Harry was wrong; Clifford liked girls. Nights he prowled the neighborhood bars in a relentless search for pussy. Like Cinderella, Clifford now had to cut things short to punch in before midnight. Not many ships went by during his shift, and, half drunk, he often slept on a coffee-stained futon when things were slow, which was almost always.

The two retractable leaves of the bridge opened like the jaws of a crocodile and could clamp down with surprising speed. With the push of a red button it was up or down, up or down. It was Clifford’s bad luck to come in drunk on a night when traffic was brisk. Up, down, up, down, until he was ready to die. As the booze wore off, the familiar black cloud draped over Clifford’s brain. He was worthless. Go out drinking? Never again!

He felt better after the first month on the job. One night when things were especially slow he picked up How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book was a blueprint for moral renovation. Clifford bought a fresh copy and pressed it on Winston with the fervor of a street-corner evangelist. His buddy backed away. Clifford was coming on like some sort of twelve-step freak working his program. Who wanted to hear that crap? Clifford accepted this without resentment. His old life was shed like a snake’s skin.

Back at the bridge house, Clifford set to work like a human tornado. He cleaned the windows with old terry-cloth towels and Windex. They were covered in pigeon shit, and it took all night. Next he hauled out the floor scrubber and removed what seemed like fifty coats of wax from the floors. He put down new wax and buffed it to a diamond-hard shine. After tearing off aged pinups, he painted the walls powder blue. The day man, Cotton McCormick, was not happy. The next day he came tramping on the fresh wax with his galoshes. He carried a bag filled with replacement centerfolds and tacked them to the walls.

Clifford cleaned the refrigerator, an old-timer with the motor on the top. It was filled with rancid food and warmer than a swamp cooler. Clifford dumped everything, including a partially eaten tin of sardines. He took a screwdriver and attacked the glacier of ice in the freezer like a Gila woodpecker. Near the back Clifford discovered a Hungry Man meat loaf dinner, two Nutty Buddies, and a frozen rabbit. He pitched the lot into the river, then scrubbed the fridge interior with Mr. Clean. When he plugged the fridge in again the temperature dropped to forty degrees in the space of two hours.