336: In the western ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 13 continues
In the western part of Babbington, the part they had first entered on that rainy night when they arrived from Chacallit, they found a house that suited them. It was on an unnamed street off Bay Way, the road that led from Main Street to the bay. At the corner of this unnamed street was a sign, erected by the Babbington Department of Public Works, a sign with a temporary look, not the job of a practiced sign painter. It said CAUTION NO BRIDGE.
The little street ended, abruptly, as the dozen or so little streets parallel to it ended, at a canal that reached inland from the bay, providing access to the water for an area that would otherwise have been landlocked. For years after the canal was dug, no one considered building a bridge over it, since nothing was available on one side that wasn’t available on the other. In the twenties, however, Fred and Shirley Mintz bought a piece of land along the bay front and created Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club, a nice spot with a smooth beach, a lifeguard, an outdoor shower, a small lunch counter, and a pleasant pavilion where one could relax at a table in the shade. The Mintzes reasoned that their enterprise would better prosper if families on the other side of the canal could get to it more easily, so they began agitating for a bridge across the canal.
At that time both the mayor of Babbington, Andy Whitley, and the head of the Babbington Department of Public Works, Walt Whitley, lived on the Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club side of the canal. Both Andy and Walt enjoyed complimentary family memberships in the club, which they had won, Fred and Shirley assured them, in a random drawing. Andy and Walt didn’t want to upset the Mintzes and lose their complimentary family memberships, so, in their capacities as Mayor and head of the BDPW respectively, they decided that the Mintzes should get their bridge as soon as possible. On the other hand, neither Andy nor Walt wanted the quiet streets in that part of town to become congested with Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club traffic, and neither wanted the club to become crowded with people from the other side of the canal, so they decided to take “as soon as possible” to mean “never.” Walt had the BDPW conduct a study to determine the best location for a bridge; they chose the narrow, unpaved street, and Walt launched a flurry of activity designed to keep the Mintzes happy. He had the street surveyed, widened, and paved, and then he and Andy set the project adrift in studies and committee meetings and budget hearings, where it has languished, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, to this day. The sign — CAUTION NO BRIDGE — was erected to suggest to the Mintzes that though there was no bridge yet, there would be one soon, and the street came to be called, by everyone who lived nearby, No Bridge Road.
On No Bridge Road, on the north side, about midway between Bay Way and the canal, was a pretty little stucco house that struck Lorna and Herb as just right. It had a tile roof and a large, solid front door with a rounded top. The door opened into the living room, a long room with a fireplace. To the right was a dining room, and beyond the dining room, toward the rear of the house, was the kitchen. Two steps up at the rear of the living room was a hallway. Off this hallway, on the right, was the bathroom. Across from it was a small bedroom for Ella. At the end of the hall was a large bedroom for Herb and Lorna. The house was owned by a Mrs. Stolz, who had been living in it alone for a year and a half, since the death of her husband. She had finally decided that she could no longer support it.
“A house needs a man to keep it up,” she said, while she was showing Lorna and Herb through it. “Things have to be fixed, and I can’t do it. I don’t know how. I never knew how.”
“Can’t you find someone to keep it up for you?” asked Lorna. “A handyman, a carpenter?”
“Oh, I can’t afford that,” said Mrs. Stolz. “And it isn’t the same. A man doesn’t keep up a place the same if it isn’t his. You can’t blame him, really. His heart isn’t in it. He’s only working for money.”
“Where will you go?” asked Lorna. “Do you have children to live with?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother them,” said Mrs. Stolz. “Your welcome doesn’t last very long if you’re planning to stay forever, if you know what I mean. I’m going to get a room at the River Sound Hotel. It will suit me just fine, I think.”
[to be continued on Monday, September 12, 2022]
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