The Bridge

by Bill Konigsberg

  He jumps out of bed thinking, man, if this is what being undepressed is like, why didn’t he do this years ago? Jesus, he would have been the happiest person alive, because he feels like he could jump out of his skin, it all feels so electric.

  He has a lyric in his head. What about rap? He likes rap. Could he write a rap?

  I am who I am and that’s important, very

  What you think of me is secondary

  And he means it. He is done living his life the way others would have him live it. He’s spent enough of his days in some kind of mental prison and now his brain is out and his body, too, and—Do we have a bike? In the basement? He used to have a bike locked up down there.

  So he gets dressed—tight pink T-shirt because he can, and he looks in the mirror and sees his skinny frame and thinks: Am I a twink? Am I kind of hot? He giggles at the thought. All his life he’s thought he was ugly. All his life has been without that special someone, but not anymore. That crap is over, over!

  He takes the elevator downstairs, and no bike is familiar and he laughs because he should have asked his dad but his dad is asleep and—he scans the other bikes and, wait, is that one—when he gets closer he can see the actual lock is open so he snakes the coiled lock off the bike, hoists it up over the stall where it’s been resting, and wheels it out of the basement.

  He’s borrowing a bike. It happens to be a really nice one but let’s face it, I have expensive taste.

  Out on the early-morning streets, the sky is still mostly dark and Seventy-Eighth Street is quiet and he wonders if he’s all alone out here. Why doesn’t he always wake up this early and enjoy this perfect time of the day? The streets are devoid of moving cars, his heart is light and his skin is reborn, and he thinks: Zabar’s! Yes! Imagine his dad’s face when he comes home with bagels and lox and fresh-squeezed orange juice from Zabar’s, and that’s expensive but he should be able to—Where is that tray? The one Magda used to use when she ate on her bed in the back room? No idea. He’ll have to search when he gets home with the loot.

  Zabar’s is closed, though. The sign says they open at eight, and his watch says 5:41. He laughs, loud. Then louder. It’s really funny, if he thinks about it. Here he is, on a bike that technically isn’t his, and, oh yeah, he should have borrowed a helmet, too, but he forgot, and it’s two and a half hours before the store opens. That’s nearly a full sleep cycle. A decrepit-looking man in tattered jeans and a stocking cap that’s too small for his head walks by and says, “The heck is wrong with you?” and Aaron’s heart soars as he thinks about Seventy-Fourth Street and he yells back, “Good morning!” And then the guy stops like Aaron has just challenged him, and Aaron says, “No, no. I only have good thoughts in my head for you,” and he pulls out his wallet and he hands the guy his only twenty, and the guy just looks down at the money in his hand, and then he closes his fist, crinkling the cash, and he walks off, shaking his head, and Aaron thinks, This is how you change the world.

  And he could change the world, definitely. The depression has lifted—by a lot—and if he is going to feel like this all the time, he could create a new way of being in the world. He’ll talk to strangers and give people anything he has because, face it, Dad has money, he’s not going to miss it, and Dad will be so proud because he’s a giver, too, and he wants good things for the world, too, and now they can do it together, and for the moment maybe a turn around the loop in Central Park? Yes. A lap around the park on this beautiful bike, in this splendid morning air, while he figures out this brand-new plan for fixing the world, one communication at a time.

  Climbing the incline from 110th southbound on the west side as he’s finishing up his first lap, he hears his breathing, glances down at his pale, skinny arms and the pink shirt and thinks—I should work out. I should get strong. Inside match outside. He shouts “Yeah!” to the world around him. The few bikers ahead glance backward, a little fear in their eyes.

  A middle-aged lady in a yellow helmet, biking fast forward while looking back at him, yells, “Nice shirt!”

  “Thanks!” he yells back, and he starts pedaling as fast as he can to catch up to her. She’s faster, though, and he finds himself laughing about the fact that he can’t catch a middle-aged lady in a yellow helmet, and still all is good in the world. Great, really.

  He finds himself in front of Amir’s apartment building. Sometimes life is surprising, because this isn’t planned, but that makes it more romantic, more of a gesture, which Amir will surely appreciate.

  He’s not sure which apartment to buzz. He should have paid closer attention when Tillie did it. Momentarily he thinks: buzz them all. That cracks him up, the idea of all these people buzzing down like, “What? What do you want, strange person?” Then he thinks, text Tillie! But no, she’s not so okay with this—yet, she will be, but not yet—so no.

  So he stands out front, stares up the building—maybe twelve floors, maybe eight—and thinking of A Streetcar Named Desire and “STELLA!” he widens his arms and yells, “AMIR!”

  It feels so good to say the name. Names that start with a vowel are—oh! His! Ha!

  “AMIR! AMIR! AMIR!”

  A window opens on the third floor. A head pops out. A lady with a pasty face and raccoon eyes. “Shut the hell up, idiot!” she yells.

  “Sorry! Good day to you!”

  She gives him the finger, which hits him a little in the heart. Not so nice. Is he a little—no. This is a romantic gesture. People lose sleep for less important things.

  “AMIR! BE MINE!”

  Another window, on the fifth floor, and this head is most definitely Amir’s. Aaron’s too far away to see his expression, but he can see Amir raise a non-middle finger that Aaron takes to mean, “I’ll be right down,” and Aaron’s heart pounds because he’s put it out there, and this? This is progress. This is a boy who is realizing his dreams, who is becoming his best self, who is slaying demons left and right, and the world would be proud of him if it knew, and maybe it does know? It kind of feels like—fuck that. It absolutely feels like the world knows. Aaron is done with kind of. He’s done with sorry. He’s done with so many things. More lyrics come to him.

  So you don’t like what you see

  Well, blow me

  I don’t give a shit

  I don’t need you, homie

  You don’t own me

  I don’t care about you, care about me only

  Lonely? No more

  Only? Folklore

  Postwar

  Hold more

  Gettin’ in ground floor

  This thing is about to explode

  Like source code

  His heart is racing. Has there been an out gay white rapper? He’s never rapped but this thing that’s happening, it’s in his socks, it’s in his thighs, it’s in his groin, it’s real.

  Aaron leans his bike against a parked car and paces, his thoughts beautifully racing—Seventy-Fourth Street, Amir, Amir, rapper, Amir. He paces back and forth in front of the building’s lobby for several minutes, beginning to worry, beginning to think maybe he needs to call up again, but then Amir, in a pair of sweats and a stained yellow T-shirt he must have slept in, his hair pointy in spots, darts out into the street, grabs Aaron by the shoulder, and pulls him down the street.

  As he is pulled in almost a run, Aaron is thinking meet-cute. He is thinking of the perfect thing to say that will solidify—the thing they’ll tell their kids about this moment.

  He’s about to go with Fancy meeting you here when Amir turns to him, his face tight, his forehead creased, panic in his eyes.

  “What are you doing? What the hell is this?”

  “I love you! There, I said it. I actually love you. I couldn’t wait to tell you.”

  “What? What the—Aaron, right?”

  Aaron laughs. Amir doesn’t know his name? What the—Aaron nods, a lump growing in his throat, his mouth drying to desert level in a heartbeat.

  Amir goes on. “I don’t know you, but what you are doing is inappr
opriate, you hear me? My mother doesn’t even know I’m”—he looks down the street. They are alone—“gay, okay? You almost just outed me. You almost just ruined my life, you idiot.”

  Aaron feels his body do something he’s never felt before. Power off. Curl into itself.

  He turns and runs down the street. He speeds as fast as he’s ever run. He doesn’t stop at Fifth Avenue, and luckily only one car is coming and he pauses so he’s not hit, and he runs into the park at Seventy-Ninth Street and collapses under a tree.

  Tillie wakes up feeling ready to take on the world, too.

  This is the day. The day she’s ready to do it. Confront her dad. At her next therapy session, she’ll talk about it. She can do this. She can confront her last, biggest, saddest demon. Tell her dad—more like ask him. Why don’t you love me anymore? What did I do to make you drop me so completely?

  Her heart lurches and she closes her eyes. Damn. All the stuff about Molly and Amir hurt her a lot, but nothing compares to this one.

  How’s she going to—

  A text interrupts her. It’s from Amir.

  There’s no response.

  Her body feels shaken. Like attacked. All the good feeling about being ready to deal with her dad? It’s all gone. She doesn’t know what to do. Except—

  Her fingers could nearly break her phone she texts Aaron so hard.

  There’s no response. She groans. What’s happening, how did this happen, and what the hell can she do about it? She flops down on her bed and covers her body and face with a comforter.

  Her mom knocks on the door. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she says. How do you even explain something you don’t understand? At all?

  She walks into the kitchen to get a soda, because a root beer might help her think, might help her put this all together. Amir being pissed. Aaron being weird and doing—what? Why would he—

  Her dad walks into the kitchen in his blue sleeping shorts and an old gray T-shirt.

  She pauses in front of the refrigerator, takes a breath, and turns toward him. Suddenly her midsection is swimming in too much stuff, and she feels almost dizzy. Wrong time. But also right, because—it’s here. It’s happening.

  He opens a cabinet, takes out a protein bar, and stands there, at the counter, looking down at it, totally ignoring her existence.

  It’s so personal; it’s such an affront to her being. And she is so done with the silence. She won’t hit. She won’t yell. But she will end whatever this is. Right now.

  “Okay, so,” she says softly.

  He doesn’t look up.

  “Dad.”

  He slowly turns his head toward her. “Hey,” he says, as if nothing’s wrong, nothing’s been wrong. As if they have been talking all this time.

  “So can we just … talk? About whatever this is? I hate this,” she says.

  He tears open his protein bar and takes a big bite. “Sure,” he says, as if he’s all innocent, as if the thing he said never happened. As if he hasn’t been ignoring her.

  He tentatively sits down on a wooden stool at the kitchen table. She sits down at the other end, her heart pounding.

  “Why are you ignoring me?” she asks.

  “I’m not,” he says.

  “Dad.”

  “Not talking is not the same as—”

  “Dad. What is this? Seriously. You haven’t said a word to me since that fight.”

  He scratches his ear. “What, exactly, is it you’d have me say?”

  She feels like screaming at him, but she knows it won’t help. She just has to bridge this weird gap that’s formed between them. There used to be none. She has to just connect again. So she summons all the strength she can, and she says the delicate truth.

  “I feel like you don’t love me anymore. Like you did, and then you just sort of … I got to be too much for you or something, and it’s like I’m not even your daughter anymore. You have Britt and she’s easy, and I’m super hard to deal with, and it’s not worth it or whatever.”

  He doesn’t move a millimeter. Tears start to form in the corners of her eyes, and unlike usual, she doesn’t even try to mask it. Because this is true. It’s real, it’s true, and he needs to know it.

  “I love you so much, Daddy. I’m your girl, and I know I’m getting older but I still need you and that you don’t seem to want me around anymore … hurts my heart. So I’m sorry I’m so hard. But please, Daddy. Talk to me again.”

  She places her head in her hands and sobs. It all rushes out of her, and it feels terrible and also wonderful, because finally, finally she’s said it to him, and he knows. And he doesn’t move, he doesn’t come to her but also he doesn’t leave. He gives her space. Which is nice.

  She manages to look up at him and wipe her eyes. He’s looking at her with some sort of feeling she’s never seen—regret?—in his eyes. She wants to go hug him.

  “Tillie,” he says. “I’m …”

  “Just say it, Daddy. Please.”

  “I’m not good with emotion. I’m not good with weakness. And I don’t get why you … have this need to put your weakness out there.”

  It’s like a knife going through her stomach. The word. Weakness. He thinks she’s weak. He thinks she’s frail. And she’s all out there, in the open, and he’s just sitting there, like a man who can’t do anything.

  She hugs her arms around her chest, and she thinks, Oh my god. How did I not know this before?

  Her dad is unfixable. He is deficient in a peculiar way, and it’s never going to change. He’s the problem, not her, and it’s always going to feel like she’s lacking something essential, because she is.

  She is lacking a father who can be there for her in any real way.

  She stands up, at once trembling and totally clear, and she heads back to her bedroom, sodaless. He watches her as she leaves the kitchen like he’s watching a goddamn movie, and she just wishes he could say something to make it better, but of course he can’t, and she wishes she could fix him, but of course she can’t.

  She pauses at the kitchen door and glances back. The expression she makes at him is like a wince. She hopes it communicates everything to him. The understanding. The gulf between them.

  The wreckage.

  Aaron makes two realizations while his brain spins as he lies facedown under a tree.

  One is that he forgot the bike. Fuck.

  Two is that it’s all a lie.

  Shit. He doesn’t want to deal with—Amir had it right; he’s such an idiot. What’s wrong with him? What’s happening? His body feels zapped of energy, like he can’t move.

  His phone buzzes in his pocket. He can’t even. He’s done talking. Possibly forever. This level of embarrassment—what if people find out? Seventy-Fourth Street—what a joke. He’s such a fool. Worse, really. Something that doesn’t deserve to exist.

  He almost ruined Amir’s life. With his stupid idea. What was he thinking?

  His phone buzzes again. He reaches down into his pocket.

  It’s Tillie.

  Shit. Shit shit shit.

  Aaron starts to cry. He wants his mother. He’s not sure why. And maybe not his mother. Just a mother. Someone to wipe the slate clean and make it all better. Someone who will hug and hold him and not judge him.

  His hand shakes as he replies.

  Aaron dies a little inside. He feels parts of his body numbing, maybe permanently.

  Aaron turns off his phone and puts it away, perhaps for the last time.

  Tillie’s instinct is to walk out the door, unsure if she’ll ever come back. Her body feels like it could combust. She is so fucking done with people.

  She walks to the door and stops.

  Because she promised. And yeah. She’s feeling suddenly pretty … something. Unsafe.

  So she sighs deeply, turns around, and knocks on her mom’s door.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  Tillie bursts into tears. “No. Very not okay.”

  Talking to her mom hel
ps some. Not enough to feel okay, but enough to climb down from the figurative ledge, which is definitely where she was. She tells her about Aaron doing the one thing she asked him not to do. And about what her dad said about weakness, and they have a good cry together.

  “You’re the opposite of weak,” her mom says.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “No, you are. You’re very brave. You don’t know that yet, but you are.”

  Tillie leans her head against her mom and says, “Thanks.”

  “You promise me you’re okay? That you’re not going to hurt yourself?”

  “Not promising I won’t hurt someone else.”

  “Well, that’s not ideal, either. I have to say I’m shocked that Aaron would do that. That doesn’t sound like him at all. Should we call his dad?”

  “I don’t care what you do about Aaron, to be honest. I’m done with him. I’ll never trust him again.”

  Her mom hugs her tight. They’re sitting on the daybed in the corner of her parents’ bedroom. “I know this hurts, but forever is a long, long time.”

  “And Dad? That’s basically over. I’m not his daughter anymore. I can’t be.”

  Her mother sighs and strokes her hair. “Your father is very limited, I’m afraid. And that he’s hurting you? That isn’t okay with me. I don’t know how to fix it, but it’s not okay. And just so you know? Right now? If you made me choose? I choose you. No question.”

  Tillie hugs her mom tighter than she has in a long time. “Thanks, Mom.”

  It takes a lot to convince her mom that she’s okay to go take a walk. But the truth is she is. She just needs to clear her head, do some thinking.

  And when she walks down Fifth Avenue along the park, she does feel a little better. Angry still, for sure. Sad, too. But at least her mom knows, and that changes things, in a way.

  She’s thinking about Aaron as she passes Eighty-Sixth Street, her chin jittering with fury. It was like he’d stopped being himself. Suddenly his texts were bonkers, and he was so inappropriate at the diner, and—