordeal to the routine, the ordeal being the old bridge with its narrow lanes and its weight limit and its tendency to vibrate in the wind in a way that suggested the bridge was considering its options, the options being: hold or not hold, the holding being the preference and the not-holding being the fear, the fear that every person who crossed the old bridge carried in the body, the fear that was not rational but that was physical, the body knowing that it was 100 feet above the Mississippi and that the Mississippi was moving beneath the bridge at four miles per hour and that the bridge was trembling and that the trembling was the structure's conversation with the wind, the conversation that the body overheard and that the body did not like.

The new bridge does not tremble. The new bridge is solid, the solidity being the engineering's answer to the trembling, the answer that says: We have built a thing that will not move, that will hold, that will carry the traffic between the low side and the high side without the conversation with the wind, the conversation ended, the silence being the new bridge's character, the character of a structure that does its work without commentary.

Clem crosses the bridge twice a week, sometimes three times. He crosses it to go to the veterinary supply house in Natchez, the supply house being the source of the medications and the instruments and the supplies that the practice requires, the supplies that the truck carries and the box holds and the practice uses, the using being the reason for the crossing, the crossing being the errand that connects the parish to the world. He crosses it to go to the pharmacy where he fills the prescriptions that the practice cannot fill from the supply house. He crosses it to go to the hardware store where he buys the things that a practice requires that are not veterinary supplies but are supplies nonetheless — the baling wire and the duct tape and the zip ties and the miscellaneous hardware that the practice uses to repair the things that the practice breaks, the breaking and the repairing being the practice's cycle, the cycle being: Use the thing until the thing breaks. Repair the thing. Use the repaired thing until the repaired thing breaks. The cycle being infinite. The cycle being the practice.

He crosses the bridge today. A Tuesday in September. The September that is the turning, the heat beginning to relent, the air beginning to carry the suggestion of the thing that will come after the heat, the thing that Louisiana calls fall, the fall being not a season but a reduction, a dialing-down, a step away from the condition that has been the parish's state of being since May. September is the month when the crossing of the bridge feels different, the feeling being in the light, the September light being different from the July light, the July light being white and flat and punishing and the September light being gold, the gold that the angle of the sun produces when the sun begins its southern migration, the migration that tilts the light from the vertical toward the diagonal, the diagonal being the angle that produces the gold, the gold being September's gift.

He drives onto the bridge. The truck's tires find the bridge deck, the deck being the surface that is neither road nor building but the thing between, the thing that spans the gap, the gap being the river, the river being the space that must be crossed, the space between Louisiana and Mississippi, between the parish and the world, between the here and the there.

The bridge rises. The bridge rises from the Louisiana bank in a long gradual arc, the arc climbing to the height that the navigation channel requires, the height being sufficient for the barges and the towboats that pass beneath, the passing-beneath being the river's traffic, the traffic that the bridge must accommodate, the accommodating being the bridge's other purpose, the purpose that says: I will carry the vehicles above and the barges below, the above and the below being the bridge's two worlds, the two worlds existing simultaneously, the vehicles crossing east-west and the barges moving north-south, the crossing and the moving being the intersection, the intersection being the bridge, the bridge being the place where the road meets the river.

Clem reaches the high point. The high point is the bridge's apex, the apex being the place where the climbing ends and the descending begins, the place where the bridge is highest above the water, the place from which the view is the view, the view that Clem has seen a thousand times and that he sees again today with the attention that September produces, the attention that the turning sharpens, the sharpening being the diagnosis's gift, the diagnosis having given Clem the eyes that see what the routine eyes stopped seeing, the eyes that see the river and the light and the land with the freshness of the first seeing, the first seeing being the seeing that the possibility of the last seeing produces.

He looks down. He looks down at the river. The Mississippi from the bridge is the Mississippi from above, the perspective that the ground does not provide, the perspective that reveals the river's width and the river's color and the river's movement, the three things — width, color, movement — being the three facts of the river, the facts that the bridge reveals the way the X-ray reveals the bone beneath the skin, the bridge being the instrument that makes the river visible as a whole, the whole river, not the river from the levee (which is the river as a wall of water) and not the river from the bank (which is the river as an edge) but the river from above, which is the river as a surface, a vast brown surface moving south.

The river is brown. This is the permanent fact. The Mississippi at Vidalia is brown with the sediment that the river has carried from Montana and Minnesota and Iowa and Missouri and Illinois and Arkansas, the sediment being the continent's soil, the soil of thirty-one states and two Canadian provinces, the soil that the rain washed from the fields and the hills and the mountains and that the creeks carried to the streams and that the streams carried to the rivers and that the rivers carried to the Mississippi and that the Mississippi carries past Vidalia, past the bridge, past Clem in the truck looking down, the carrying being the river's work, the work that the river does ceaselessly, without pause, the carrying of the continent's material from the interior to the Gulf, the carrying being the river's practice, the practice that is older than the parish and older than the bridge and older than the levee and older than the name, the name being Mississippi, which is Ojibwe, which means great river, and the meaning is the truth, the truth being: This is the great river. This is the carrying.

Clem thinks about what the river carries. He thinks about it from the bridge, from the high point, from the place where the seeing is the widest and the thinking is the freest, the freedom of the bridge being the freedom of the between, the between being the place where the man is neither in the parish nor in the world but in the space between, the space that the bridge occupies, the space that is the crossing, the crossing being the moment of the between.

The river carries the sediment. The sediment is the soil. The soil is the farms. The farms upriver — the Iowa corn fields, the Illinois soybean fields, the Missouri wheat fields — the farms losing their soil to the rain and the rain losing the soil to the creeks and the creeks to the rivers and the rivers to the Mississippi, the losing being the erosion, the erosion being the continent's slow dissolution, the continent dissolving into the river one rainstorm at a time, the dissolving being the process that has built the land that Clem practices on, the alluvial land, the river's deposit, the soil that the river carried from upriver and dropped when the river slowed and spread, the dropping being the building, the building of the delta, the delta being the land, the land being the parish.

The parish is built from what the river carried. The parish is the sediment. The parish is the deposit. The parish is the thing that the river made by carrying and dropping, carrying and dropping, the carrying and the dropping being the process that built the flat green land that Clem drives across every day, the land that holds the cattle and the soybeans and the catfish ponds and the houses and the churches and the library, the land that is the river's product, the product of the carrying.

Clem thinks about this. He thinks about the land being the river's gift and the levee being the parish's refusal of the river's next gift, the next gift being the flood, the flood that would add another layer of sediment, another layer of soil, another inch of the alluvial deposit, the deposit that the levee prevents, the preventing being the parish's argument with the river, the argument that says: You built this land. We live on this land. You may not build more. You may not add to the land. You may not flood. The argument that the levee makes with its body, the levee's body being the argument's form, the form being: Hold. The holding being the argument. The argument being the levee. The levee being the prayer.

The river carries the history. This is the other carrying. The sediment is the material, but the history is the meaning, the meaning that the river carries in its current the way the blood carries the oxygen, invisibly, essentially. The history of the river at Vidalia is the history of the continent's movement from the interior to the coast, the movement that began with the indigenous people who navigated the river in canoes and that continued with the French who navigated the river in flatboats and that continued with the Spanish who governed the river from Natchez and that continued with the Americans who governed the river from everywhere, the governing being the claiming, the claiming being the history, the history being: This river belongs to me. No, this river belongs to me. The river belonging to no one. The river carrying the claims past the claims the way it carries the sediment past the land, the carrying being the river's answer to the claiming, the answer being: I carry. I do not belong. I carry.

Clem looks down at the river from the bridge and sees the carrying. He sees the brown water moving south, the surface smooth in some places and troubled in others, the troubled places being the boils, the upwellings, the places where the current encounters the bottom's irregularities and the encountering produces the disturbance, the disturbance being visible on the surface as the swirl, the swirl being the river's expression, the expression that says: The bottom is not smooth. The bottom is complex. The surface hides the complexity the way the skin hides the anatomy.

He thinks about the diagnosis. He thinks about it on the bridge because the bridge is the place of the between, the between being the place where the thinking happens, the thinking that does not happen at the farm or at the clinic or on the porch, the thinking that requires the crossing, the crossing between the parish and the world, the crossing that is the leaving that is not a leaving, the temporary departure, the going-out-and-coming-back that the bridge enables, the enabling being the bridge's gift.

The diagnosis is the thing inside. The cancer is inside the way the calf is inside, the cancer growing in the dark of the body the way the calf grows in the dark of the cow, the growing being the process, the process that the body contains and that the body does not choose, the body carrying the thing that the body produced, the producing being the body's error, the error that is not an error but a mutation, the mutation being the cell's departure from the plan, the plan being the body's order, the order being the health, the health being the thing that the mutation disrupts, the disruption being the cancer, the cancer being the thing that the surgery will remove, the removal being the plan, the plan being the order, the order being the restoration of the thing that was before the thing inside began to grow.

The river carries things past the parish. The river carries the sediment and the history and the water and the barges and the commerce and the things that fall into the river and that the river accepts, the accepting being the river's nature, the river accepting everything — the rain and the tributaries and the runoff and the debris and the things that the people put into the river and the things that the land puts into the river and the things that the sky puts into the river — the accepting being total, the river taking everything, carrying everything, moving everything south.

The parish watches the carrying. The parish stands on the levee and watches the river carry the things past, the watching being the parish's relationship with the river, the relationship being: We watch. The river carries. We watch the carrying from behind the levee, from the safe side, from the side where the carrying is the spectacle and not the threat, the spectacle of the brown water moving south, the spectacle that is the parish's cinema, the constant showing of the river's movie, the movie being: I carry. I have always carried. I will carry after you are gone.

Clem descends. The bridge descends from the apex to the Natchez bank, the descending being the arrival, the arrival in Mississippi, the arrival in the other state, the other side, the side that is not the parish but that serves the parish, the serving being the supply house and the pharmacy and the hardware store, the serving being the world's response to the parish's needs, the needs crossing the bridge the way the traffic crosses the bridge, from the low side to the high side, from the parish to the world.

He runs his errands. The supply house. He picks up the Excede and the Draxxin and the Bovi-Shield and the palpation sleeves and the syringes, the supplies that the practice requires, the supplies that will go into the box and the box into the truck and the truck onto the road and the road into the parish, the supplies being the practice's material, the material that the crossing provides.

The pharmacy. He picks up the medications that the supply house does not carry, the medications that are the specialty items, the items that the practice uses rarely but that the practice must have because the rarely is the emergency and the emergency does not wait for the supply house to order, the emergency requiring the having, the having being the preparedness, the preparedness being the practice's obligation.

The hardware store. He buys baling wire. He buys hose clamps. He buys a box of wood screws and a tube of silicone caulk and a roll of electrical tape, the items being the miscellaneous, the miscellaneous being the practice's category for the things that do not fit the other categories, the things that a vet needs not for the medicine but for the maintenance, the maintenance of the truck and the box and the clinic and the fences and the gates and the things that break and that must be repaired with the things that the hardware store sells.

He crosses the bridge again. East to west. Mississippi to Louisiana. The world to the parish. The crossing being the return, the return that is the coming-home, the coming-home that the bridge enables, the bridge being the structure that makes the leaving possible and the returning possible, the leaving and the returning being the two movements, the two movements that the bridge spans.

He reaches the high point again. He looks down again. The river is the same. The river is always the same. The river that was there when he crossed an hour ago is the same river, except that it is not the same river, the water that was beneath the bridge an hour ago is now a mile downstream, the mile being the river's distance traveled in the hour, the distance being the carrying, the carrying being the flow, the flow being the constant.

The water that is beneath the bridge now is different water. The water that is beneath the bridge now was upstream an hour ago — upstream by a mile, upstream near the Concordia Parish line, upstream in the stretch of river where the bank is wild and the trees grow to the water's edge and the herons stand in the shallows, the herons being the river's sentinels, the sentinels watching the water the way Clem watches the parish, with the attention that is the watching's nature.

The water changes. The river stays. The water flows through the river the way the years flow through the parish, the water being the time, the time being the thing that passes, the passing being the constant, the constant being the river's lesson, the lesson that the bridge reveals: Everything passes. The water passes. The sediment passes. The history passes. The barges pass. The years pass. The vet passes — Arceneaux passed the practice to Clem and Clem will pass the practice to the next, the passing being the succession, the succession being the river's nature applied to the practice, the practice flowing from one set of hands to the next the way the water flows from upstream to downstream, the flowing being the carrying, the carrying being the practice's continuity.

But the river stays. The channel stays. The bridge stays. The parish stays. The staying is the other lesson, the lesson that the levee teaches, the lesson that says: The things that pass are not the things that stay, and the things that stay are the structures, the structures being the levee and the bridge and the parish and the practice, the structures that hold while the water flows, the holding being the nature of the structure, the structure's purpose being: Hold. Hold while the river carries. Hold while the years pass. Hold while the water changes. Hold.

Clem descends into Louisiana. The bridge drops him back into the parish, the dropping being the descent from the between to the here, the here being Vidalia, the here being Carter Street, the here being the truck in the driveway and the box in the bed and the supplies in the box and the practice waiting, the practice always waiting, the waiting being the practice's posture, the posture of the thing that is always ready, the readiness being the nature.

He drives through Vidalia. The town is quiet in the September afternoon, the quiet being the afternoon's quality, the quality that says: The morning was the work. The afternoon is the pause. The evening will be the porch.

The bridge is behind him. The river is behind him. The river is behind the levee and behind the bridge and behind the afternoon and behind the parish, the river always behind, always present, always carrying, the carrying being the river's practice, the practice that mirrors Clem's practice, the two practices running parallel the way the levee runs parallel to the river, the two practices being: Carry. Carry the sediment. Carry the history. Carry the confessions. Carry the diagnoses. Carry the births and the deaths. Carry the parish.

The bridge connects. The bridge connects the parish to the world and the world to the parish, the connecting being the bridge's practice, the practice of spanning, the spanning being the holding of the two sides together, the holding that is the bridge's nature, the nature of a thing that exists in the between and that makes the between crossable.

Clem crosses the bridge and returns. The returning is the practice. The practice is the parish. The parish is the land that the river built and that the levee protects and that the bridge connects.

The river carries. The bridge holds. The parish continues.

The continuing is the thing.