PART 2 — THE BRIDGE
Old Mr. Whitmore lifted his cane off his lap and pulled a folded police accident report from his shirt pocket.
This past June, he said, I was driving over the Las Olas bridge when my foot slipped and my car crashed right through the gate as the span was opening. The road was lifting out from under me. In a few more seconds the car and I would have slid straight into the Intracoastal.
The man in the little booth saw it. He stopped the lift with seconds to spare, climbed down to my car, and pulled me out before it could go into the water. The report has his name on it. Michael.
The man Grant mocked for pushing one button for a living had stopped a rising drawbridge with seconds to spare and climbed down to pull his own father out of the car.
I have carried this report in my pocket since June, Mr. Whitmore said, waiting for the right moment. Then he looked at his son. Grant, every time you complain about waiting for that bridge, remember the man tending it is the reason you still have a father.
Grant, who owned a yacht brokerage, could not say a word.
Michael just set down the birthday knife and said he only did what the job is there for. But the old man tapped his cane twice and said the job is why he is alive.
My son holds up traffic, his son-in-law had joked. One June he stopped a bridge in midair and pulled your father out of a sinking car. That is the man in the booth.