Personal Narrative: The Silver Memorial Bridge

I hate winter and my radio wants me dead. You heard me: dead.
Actually, I can’t say with confidence that it’s the radio at all. I’ve swapped it out three times, finally settling on an ancient cassette deck excavated from a musty box in my garage. But it’s not the station, or who’s speaking, or even how modern (or ancient) the radio is. There’s something in the air and it has a home: The Silver Memorial Bridge.
Ten days before Christmas in 1967, the original Silver Bridge collapsed during rush hour into the frigid waters of the Ohio River below. Forty-six men, women, and children drowned in their vehicles surrounded by unopened presents and a cold awareness that their lives had reached a premature end. Two years later, the Silver Memorial Bridge was raised a mile away from the original location where, to this day, people cross without incident or injury. Well, except for me. People still blame the original disaster on Mothmen and U-Boats and the Illuminati. Smarter folks blame bad engineering and poor maintenance. I blame the radio.
Whoever it is speaks on the bridge and only the bridge through proxies.
I know this because I’ve driven it back and forth for months conversing with something that seems to have it out for me.
But maybe it has it out for everyone? How does one even attempt to broach the subject of a homicidal radio to another human being? You can’t and you don’t unless you like the idea of doing the Thorazine Shuffle in a county mental
facility.
The radio first spoke to me during a nightly re-run of Rush Limbaugh while I crossed the bridge. The black, arctic waters of the Ohio River beckoned underneath. “Let’s switch gears here a moment, folks,” Rush said. “Forget politics. I know, I know, we all want to talk about the circus of Washington, but right now I want to speak to someone who should seriously consider veering to the right at full-speed. Those old guard-rails won’t stop your truck, Sam.”
Imagine my surprise.
“You there, Sam?” Rush asked.
“I-“
“You’re not crazy,” Rush said. “This is really happening.”
“Is this-” I paused.
Rush laughed. “Real? You hear that folks? He thinks this is a joke. And therein lies the problem: You’re over-thinking this, Sam. We’re waiting for you. In the water.”
“What’s in the water?” I asked.
Rush breathed into the microphone and said nothing more.
I’ve switched to a new station every night since, burning gasoline and sleep to speak to something with many identities and none. I’ve crossed the bridge again and again by night to keep the conversation going. If you can call inciting suicide a conversation, please let me know. One month ago, Rachel Maddow snarked that I was too big of a pussy to die because I voted Republican in the last election. “You really are such a drag, Sam,” she said. “You don’t deserve to see the bottom.”
Last night Matthew McConaughey mused with his swarthy Texan drawl how good I’d look dead and bloated at the bottom of the river in a brand new Lincoln SUV. “What do you say you floor it right now? Plunge headfirst into a watery midnight, all-leather interior, drowning in that new car smell. Now how’s that sound? Hmm?”
“I don’t buy American,” I said.
McConaughey chuckled. “There’s plenty of foreign to choose from down here, too.”
#
Snow flurries swirl at the Ohio-side of the bridge. My truck’s heater struggles to stave off the cold. There’s no traffic. It’s just me, the bridge, and the radio. I idle into the mouth of the bridge and turn on the AM bands. A warm voice fills the cab.
“You’re listening to Coast-to-Coast AM and I am your host Art Bell,” he begins. “Do you all ever want to go a little sideways? Maybe askew? Let’s get spooky this evening. Sam, are you there?” “I am.” “Is tonight the night? Got a lot of people down here dying to make your acquaintance.” I ease onto the shoulder at the bridge’s midpoint, park, and roll down the window. Lazy gusts of cold air creep down my collar. My skin contracts into gooseflesh. “Do you have a name?” I ask. A loon howls somewhere far off, its call echoes across the inky banks of the Ohio River. Art sighs. “We can’t keep doing this forever.” “Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why do you keep listening?” he asks. “We see you, you know? It’s cold out tonight. Why’s your window down?” The wind picks up. Taut suspension cables above rattle against one another. Yellow lights anchored to the bridge’s superstructure shift by degrees. “So you see me, too? How?” Art clears his throat. “As promised, dear listeners, we’re about to get spooky,” he says. “It’s taken some time, but I think Sam is considering our offer.” I shake my head. “Horseshit. I don’t want to die.” A pause of dead air hisses through the speakers. “Yet you come here every night. Then why are you parked on the shoulder?” he asks. “It’s okay to be curious. It’s okay to jump. Will you jump for us, Sam? There’s so much we want to show you.” “Art,” I say, “put yourself in my shoes-“ He interrupts, “They’d be soaking right now.” “It’s absurd,” I say. “Who takes a dive just because a voice on the radio says so?” The wind picks up for a moment and I think I hear Art growl into the microphone. “Who decides to pick up a gun and murder innocents because their dog told them to?” he says. “What about those poor, depressed souls who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge year after year? It isn’t depression. It isn’t madness. It’s us and we’re very, very good at what we do.” I reach to shut off the radio. “Goodbye, Art.” “Be seeing you, Sam,” he says. “Sooner than you think.”