The Bridge: A Novel

by Solomon Jones

  It was Jocelyn, after all, who had dragged him, kicking and screaming, from his shell during his sophomore year at Penn. It was Jocelyn who had showed him who he was.

  They’d met during an annual campus screening of black independent film. He’d come alone, and sat in the far corner of the lecture hall, hoping to avoid those conversations that invariably came down to background.

  He often found himself deflecting questions, changing subjects, hoping to hide where he’d come from. He hadn’t learned to celebrate who he was because he’d spent too much of his life trying to rise above it.

  That night, as the lights went down in the lecture hall, the first film—an intense short that examined the lives of Africans on a slave ship—shocked most of the audience into silence.

  Lynch was silent, too. Not because he was shocked, but because he’d learned that even among his own, it was frowned upon to be too black in the Ivy League. So he never laughed too loud, or smiled too broadly. And when everyone else was silent, he went along with the crowd, holding back who he was for the benefit of the whole.

  Jocelyn had no such reservations. She was high-yellow with waist-length dreadlocked hair. She wore African garb that flowed with the perpetual breeze that cooled the tree-lined campus. She laughed loud, hard, and often. And silence just wasn’t her style.

  She came to the screening late, made an entrance that drew stares from the bourgeois students she loathed, and sat next to Lynch in the corner. When the first short was over, and she’d observed their staid reaction to the stark realities of slavery, she shook her head sadly.

  “Most of these folks come from those same people on those ships,” she said, loud enough for some of them to hear. “And yet they come to a little Ivy League university and they feel like they’ve arrived.”

  Lynch had remained silent. He hadn’t even looked at her. But from the moment she spoke, he loved her. Not romantically. That would come later. He loved her for giving voice to what he’d always felt, but never had the courage to share. He loved her because she was the only genuine person he’d encountered since moving from the Bridge to the campus.

  After the screening, he mustered the courage to ask her to a coffee shop. She accepted. They talked for hours. Or rather, he talked. She just listened.

  He told her about his grandmother, and how she’d raised him with harsh words and heavy sticks that forced him into manhood. He told her about the public tongue-lashings and private beatings that took that manhood away.

  He told her of the time she’d burned him with a hot iron because he hadn’t finished pressing his clothes. He told her of the weekend he’d spent locked in a closet for refusing to finish a bowl of cereal, and the night he’d spent in the hallway for missing his nine o’clock curfew. He told her of the beatings with extension cords and walking sticks, and showed her the scars he’d hidden for years.

  He told her about it all. And when he’d laughed and cried, remembering the woman who’d abused him into surviving the Bridge, he shared the biggest secret of them all.

  He told her that his grandmother had been dead for three days. The funeral was the next day, and he was thinking of staying away.

  Jocelyn looked at him with eyes the color of honey, and she wrapped both his hands in hers.

  “You can’t stay away from that funeral,” she said. “So I’m going with you, Kevin Lynch. I’m going with you to celebrate the woman who loved you enough to protect you.”

  “I wouldn’t call scarring me for life protection.”

  “Scarring?” she said incredulously. “She might’ve been rough on you, but you’re nineteen years old, and you’ve got friends who are dead. You’re alive. But not only that, you’re at Penn, getting the kind of education most people just dream about. You’re not scarred. You’re blessed.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t care if there’s not another soul at that funeral. You’re going, and I’m coming with you, because without Miss Eunice Lynch, you wouldn’t even be here. And we would all be a little bit poorer.”

  They married a year before Lynch graduated with a degree in criminal justice. They had one daughter, Melanie, and were devastated by the loss of their second child, who was conceived six years after the first.

  When Jocelyn lost the baby, everything, including their sexual intimacy, was nearly destroyed. It was like they were physically and emotionally absent from one another.

  Lynch was at once angry and saddened, deprived and desperate because his marriage was falling apart. So he chased Sonny more relentlessly, remembered his childhood with more pain, hated Daneen more intensely, and wanted her a little more. But within the lies that his emotions told, there was this reality: He wanted his wife to love him the way she used to.

  Somewhere beneath the pain of their lost child, she did. And as he barged into the hospital, past the uniformed guard who asked him to sign in, Kevin Lynch was propelled by that love.

  “Where’s my wife?” he said to a doctor standing next to a curtained-off cubicle.

  “What’s her name?” the doctor said.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the guard said, coming in behind him. “You have to wait outside. You can’t come in here until you sign in.”

  “My wife is supposed to be in surgery right now,” he said. “I want to know where she is.”

  “Sir—”

  “It’s all right,” the doctor told the guard. “I can show the gentleman to his wife.”

  The guard left. Lynch gave the doctor her name, and a few minutes later, he was with her in a room in intensive care, holding her hand and fingering her dreadlocks as he gazed into her drowsy eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I am now,” she said, smiling as her sedative took effect.

  “How did the surgery go?”

  “I didn’t need surgery,” she said slowly. “I did have some bleeding, though. They think it’s residual effects from the baby. They’re going to keep me overnight for observation and run some tests. Mom’s got Melanie at the house.”

  “So you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, baby. I’ve just been lying here thinking about you. Seems like I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “I didn’t think you noticed,” he said despondently.

  She closed her eyes and licked her lips, then opened them and studied his face, trying to remember how his mouth looked when he laughed. She hadn’t seen him laugh since they’d lost the baby. She missed that.

  “You must have the patience of Job,” she said. “I know it must be hard living with someone who blames everybody for something that nobody can control.”

  “I don’t know that I’m all that patient,” he said soberly. “I guess I’m just learning to wait. You do that when you don’t have a choice.

  “And the way I see it,” he said, playfully pulling at her hair, “I don’t have a choice, because I love you.”

  She closed her eyes and smiled as he reached down and kissed her forehead.

  “I saw the news today, Kevin. They said you were suspended. When were you going to tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry, Jocelyn. And I still don’t. We’ve got some money saved up, and this thing’ll go to an arbitrator in a few months. In the meantime, we’ll survive.”

  “Are you sure? Because I can—”

  “We’ll survive,” he said firmly. “I’m sure.”

  She was quiet because she knew that he would take care of things financially. It wasn’t the suspension that worried her. But something did, and Kevin knew it.

  He sat back and waited for her to tell him what it was. He didn’t have to wait for long.

  “I saw the interview with Jim Wright,” she said, avoiding his eyes as she spoke. “That woman looks like she’s heartbroken over her daughter.”

  “She reminds me of you,” he said gently. “She wants to do something to bring her baby back. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

  “Kevin,” she said, suddenly staring up
at him, “why are you still working on this case when you’ve been suspended?”

  He fingered her hair for a few minutes more.

  “I’m working on it because Kenya was my friend Tyrone’s daughter. At least he thought she was.”

  “Are you sure that’s the only reason?” she asked worriedly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I saw the end of the interview on Channel 10. I saw the way she leaned on you when she started crying. I saw the way you held her. That’s not your job, Kevin. So I’m going to ask you, and I want you to tell me the truth. Do you feel something for her?”

  Lynch touched his wife’s face and kissed her hands.

  “You’re my wife, Jocelyn. I feel something for you. And even though we’re going through a rough spot right now, I still only feel for you.”

  “But Kevin—”

  He kissed her and she responded, placing her hand on his face. The kiss was tender, reassuring, gentle.

  “Get some rest, Jocelyn. And trust me. I need you to trust me.”

  A few minutes later, when Lynch left the hospital to head back to North Philly, he knew that his wife would do that.

  He just wondered if he trusted himself.

  Sonny drove to Center City and jumped from the car with its engine running, smiling at the irony as he left it in front of the offices of the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

  He knew he didn’t have long to make his move, but with darkness descending over the city, he had more of a chance than he would have had in daylight.

  So he walked up tiny Filbert Street to the Greyhound bus station, where taxis stood ready at the curb, then waved at the first one he saw. Before the cab could pull out, another cabbie shot in front of it from the other side of the street.

  A man jumped out of the first cab, speaking in Swahili as he berated the Hindu cab driver who’d cut him off. Horns sounded as traffic backed up. The cab drivers continued to argue. It looked like they might come to blows.

  A police officer came out of the bus station and walked up to the cab drivers.

  “Both of you move your cars now.”

  “He tried to cut me off from my fare,” the African said.

  “I didn’t,” the Hindu driver said. “He’s lying.”

  “Where’s the fare?” the cop said. “Show him to me.”

  “He’s right over …”

  The African looked around for Sonny, pointing to the spot where he’d stood just seconds before. But he was gone.

  Walking around the corner to Center City’s busiest thoroughfare—Market Street—Sonny hoped that the beat cop hadn’t seen him and that the police car that was approaching him from behind would pass by.

  When the car drew near to him, he put down the backpack and reached down as if he was tying his shoe. It passed, and he picked the bag up, walking as quickly as he could without running.

  When he reached Market Street, there were cars everywhere. Too many cars for a Sunday, he thought. And in Sonny’s paranoid mind, all of them were undercover police.

  He sat down in a bus shelter and hunched over as he watched for cabs. He saw everything but. Buses passed by him. So did cars, bicycles, and pedestrians.

  All of them seemed to look at him as if they knew who he was. He sank down even lower in his seat, telling himself that he was imagining things.

  When he finally saw a cab, he stood to flag it down, and the cabbie pretended not to see him.

  “Racist bastard,” Sonny muttered, returning to his seat in the bus shelter.

  Another cab approached from the opposite direction. Sonny took out a twenty-dollar bill and waved it. The cabbie made a U-turn and screeched to a halt in front of him.

  Sonny opened the door, threw his backpack in the backseat and got in. Before the cab could pull off, however, a police car approached with dome lights flashing. Sonny reached into his waistband and put his hand on the butt of his gun as the police car pulled alongside the cab.

  The cabbie rolled down his window. “Yes, Officer.”

  “There’s no U-turns here,” the cop said. “Next time, go around.”

  “Sorry, Officer,” the driver said.

  The cop nodded and drove away. Sonny released his grip on the gun. The driver looked in the rearview mirror.

  “Where to, buddy?”

  “How much would you charge me to drive me down to Bear, Delaware?”

  “That’s an hour drive,” the cabbie said. “I’d have to get the money up front. And it’d have to cover my cost there and back.”

  “I’ll give you $400,” Sonny said, peeling off four crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  “You sure about that, buddy?” the driver said, taking the money and placing it in his shirt pocket. “I was only gonna charge you $350.”

  “You drive the speed limit and let me get a nap on the way down, I’ll pay you another hundred when we get there.”

  “You got it,” the driver said, pulling off and heading in the direction of I-95.

  As he did so, Sonny sat back and thought of the whirlwind of the past few days. He thought of Judy and Daneen, Lily and Darnell. And even as the motion of the car lulled him to sleep, his last waking moments were filled with the little girl he’d loved as his own.

  Darnell’s head was swimming with memories of his childhood, visions of his future, shadows of his past, all mingled together like a vivid, unending nightmare.

  It was a nightmare he could no longer endure. So he sat on the floor, wondering how he would get his next high. Wondering how he would forget everything that had happened in the past two days. He sat there, wanting crack so badly that his empty stomach flipped at the thought.

  One way or another, he was going to feed that hunger. And then, somehow, he was going to forget what had happened to Kenya.

  He fingered the two dollars that Daneen had given him. He thought of the things Daneen had said to him, and the things she’d done over the years, and he realized, at that moment, that he resented her.

  He disliked the way she spoke down to him, as if her newfound sobriety made her better. He hated the way she insulted him when he asked her for money. But more than that, he hated himself for having to do so.

  He sat there, remembering the way Daneen had always treated Kenya, and he was saddened. He remembered how Daneen had cast her daughter aside when she was clean, and the way she had beaten her when she was high. He remembered how Daneen would always act as if she was sorry about it all.

  But none of that mattered now. Kenya was gone. And in Darnell’s mind, it was Daneen’s fault. He didn’t want to have to deal with that reality. The less he had to think about it, the better off he would be. So he hoisted himself off Judy’s floor, intent on hustling up enough money to get high.

  Before he could make it out the door, however, someone knocked.

  Darnell looked up and thanked God for the visitor he believed to be his girlfriend, Renee. She must have come to her senses and returned to apologize, he reasoned. Maybe she even had some crack.

  He snatched the door open with a grin that quickly faded when he realized that it wasn’t her.

  “Judy got somethin’?” the visitor asked in a slow Southern drawl.

  Darnell looked at the old man they called Monk, with his gray hair and hunched back, standing at the door looking desperate.

  He wondered why Monk kept coming back to Judy’s apartment. Each time he came there, he was victimized. And the last time Darnell had seen him was no different.

  Monk had paid Judy five dollars to go into the bedroom with a woman on Friday night, shortly before Kenya had left the apartment to go to the store. As always, the woman emerged from the room first. Monk came out a few minutes later, his face etched in crack-induced confusion. It was a look that soon disintegrated into anger, because Monk knew that the woman had picked most of his Social Security money from his pockets. She hadn’t even given him the sex she had promised in return.

  But in spite of what had happened to hi
m on Friday, here was Monk again, standing at Judy’s door, waiting for more of the same. As bad as Darnell knew his own addiction to be, he believed that Monk’s was worse. Because a man so old shouldn’t want to be abused that way.

  “You ain’t hear Judy got popped?” Darnell asked.

  “I been sleep,” Monk said. “I can’t stay up two and three days like y’all. I needs my rest.”

  “You could get your rest if you stop comin’ in here smokin’ that shit and take your crusty ass down the Senior Center somewhere.”

  “Ain’t enough goin’ on down there for me,” Monk said with a mischievous grin.

  “Well, Judy ain’t here,” Darnell said as he started out the door. “Ain’t nothin’ happenin’.”

  “Why don’t you stay here and smoke this reefer with me then?” Monk said, pulling out a Phillie Blunt filled with marijuana. “I be done keeled over tryin’ to smoke this by myself.”

  Darnell smiled. There was something about Monk that always made him smile.

  “Come on in here, Old Head.”

  Darnell closed the door and sat on the floor as the old man sat in Judy’s chair, watching him.

  “Can’t sit on that floor,” he said, grinning as he took a toke. “Time I bend down that far, I won’t be able to get back up again.”

  He coughed, then sat back in the chair and handed the blunt to Darnell, who took a puff and handed it back.

  “You heard Kenya missin’, right?” Darnell asked.

  Monk, who was preparing to take another toke, stopped with the blunt halfway to his mouth. His eyes filled with a momentary grief, then he held it to his lips and inhaled.

  “I seen Kenya Friday night after I left outta here,” he said.

  “Where you see her at?” Darnell asked quickly.

  “I was walkin’ down the street out front, lookin’ for that girl who got me for my money,” he said, passing the joint back to Darnell before continuing.

  “Don’t ask me what I was gon’ do to her, ’cause I don’t know my damn self. But by the time I figured I needed to come on back inside and go to bed, it was after ten. I came on up to the fifth floor and tried to go to sleep. But with them knuckleheads down the hall playin’ that music all loud, I couldn’t, so I came out. I was gon’ try to go on back downstairs and look for the girl again.”