Pop's Bridge

My pop is building the Golden Gate Bridge.

- Eve Bunting

Almost every day after school, Charlie Shu and I go to Fort Point and watch.

The bridge will stretch across the bay, from San Francisco to Marin. People said it was impossible. This bridge couldn’t be built. The bay is too deep, the currents too strong, the winds blowing in from the ocean too fierce.

But I know my pop can do it. Whenever I say he’s building the bridge, Mom laughs. “There’s a crew of more than a thousand men working on that bridge, Robert. Including Charlie’s dad,” she reminds me. I know that, but to me, it’s Pop’s bridge.

Pop’s a high-iron man, balancing on the slatted catwalks, spinning and bending the cables. He climbs so high that sometimes clouds come down around his shoulders. That’s why the high-iron men are called skywalkers.

Charlie’s dad is a painter. The painters work while the bridge is still being built. My pop says if it weren’t for them, the bridge would rust away, but I think he’s just saying that to be nice. The skywalkers have the most important job of all.

At Fort Point I look for Pop through the binoculars Mom lends me. The workers look alike in their overalls and hats, but I can always find my pop because of the red kerchief he ties at his throat. It’s our own scarlet signal.

I don’t worry much about him on days when the sun sparkles on the water. It’s so beautiful I can forget that it’s dangerous too.

But when the wind blows or the fog rolls in, my hands sweat on the binoculars. When I find my pop, I try not to look away, as though the force of my eyes can keep him from falling.