The Bridge (21 page)
Authors: Solomon Jones
“I think you do know,” she said softly. “I used to see the way you stared at me back in the day when you thought I wasn't lookin', Kevin. Even after we stopped bein' friends, and I would see you in the street. You would go your way, and I would go mine. But I could still feel your eyes all over me.”
Lynch continued to gaze out the window. He didn't say anything, because he knew she was right.
“I used to wonder when you was gon' say somethin', Kevin. I used to wait for you to try to talk to me. In a way, I guess I wanted you to, 'cause you was different. You had went to that private school and talked all proper and shit.”
They both smiled at that.
“But you wasn't no punk, either,” Daneen said. “You knew how to hold yours. Lookin' back now, you was the kind o' boy we all shoulda wanted. But I guess we ain't know no better.”
Lynch sat quietly, recalling his youth with Eunice Lynch, the woman he'd called Grandmother. He remembered the way she controlled him from the time she'd become his foster mother. He remembered the vicious beatings that she would administer for violations of her strict rules. He remembered that, as he got older, she warned him to stay away from Daneen. He remembered, most importantly, that he listened.
He sighed as the memories came back to him. And with the return of those memories, the hostility he'd been harboring for years seemed to lessen. It didn't disappear, however. It only changed shape.
“I guess it didn't matter what either of us wanted,” he said wistfully.
“Like my grandmom used to tell me: Everything that look good to you ain't good for you.
“Like my grandmom used to tell me: Everything that look good to you ain't good for you.
“That's what I used to think of when I would look at you. I would see the little girl who made me feel welcome when I came here. I would see the one person who played with me and didn't make me feel like an outcast. And when I saw you growing older, it hurt me to see what your life was turning into.”
“So whv didn't you ever say anything to me?”
“I did, Daneen. I said what I had to say, and you ignored me. I talked, and you kept right on doing what you were doing. I wanted to come to you. I wanted to grab you by the hand and take you with me, take you to something more than what you were heading to. But then after I heard you let the guys from Poplar Street pull a trainâ”
“That was a lie, Kevin. That never happened. Them niggas on Poplar Street couldn't get nowhere near me. And when I kept tellin' 'em no, they started goin' around makin' up these lies about me. I knew people was gon' believe what they wanted to believe, so I just ignored it. Wasn't nothin' I could do to change nobody mind, anyway.”
“So why didn't you tell me that?”
“Would it have made a difference, Kevin? You already had your mind made up about me, and so did your grandmother. I guess, lookin' back, I can't blame her for tellin' you to stay away from me.”
Lynch looked at her, then looked past her, back to the time when, as a teenage boy, he'd tried to stand up to Miss Eunice for the one person in the Bridge who mattered to himâDaneen.
It was a Saturday, around six o'clock, on one of the hot summer nights when the projects seemed poised to bubble over into something dangerous.
Kevin was fourteen and he wanted to go to a house party that night, in the first-floor apartment where redboned twin sisters lived with a young mother who was almost as fine as they were.
He'd already finished the list of chores he had to do every Saturday morning, and he had promised Daneen that he would meet
her there. The only thing left to do was to get past Grandmom. And that wouldn't be easy to do.
her there. The only thing left to do was to get past Grandmom. And that wouldn't be easy to do.
He was in the bathroom peeling Ms. Eunice's old knee-high stocking off his head. And just as he was preparing to melt another layer of Royal Crown grease into his hair with a hot washcloth before brushing over his waves with a soft-bristled brush, she walked past and spotted him.
“Where are you going?” Ms. Eunice said, stopping-at the bathroom door wearing the flower-print housecoat that hung like a tent over her considerable girth.
“Remember I asked you about that party downstairs? You said if I finished all my chores I could go.”
“Yes, I remember saying that,” Ms. Eunice said, watching him with shining eyes set in smooth, reddish brown skin.
He looked in the mirror, slowly brushing his hair, and studied her reflection as she stood in the doorway behind him. He could tell that she was turning the thought of the party over in her mind, because her eyeballs were pointed toward the silver-gray hair that extended back from her forehead in long, silky strands.
“Who's going to be at this party?” she asked.
“Heads, Eric, Shawn, Steve, and Tyrone, probably Benny and Robby.”
“No,” she said, folding her arms and exposing the jiggling fat underneath them. “Turn around, look at me and tell me who's going to be at this party.”
He complied, trying not to show his exasperation. “Heads, Ericâ”
“I heard that part already. Tell me what girls are going to be there.”
“The twins, Freda, Gail, Crystal, Tonya, Roberta. You know, just some girls from the building.”
“What about Daneen?” she asked, cutting straight to the point. “Is Daneen going to be there?”
Kevin considered lying. He knew he only had a second's hesitation before she would scrap the idea and tell him no.
“She might,” he said, studying his freshly washed Jack Purcell sneakers in an effort to look nonchalant.
“Then you can't go,” she said, turning and walking toward her bedroom.
Kevin felt his face grow hot with anger. He'd always listened to her before. But this time, after he'd worked so hardâafter she'd already told him yesâhe couldn't let it go.
“Why can't I go to the party?” he said, following her into her bedroom.
She was reaching down into the space next to her bed as he spoke.
“What did you say?” she asked with her back to him.
“I said, âWhy can't I go?'” he repeated, already regretting that he'd questioned her.
She turned around wielding a walking stick, pointing it at his head and walking toward him as he backed slowly out of the bedroom.
“Let me tell you something, boy,” she said, reveling in the fear that swept over his face as she waved the stick.
“I didn't raise you all these years, make sure you did well in school, wash your clothes, take care of you, just to watch you throw it all away over some whore from these projects.”
“Grandmom, I just wanted to go to the party,” he said, his eyes filling with tears.
She ignored him. “I figured when you got big enough, you would try something like this. But boy, don't ever try to test me. Not for Daneen or for anybody else. Because I told you once, and I'll tell you again. That girl Daneen is trouble. She smokes marijuana, and I've smelled alcohol on her more than once. She's having sex, too. I can see it in the way she walks. And I'll be damned if you're going to go messing with that girl and come back here talking about she's having your baby.”
“We're just friends, Grandmom. I wasn't trying toâ”
“Shut up,” she said, backing him against a wall in the hallway. “I see how you look at her, Kevin. Don't tell me what you're not trying to do.
All that playing together was fine when you were kids. But that's over now. So don't ever let me catch you with that girl again. Because if I do, I swear, as God is my witness, I'll kill you myself, just to save you the trouble of spending your life tied to somebody like that.”
All that playing together was fine when you were kids. But that's over now. So don't ever let me catch you with that girl again. Because if I do, I swear, as God is my witness, I'll kill you myself, just to save you the trouble of spending your life tied to somebody like that.”
She held the stick aloft for a few minutes more, searching his eyes for any remaining signs of rebellion. Then, suddenly, she swung the stick with all her might, striking his skull and splitting open his skin. He screamed out in pain, and she sent him to his bedroom. He remained there for the rest of that weekend, licking his wounds and trying to purge himself of the girl who'd stolen his heart.
“Kevin,” Daneen said, dragging him back to the present.
He looked at her, sitting just two feet away, and realized that he still hadn't managed to get her out of his system. Though their lives had gone in completely opposite directions, they had come together again for Kenya.
And as the two of them sat in his car, trying to work through the emotions that had always been there, Lynch fingered the scar that he still bore on top of his shaved headâa reminder of his grandmother's disapproval of Daneen. He knew that he might never truly purge himself of her. And that, more than anything else, frightened him.
“Kevin, I wanna ask you somethin',” she said in a whisper.
He looked at her and felt the lost years pulling at him, even as the thought of his wife and child lingered in the back of his mind. He looked at her, and they were both teenagers again, with a world of endless possibilities in front of them. He looked at her, and she spoke his very thoughts.
“I need to know what it coulda been like if things was a little bit different,” she said, leaning toward him.
He looked down at her hand, which was still holding his, and then at her lips moving toward his. The answer to her question spun through his mind like a flash of light. It was a picture of them wrapped around one another in the steamy heat of a long-ago summer. He tried to see if there was anything after that.
Then his cell phone rang.
Daneen jumped back. Lynch reached into his pocket for the phone, knowing that he wanted her as much as she did him.
“Hello?” he said, answering the phone.
The blood rushed from his face as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line.
“I'll be right there,” he said.
“What is it?” Daneen asked.
“It's my wife,” he said, reaching over to open her door. “She's at the hospital. I have to go.”
As Daneen stood at the curb and watched him drive away, she knew that there was something to what they'd felt a few seconds before. She wondered if they would ever feel it again.
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The walls of the shooting gallery seemed to close in on them, even as Sonny lay next to Judy, watching the color of night play against her face.
She'd just fallen asleep, worn-out, no doubt from the stress of two days on the run. Sonny stayed awake on pure will, because he knew that he couldn't afford the luxury of rest.
He got up and looked out the window, watching the streets grow thick with the chaos of nightfall in the Badlands. The number of addictsâriding through in cars and walking up to dealers and hustling to get moreâseemed to grow with each passing minute. And so did Sonny's need to get out of the house. He couldn't stay there any longer. It just wasn't safe.
He slipped on the shirt and pants he'd gotten from the Dominican's house and tucked the gun into his waistband. Then he reached down for Judy, who lay on the mattress, half dressed.
He caressed her face, and at his touch, she brought her knees up to her chest.
Sonny was about to shake her awake, but stopped when he heard the sound of a creaking step. He was still for the next minute. When he heard nothing else, the hairs on his neck stood up, because a heroin shooting gallery shouldn't have been that quiet.
He reached for Judy again. But this time, it wasn't the sound of a step that stopped him. It was greed.
Sonny looked at the backpack at the foot of the bed and thought of the thousands of dollars inside it. The moment he decided that he needed the money more than he needed Judy, all hell broke loose.
A man burst through the door feetfirst, tumbling into Sonny as Judy came awake with a start. The force of the collision knocked both men against the wall, but Sonny recovered quickly. He snatched the gun from his waistband and in one smooth motion, brought it crashing down on the back of the man's hooded head, knocking his hunting knife to the floor.
A second hooded assailant was through the door before the first one fell, squeezing off three rounds that punched holes in the already crumbling wall. Sonny ducked. Judy dived to the floor and landed next to the first man.
As Sonny prepared to squeeze off a round, Judy came up from the floor with the hunting knife, slicing into the flesh between the second man's legs. He dropped his gun with a scream and fell to one knee. Sonny stood over him, kicking the gun away.
The first one got up and tried to attack, but Sonny turned quickly and fired. Blood and bone exploded from his head as the man fell back against the wall, and was still.
As Judy fastened her clothes, Sonny snatched the bag from the foot of the bed and dragged the one with the knife wound over to the wall, sitting him next to his dead partner.
He aimed the gun at his head, then reached down and snatched off his hood.
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