“I see my punishment. It’s to live knowing I have two dead brothers who died right over there.” Thomas is standing on the one-lane bridge going over the Smalls River in southeastern Delaware. The summer night is hot and thick, and Thomas lets the mosquitoes swarm his neck without a slap.
“I cheated you. Both of you.” Thomas says to the quick-moving brown water. Thomas looks upriver at an old fishing boat knocking against its rotted dock. Thomas looks at the repaired guard rail and, in his mind, he sees their car, a Cutlass Supreme, the nose stuck in twelve feet of water. Thomas’s brothers, Jim and John never learned to swim and never made it out of the car. Neither were wearing seatbelts. Why, everyone asks since they had crossed that bridge hundreds of times headed north to Philly or south to Tampa.
“And you never found out.”
Thomas spits into the water and says “I always told myself I would come clean with you and get down on my hands and knees and admit my sins, to acknowledge my unworthiness as your brother.”
“So, I will tell it to you now. John, Johnnie boy, j.” he says “I took the gold coins, I robbed you. I used the money to take Jeanine, your beloved wife to Atlantic City. She cried the whole time we were there; we never did anything, I swear. It was that weekend she was on the girl’s trip. I have sin in my heart my brother and everywhere else. I spent the rest money on weed, booze, and the ponies.”
“And you Jim. For two decades I been stealing from your 401 K. A slow drip, a hundred here, hundred there. It adds up. Trust me, it adds up,”
Thomas walks over to the guardrail and kicks it. “There, I said it. Nothing you can do about now.”
Off in the distance, a car is traveling fast toward the bridge. The car swerves and sways, taking up the whole road and driving down the middle. Thomas watches it approach. The driver steps off the gas and glides onto the bridge. It passes Thomas and then stops hard. The car is tossed in reverse and backs up fast. The red and white lights shine on Thomas’s face.
“Well, hey Thomas.” says Nick who is sitting in the passenger seat. “What a coincidence. Been looking for you. You know that?”
Thomas looks at Nick and then over to Bruno at the wheel and Carmine in the backseat.
“Yeah, I been looking to get up with you too.” says Thomas.
“You couldda called me…” Nick says with a sly smile. “But since we found you, let’s talk business.”
Before Thomas could move, Carmine leaps out of the back and puts a gun hard against Thomas’s head.
Nick gets out of the car and says, “One question. You got my money?” Nick is close to his face. Thomas can smell whiskey and cigarettes on Nick’s breath.
“No.” says Thomas.
Nick makes a hard nod to Carmine who pushes Thomas by the neck to the edge of the bridge. He sticks the gun under Thomas’s chin and pulls the trigger. The shot cracks the air, and the heavy man hits the water.
“We will dump the gun up the road,” Nick says to Bruno.
They get in the car and it roars out into the night air.