Bunny Man's Bridge

by Ted Neill

  “I listen to the Oldies but Goodies station. It’s what my parents like,” Michael said.

  “Well, it’s time we diversified your interests,” Andre said, and slid an Outkast album into the stereo.

  Michael eyes got big. He looked scared at first, but it didn’t take long for him to start bobbing his head.

  “I like this!”

  Inez was sitting by the fireplace, warming her back. I was on the coffee table, facing her. Michael and Andre were on the floor in between while Brent practiced a few more card tricks before the rest of the partygoers arrived.

  “So, what do you guys do at college?” Michael asked.

  “Stress,” Inez said.

  “How about you, Andre?”

  “Well, a lot of my time is taken up with soccer practice.”

  Michael got a bit quiet, as if he didn’t know what to ask next, like he had hit the bottom of his list of questions. Then I realized, he had probably never been able to play sports. I cleared my throat and looked over to Brent.

  “Brent, what do you do at college?” I knew I could count on Brent for a laugh.

  “Eat, drink, and be merry!” Brent bellowed, and fell into his Monty Python and the Holy Grail imitation. Michael laughed, although he hadn’t seen the movie or heard of Monty Python. Brent was funny anyway. He was always funny, and having an audience who had never heard any of his jokes before offered him new possibilities. He sort of took over from there, and we just listened and laughed.

  Andre got up and went to the kitchen where he mixed a drink, occasionally responding when one was called for. He came out and sat with us. He had two mugs and handed one to Brent.

  “What’s that?” Michael asked.

  “Baileys and cream,” Brent said.

  “Baileys . . . is that alcohol?” Michael asked. I saw Inez touch her forehead and look down at her knees.

  “Ah, yes. Yes, it is, actually,” Andre said, looking at me. I could read his expression. He was afraid he had made a mistake, that Michael would rat us out to our parents for taking some alcohol.

  It didn’t help when Michael asked, “Are you all twenty-one?”

  Andre, Brent, and Inez just laughed. Inez got up to make her own drink.

  “Do you want a drink, Mike?” Inez asked. I wasn’t sure why she did that. It made Michael uncomfortable. He sort of curled into himself, his bent wrist pressing against his belly.

  “No,” he said. He shifted on his seat, his eyes moving towards the door. He probably wished he hadn’t come.

  “It’s all right, Mike. I don’t drink. We’ll keep these guys in line,” I said.

  Brent was rapping along with Outkast. Brent is white as white can get, so Andre found this funny and started rolling on the floor with laughter.

  “You know this song?” I asked Michael.

  “Nope.”

  “Put on the next track,” Inez said, sitting down with her own mug. “I’m sure he has heard it.” I got up and got some water for me and Michael. When I came back, I hit “skip” to move to the next song.

  “Why didn’t you bring me something, honey?” Brent said, holding out his empty hands.

  “Because you are a lazy fucker.”

  Michael thought this was really funny. I realized we all were showing off a little for him. The next song came on, and Inez got up and started to dance, holding her arms up over her head and moving her hips in a slow orbit. Her breasts pressed against her shirt, and her mouth opened just a little before she bit her lip and looked at me.

  I saw Michael’s eyes look at her, move down to Inez’s breasts and her thighs too. He wasn’t discreet about it. He probably didn’t know better. I got up and danced with Inez; she pressed her body against mine. I felt a little crazy for her just then. She had that effect on me and enjoyed it. When the song was over, we sat back down.

  Michael’s eyes were really big. He didn’t seem too shy any longer and straight out asked, “Have any of you actually done the deed? You know, had sex?”

  Inez’s sat up, then took a long sip of her drink.

  “Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘sex,’” Brent said.

  Michael didn’t know what to do with this information.

  “I’m waiting for marriage,” Andre said.

  “You fucking liar. We all know you are a total dog,” Inez laughed with mock indignation. “Should I start listing them all?”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer, instead she followed with a litany of girls from high school onward. Andre interrupted her after she had begun to enumerate his partners on her second hand.

  “Wait, we never had sex; it was only making out, you know, ‘outercourse.’”

  Michael seized on this. “What is that?”

  Andre started to explain, but I stopped him, scenarios of being yelled at by my parents for “corrupting” poor Michael already running through my head. “Andre and Inez are just joking, Michael. Right guys?”

  But I was too late. “So Andre has had sex?” Michael looked back and forth between us.

  Everyone was giggling now. I realized I was just making things worse. I sighed, “Yeah, Andre has. But a lot of people wait, Michael, and that’s okay.” I was proud that I had the opportunity to say this in front of Inez, to let her know that I was all right with this.

  Michael turned to Andre. “What does sex feel like?”

  Andre sipped his drink. I thought he would do a spit-take, but he was real composed and looked at the floor before turning back to Michael. He had that look a father might have before giving the talk.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, as if it could be explained, sort of like you could explain getting a vaccination or a root canal.

  Inez blurted out laughing so loudly and uncontrollably that she snorted. Then she ran into the kitchen with Brent. It pissed me off.

  The grownups started to arrive. Michael’s parents were some of the first. His mom was pretty, and his dad was stocky and had bushy hair like his son. They sat down on the sofa flanking Michael. They looked worried. He talked to them for a half hour while the rest of the guests came in with champagne and cakes in their hands. I didn’t know what Michael was saying and I was nervous.

  I was setting out more desserts on the kitchen table, along with red and green napkins left over from Christmas, when Michael’s dad came up and grabbed my shoulder.

  “Michael said he really had a good time with you guys. Thanks for being so nice to him.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “He says he’s a fan of some band named ‘Out There’ or something.”

  “That would be Outkast.”

  “Guess I’ll have to look them up.”

  “Yeah, that’s Outkast with a K.”

  “You mean instead of a C?”

  “Yeah, it’s sort of their . . . thing.”

  “All right, well, I’ll remember that. Outkast with a K.” He clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. “Thanks again. You all are good kids.”

  “Sure, anytime.”

  He grabbed a brownie and went and talked to my mother about her dessert dishes.

  Once the house was flooded with older people, Brent, Andre, and Inez went upstairs to the loft. Michael was listening to Mr. Connor’s hunting stories, which would keep him busy a while. When I came up to the loft, Brent asked me,

  “Dan, what does sex feel like?”

  Inez leaned on my shoulder and said, “Dan, have you done the deed?”

  They both broke down in giggles. I was glad that Andre spoke up. “Come on guys, weren’t you curious at that age?”

  “No,” Inez said.

  Of course, she wasn’t.

  At midnight, we all danced and sang Auld Lang Syne. All the men lined up to give Inez kisses on both cheeks, like they all had suddenly become Latin. I hugged Brent and Andre.

  “Happy New Year, lazy fucker.”

  “Happy holidays, you big douche.”

  When I saw Michael and
his parents leaving, I went to the door and slipped Michael the Outkast CD and winked at him. He stuffed it in his pocket and smiled. I helped him out to the car. He was asking me about Outkast the whole time. He wanted to know where he could find their CDs in the stores, how many albums they had, and so on. He used me to steady himself again as we walked across the ice and snow. Andre and Inez ran by us; they had been throwing snowballs at Brent, who was now retaliating.

  “Excuse us, Michael. Excuse us, Dan,” Inez said, dodging Brent’s attack. The three of them ran behind the house and disappeared. We could still hear them yelling. Michael was upset he wouldn’t have a chance to say good-bye to them. I was pissed they hadn’t said good-bye to him too. I told him I would tell them for him.

  His dad came up to me again once Michael was in the car and said, “Thanks again for being so nice to him. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends.”

  I felt a little bad just then, not just for Michael, but for his dad, who felt like he had to keep apologizing for his son. “Don’t mention it. Bring him by the next time you’re up here.”

  Inside, Inez came up to me. There were snowflakes in her hair. I watched them turn to water droplets as she leaned into me. She kissed my mouth. She tasted like Baileys and was a little tipsy.

  “Did you tell him what sex feels like?” she laughed.

  I pulled back a little bit. I wanted to say something, but then thought better and just said, “No, he just wanted to know a bit more about Outkast.”

  “Sure, he did,” Brent said, pouring himself another drink while my parents were not looking. “Inez, what was that word you called him, el tarado?”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Inez said and chased Brent out of the kitchen, laughing.

  Not long after that my parents went to bed. Brent, Andre and I finished off the champagne, but it was mostly me. I felt rotten. Inez was mad that I was drinking so much and went up to watch TV in the loft. She went to bed without saying goodnight. At two o’clock the guys and I were still up, talking about skiing accidents. Brent looked outside and could see the light from Inez’s room on the trees.

  “Her light is still on. She’s still awake man. If I were you, I would have been up there two hours ago.”

  I stayed on the couch. I didn’t move. I didn’t go. I didn’t want to be with her.

  5.

  Gunshot

  I was getting out of Lee’s jeep around ten at night when we heard the gunshot. Lee was the first guy I had dated seriously since I came to Tech. I had met him volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club. I remember when I first walked into the gym and saw him: a six-three white guy with a gaggle of black kids climbing on him. Even I was a little surprised that he asked me out, a black girl—a dark-skinned black girl with natural hair, at that—but I have to remind myself that it’s the twenty-first century. I guess I have some of my own internalized stuff to work out.

  Lee is tall, like I said. So my height was not an issue. He was not intimidated by a woman who is six-one and, well, I liked it. I could nuzzle in his arms and feel . . . girly.

  And he never asked me if I play basketball. I sort of liked that too.

  Lee was two years older than most college students our year. He had spent two years between high school and college as a student painter before he came to school. He had been real successful, eventually starting his own business. By then, it pretty much ran itself. He was studying history and economics. He talked about growing his business, or joining the Marines, or even about staying in school to be a professor, so he could write books and teach history. I knew that was an idea he was still getting his head around. He was the first in his family to go to college. He wasn’t used to thinking of himself as a scholar. But he could be. He was that smart.

  I called home and gushed to my mom about Lee. I called her a lot that first semester, nearly every day. She didn’t seem to mind that Lee was white, just that I was happy and that he treated me right.

  The shot had come from Lambeth, the grad student apartment complex next to mine. I stopped and froze when I heard it. Lee and I were both staring at one another, wondering, questioning ourselves if we had really heard what we just heard, and waiting—waiting for any sign or sound of another shot. Then somebody started screaming at the top of their lungs for help.

  “You’re an EMT,” Lee said. I am, it’s one of the ways I pay for school.

  “Yeah,”

  “Should we help?”

  I knew it would be a few minutes before an ambulance arrived and those minutes could be critical. There were no more gunshots, so it didn’t sound like an “active shooter” scenario.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Hold on, Melody. Let me get my gun out of the lock-box in back.”

  I stared him down. “Lee, you are so white sometimes.”

  “Really?” he asked. His confusion was sincere.

  “Take it from an EMT, and a black woman at that, more guns never makes it safer. Leave it.”

  “Okay, but let me go first.”

  “Sure.” I’d let him have that.

  I started to run towards Lambeth. I knew he would catch up. It never occurred to me what I was actually doing. Lambeth had a large courtyard in the middle. There was a guy in the middle sitting on a flower box, crying.

  “Did someone get shot?” I asked. He nodded his head. He was contorting his face as he rubbed his cheeks. I wondered if he was on something or just in shock.

  “Where are they? I’m an EMT. I can help them.”

  “He shot himself. I can’t fucking believe he shot himself.”

  He was drunk—at least. I could smell the beer on him. Lee touched my elbow and pointed to a door into a stairwell. A drunk girl in a tank top was hanging onto the railing while she tried to negotiate the steps. Just as we looked over, she started to weave, lost her balance, and tumbled face first with a flesh-on-cement slap. Her head hit the edge of the flower box, and her neck was at a sharp angle.

  We didn’t need more injuries.

  “Lee, call 911.”

  Lee pulled out his phone while I ran up to the girl. She was panting and sobbing, but her neck was intact. She was like a three-year-old, grabbing my clothes and moaning.

  “Mel, what’s the address here?” Lee asked from his phone.

  “It’s either 15 or 19 Maxwell Road.”

  He repeated that into the phone.

  “I’m going upstairs,” I said.

  “They say not to go inside,” he said, this as I was already headed up the stairs. He followed me. “Mel, wait up!”

  On the steps, people started staggering by me. They didn’t say anything. Their faces looked like they were escaping from a burning building. I heard people cursing and crying. The floor was littered with crushed beer cans and empty beer bottles. I walked by a few apartments; the doors were open. Each room looked the same, furniture covered with broken potato chips, discarded clothes on the floor, lamps without shades, beer bottles and kegs on their sides. It must have been quite a party. There was one couple on a couch still making out, both naked from the waist up. Our presence didn’t seem to disturb them. Most of the people were going in and out of one apartment at the end of the hall. I heard Lee relaying what he saw to the dispatcher on his phone.

  A tall brown-skinned guy was leaning against the doorframe. His name was Rupesh. I had seen him in my statistics class. His shirt was spattered with a spray of fresh blood. He was pulling his hair with a clenched fist and staring at the opposite doorframe. I had seen him before but had never talked to him. I don’t know if he had ever noticed me to recognize me.

  “Hey, Rupesh, are you injured?” I asked.

  He shook his head. Tears were running down his face.

  “Has someone been shot here?”

  He nodded his head. I was pretty sure he was on the verge of going into shock. He didn’t seem to recognize me.

  “I’m an EMT. I need to see him.”

  “You’re an EMT!” he said, snapping out of his
daze.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there an ambulance?”

  “There’s one coming. Where—”

  “He’s in the bathroom.”

  There was a crowd around the bathroom door. A lot of people were trying to call 911; the dispatcher was probably overwhelmed. One idiot was filming with his phone. Rupesh yelled out.

  “Get out of the way! She’s an EMT.”

  The people were not willing to move. They were like concert-goers defending their places in line. Lee muscled his way through with his elbow in the air, then pulled me behind him.

  The floor was covered in blood, not even a movie would have had so much blood—critics would have said it was gratuitous and unrealistic, but that was how much there was. There is a lot of blood in the human head. Most of the spectators were standing in the spreading pool and didn’t realize it.

  The victim was a white guy. He looked older, probably a grad student. He was shaking and convulsing; his tongue was lapping behind his lips, flicking spit on his lips and face. The gunshot was to his head. His hair was wet and sticky. The gun was on the sink. It was a revolver. Lee picked it up and thumbed the cylinder release.

  “He was playing Russian Roulette,” Rupesh said.

  “All the chambers were loaded . . .” Lee said, dropping the five bullets and one spent casing into his palm.

  Two guys in baseball caps were trying to hold the victim down. He was splashing and rolling in the blood. The two guys had no idea what they were doing.

  “Lee, get them out of here.”

  Lee grabbed them by the shirts and lead them to the door; they all were slipping on the floor. I watched Lee’s boot rise off the tiles, red trails sticking to the treads. There was not a bit of white left on the floor.

  “He’s losing so much blood,” some sorority girl said.

  No shit, Sherlock, I thought.

  I grabbed a towel from the rack next to the shower and wrapped it around his head.

  “Lee, is the ambulance here yet?”

  He went to the window and moved the curtains, which were splattered too.