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“Is that how you always cross bridges?”
“It’s how I prefer to cross them.”
“But what if you’re by yourself?”
“I try not to be by myself.”
“But if you are?”
“If I am, I hold my breath and keep going. But then I have to pull off the road for a while.”
“Why do you pull off the road?”
“To throw up.”
I took that in. Then I asked, “Why are you afraid of bridges?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“No.”
“Then let’s just say that America’s infrastructure isn’t nearly as sturdy as we’d all like to think. And leave it at that.”
WE NEVER DIDfinish the questions.
When we got close to the Brazos bridge, Jack really did pull over on the shoulder just before the bridge, get out of the Range Rover, and walk across on foot.
I did my part and drove to meet him on the other side.
I waited for him, leaning against the bumper of his car, rocking from the blasts of 18-wheelers zooming by, watching the tension in his face and the focus of his eyes as he made a straight line from one shore to the other.
Wow. How many people have driven past a random pedestrian walking across a highway bridge, never realizing it was megastar Jack Stapleton?
When he reached me, his face was pale and there was sweat on his forehead. “You weren’t joking,” I said.
“I never joke about bridges.”
He got back in the driver’s seat and rolled down the windows, and, with that, he shifted back into character as a relaxed, carefree guy who had it all.
“You’ve asked me a lot of questions today,” Jack said then. “I haven’t asked you even one.”
“And we should keep it that way.”
“I can’t ask you questions?”
“You can ask…” I said with a little I-don’t-make-the-rules shrug.
But the question he asked wasn’t what I was expecting.
He turned and looked me up and down. “Have you done any acting?”
Given where we were headed at that very moment and the collaboration I’d just signed up for, this was one I probably needed to answer.
A first.
I thought about it. “I’ve portrayed a few barnyard animals in a few Christmas pageants.”
“So that’s a full no.”
