After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Red-winged blackbirds, flocks of them in the cattail marshes beside Sable Creek.

  I told Crow that I don’t have happy memories of this place, the trail out of Yarrow Lake that runs beside Sable Creek, the footbridge beside the railroad bridge where I panicked and couldn’t cross.

  Immediately Crow said, “That’s where we’re going then.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Yes, chérie. We will cross the bridge today.”

  “But…”

  I’ve told him about the Tappan Zee Bridge. What happened there, what I saw, or thought I saw, in the lane in front of my mother’s car.

  Crow shudders. As if bridges trouble him, too.

  Softly I say, “…can’t stop thinking I was meant to die there. With my mom.”

  These words come out so naturally. Though I have never heard them before.

  I expect Crow to challenge what I’ve said, the way an adult would. But Crow only shivers, as if a shadow has passed over him.

  “Lots of places I’ve felt that way.”

  There’s sadness in Crow’s voice, but something blunt and flat too. Meaning Don’t ask me. Not yet.

  Crow has been leading me along the trail, my hand in his. Supposedly, my eyes are shut. In this way I am trying to “see” what was on the Tappan Zee Bridge before the wreck. But I’m cheating. I can see a little, a blurry crescent through my eyelashes.

  The swift-running creek. Sunlight on the creek. On the other side, marshes. We’ve been walking for about ten minutes, Crow has left his motorcycle in a parking lot beside the trail.

  Somewhere along here Crow and I first met. When I was new to Yarrow Lake. When I was limping and wincing with pain because I’d tried to run when I wasn’t ready yet. Know what you look like? Somebody who’s been in a car crash.

  I don’t want to remember how I distrusted Crow then. How I was ready to scream, to run panicked, if he came too close.

  Now, Crow is holding my hand.

  His fingers are strong and warm, holding my hand.

  The bad memory is returning. I’ve forgotten how wide Sable Creek becomes at this point, joined by another creek flowing in the direction of Yarrow Lake. How ugly the old bridge is, defaced by graffiti.

  Crow sees that my eyes are open and chides me, “Hey, girl, you’re supposed to be trying to see.”

  Making a game of it. Crow makes games of what he can, failing isn’t so serious then.

  Bad memories returning. Signs posted along the trail.

  NO MOTORCYCLES.

  BICYCLES MUST BE WALKED.

  NO HORSES.

  CAUTION: TRAIN.

  “I’m afraid….”

  “So?”

  “I’m changing my mind, really I don’t want—”

  “Chérie, keep walking. Shut your eyes. We are headed for the bridge. We are going to cross it.”

  “Gabriel, I don’t think—”

  “‘Gabriel’? Who’s he? You think you know ‘Gabriel’?”

  Crow laughs. I’m not sure what the joke is.

  I remember sexy/glamorous Claudette calling him Gabriel. Teasing in a way that seemed cruel. And the look on Crow’s face, stricken and somber. A look I’ve never seen on Crow at any other time.

  I don’t dare ask Crow about Claudette. I’m summoning up my nerve to ask him about Trina.

  “Keep walking, chérie. Now, a little hill. I’m your guide. Seeing Eye dog, that’s Gabriel.”

  I’m beginning to be nervous. Through my half-shut eyes I can see the path up the hill, the pedestrian bridge about six feet above. Suddenly this doesn’t seem like a good idea, I wish that I’d never agreed to try it.

  “Jenna! Come on.”

  So Crow does know my name. When I’m not chérie.

  “We’re going to cross this bridge when we get to it. Not before and not after.”

  This makes me laugh, as Crow meant it to. Teasing and playful is Crow’s way of coping.

  But I’m afraid. I can’t keep my eyes shut, the footbridge is so close….

  “Last time you were here, and you couldn’t cross the bridge, what did you think would happen?”

  “I don’t know…. A train might come along?”

  “A train might come along, okay. And then?”

  “A train might come along when I was on the bridge. Before I could get across.”

  “And then?”

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Trains come along here all the time, don’t they? Obviously, on the track.”

  This is true. I guess I haven’t thought about it.

  “What is special about you, Jenna, that the footbridge would collapse because you were on it?”

  “I…don’t know. I’m just scared of bridges.”

  “The other bridge, the big bridge, you’re remembering. Not this little bridge.”

  Crow is gripping my hand tight. There’s an edge in his voice I heard when he spoke to his father. Suddenly we’re on the platform above the creek. It’s as narrow as I remember it. The wood is as old and rotted-looking as I remember. To our left is the elevated railroad track, about five feet above us. There’s the smell of wet wood, the frightening swoosh of water beneath our feet. In March and April, in the spring thaw and after torrential rains, Sable Creek is higher than I’ve ever seen it.

  Not a creek but a river. A furious river deep enough to drown in.

  Yet Crow is urging me forward. And I can’t.

  “Chérie, there is no train. I promise you. I can see in both directions: There is no train.”

  I don’t believe him. He isn’t even looking. He’s laughing at me, I’m such a child to him.

  I am a child, I will never grow up. I will never get beyond the bridge. I will never see what is on the bridge, and so I will never cross it.

  Crow says, “Let it pass through you, Jenna.”

  “Let what pass through?”

  “Fear.”

  “It doesn’t pass through—it sticks….”

  “Make yourself empty, like light. Let fear pass through. Don’t let it stick.”

  “I can’t….”

  “I make myself empty. It’s what I do, to cross over.”

  “You? Why?”

  “Every time I risk anything, on the motorcycle, in a place like this, with another person, I’m scared. Because I know things can go wrong, and I can be hurt.”

  I’m gripping Crow’s fingers tight. I can hear his voice quaver, as if the words are being pulled from him.

  “I know other people can be hurt. And I hate it.”

  “‘Hate’—what?”

  “What the world does to us. Some of us.”

  Crow sounds angry, disgusted. For a moment I’m frightened of him, the rage quivering in him.

  At first Crow isn’t going to continue. Then he says, in a low, tense voice, “My brother, Paul, died in an ugly accident when he was thirteen. I was a little kid, just ten. We were living in Maine then. It was before my mother left us—this is why my mother left us…. I adored my brother and followed him everywhere he’d let me. Paul and his friends. One day they were jumping and diving into an old stone quarry about a mile from our house, a quarry kids weren’t supposed to play in. The water was always cold, even in summer. And deep, except where there were submerged rocks. Paul thought he knew where it was safe to dive and where it wasn’t. So he dived from a cliff about twenty feet above the water, hit his head on the edge of a sharp rock, and…It was so fast, what happened. One minute Paul was calling to us from the cliff, the next he was in the water, under the water, not moving; it was like his body was broken, just rags. The other boys tried to swim to him, to help him. But they were just kids and panicked. They told me to run for help, and I ran, and ran, I was crying as I ran…. I couldn’t run fast enough.”

  Crow swipes at his eyes, his voice trails off.

  I tell Crow I’m so sorry. It must have been a nightmare….

  “It was. Is.”

  I’ve never heard any man speak l
ike Crow has spoken, with such raw anguish. Never seen any man swiping tears from his eyes, his face like something about to break into pieces.

  For a long moment we stand in silence. There is nothing that I can say that isn’t weak and banal. I am squeezing Crow’s fingers, as if to give him strength.

  Now Crow nudges me to come with him out onto the footbridge. I can’t bear to see the creek rushing so close beneath the rotted-looking planks, only a few inches below. “Stop looking! I told you.” Crow grips my head in his hands, with his thumbs gently shuts my eyes.

  “Stop thinking where you are now. Forget me. Just focus your eyes back onto the Tappan Zee Bridge. We won’t move from here. We will be very still. Until you see.”

  Though my eyes are shut, it feels like my eyelids are blinking, quivering. I can’t see anything. The noise of the creek rushing beneath my feet is like a roaring in my ears. I am becoming paralyzed with fear, can’t stop swallowing. The inside of my mouth feels coated with dust. Mom shifts lanes, we’re moving onto the Tappan Zee Bridge. It’s a familiar bridge, but very wide. And the Hudson River below, so wide. I’m distracted by something on the dashboard, trying to play a CD, but the disk keeps being rejected, Mom and I have been talking about something, can’t remember what, I’m in a sort of peevish mood, don’t know why, seems so often I was in this sort of mood not knowing why, and Mom trying to find out, wanting to know, wanting to make me feel better, I guess, but it felt like prying, Try me, Jenna, maybe I can help, but I don’t want Mom’s help, I am fifteen years old, for God’s sake, not a little kid, really pissed now the CD won’t play, and there is absolutely nothing wrong that I’ve done, pressing “eject” to try again, suddenly there’s something beyond the windshield, something directly in the lane in front of us, I can see it clearly: a bird with wide brown flapping wings? a hawk? a hawk with a darkish head, streaked breast and tail feathers looking dazed as if it has just struck the bridge railing? and I’m screaming for Mom not to hit the hawk, I’m groping for the steering wheel, not knowing what I’m doing, Mom pushes at me, Mom is braking the car, braking too hard, the car swerves, begins to skid toward the railing…

  Suddenly I see. More vividly than I’d seen at the time. More vividly than any dream. My eyes are shut tight, and Crow continues to grip my hands, I’m sobbing with relief: There was something on the bridge after all, I hadn’t imagined it, Mom must have seen it too, in that last panicked moment Mom would have understood.

  “It was a hawk, Gabriel! A hawk on the bridge.”

  “A hawk?”

  “It must have flown against the railing and was stunned, but managed to recover and fly away. I wanted to protect the hawk, I…pulled at the steering wheel—it was there—it really was there! My mother must have seen it too.”

  Crow holds me, lets me cry. Holds me tight and comforts me as you’d comfort a stricken child. The first time any boy has held me like this. Any man. I am crying as if my heart is broken, which I guess it is.

  “I should tell people, shouldn’t I? That I saw the hawk, and I pulled at the steering wheel, and it wasn’t Mom’s fault in any way….”

  “Hell, no.”

  “No—I shouldn’t?”

  Crow’s response is so quick and sure, I’m surprised.

  Crow leads me across the footbridge, holding my hand. I feel like a convalescent, learning again to walk. The bridge is still scary, water rushing so close beneath the crude-fitted planks, if I stopped to stare at it, I would become hypnotized, the fear would mount inside me, but Crow pulls me forward—“No train, see?”—no train and the bridge doesn’t collapse, and suddenly we’re safe on the other side.

  I’ve crossed the footbridge! I feel giddy, exhilarated.

  In a rush it comes to me: I can do anything now.

  This side of Sable Creek the wood-chip trail continues to Yarrow Lake a mile or two away, not visible through the marshy woods. There is nothing unusual about this side, the trail is virtually identical to the trail on the other side. Red-winged blackbirds calling to one another in the cattails, a V formation of Canada geese overhead. These are gunmetal-gray geese, not snow geese. Yet they fly in the same kind of formation, beautiful to observe.

  Flying north. Into the blue. Where?

  Crow says, “You know it’s spring, the geese are migrating north. S’posed to like a colder climate.”

  My eyes are filling with tears. There’s an incandescent look to the sun behind ribbons of cloud gauzy as curtains.

  “Hey, Jenna, don’t tell anyone about today. It’s our secret, see?”

  “About the hawk? But—if it’s true—”

  “Actually, you don’t know what’s ‘true.’ If there was a hawk, your mother saw it, so that’s cool. Let it go.”

  “But my father, he has accused Mom of—”

  “No. You were hurt in the crash, concussed. Your memory isn’t reliable. Like in a dream, your brain gets scrambled. See, I’ve had concussions too, more than once. In the hospital, on painkillers, your head gets messed up. People confess to things they never did, only dreamed. Terrible things that ruin their lives. Sure, you could try to change your father’s mind, but probably he will remember what suits him. That’s how people are. You know, and I know. That’s our secret. Like my papa. He saw terrible things in Vietnam, maybe he did terrible things, but he doesn’t lay that shit on people. He never will.”

  I’m stunned by this. I know that Crow must be right. But it’s so different from what somebody like Dr. Freer would say: She’d want to discuss the hurt hawk on the bridge, what my feelings were about it, whether I should tell people, etc., for months.

  “But—can people forget? It isn’t good, is it, to forget?”

  “Not talking about something doesn’t mean forgetting, Jenna. I will never forget my brother. Nobody in our family will forget Paul. But we don’t talk about him. Why’d we want to? He’s in our hearts. Like your mom is in your heart.”

  Crow checks his watch, he has to be getting back to town. He’s got work to do in the shop, deliveries to make. I see the green coiled snake just above his wrist, the dark wiry hairs of his forearm. I want to reach out, to touch the tattoo. There is something about it that repels me but fascinates me too.

  Crow recrosses the footbridge, taking long strides, like it’s no big deal, nothing to be afraid of; like he’s forgotten about me, my qualms. He doesn’t even glance back at me to see if I’m able to cross the bridge alone.

  Of course I can.

  “Gabriel, you saved my life.”

  “Who’s ‘Gabriel’? You saved your life.”

  I’ve run to catch up with Crow. Something giddy has come over me. I’m wiping my eyes, but I’m laughing.

  In the parking lot, Crow’s motorcycle is the only vehicle. From a distance it looks sleekly powerful; close up it isn’t new or shiny but speckled with rust. The sheepskin saddle is frayed and dirty; the black paint on the chassis is chipped. A sensation of faintness comes over me; I will be riding with Crow, behind Crow and with my arms around his waist.

  I think Crow has hypnotized me.

  I think Crow has given me back my life.

  How to make Crow know that I love him? I will never love anyone the way I love Crow.

  Seeing the expression in my face, Crow regards me with a look like he’d give little Roland clamoring to be picked up and held and fussed over. He’s smiling like he’s happy for me, happy that I am feeling better about myself, but he isn’t so happy beneath, maybe. (Now I see the bruised-blue melancholy in Crow’s eyes and in the shadowy indentations beneath his eyes like the deeper indentations beneath his father’s eyes.) Almost, Crow is annoyed with me. But trying not to show it.

  “You wouldn’t like me so much, Jenna, if you knew me.”

  But I do know you! I want to protest.

  “I don’t believe that….”

  “Ask your friend Trina.”

  This is mean. This is cruel teasing.

  “Trina isn’t my friend. No longer.”
<
br />   “I thought she was. You didn’t listen to me.”

  “I—I did listen to you. But you used to like Trina too. The two of you got tattoos together—”

  “She told you that?”

  “The snake. The green snake. There on your arm.”

  “This I’ve had for years. Trina went to the mall to get one last year.” Crow laughs as if I’m very naive. He’s putting the crash helmet on his head. I’m hurt at how he’s keeping his distance from me.

  “Jenna, I’m leaving Yarrow Lake after graduation.”

  “Leaving? But—”

  It’s as if Crow has reached out and slapped me.

  “I’m moving to Quebec. I’ve got lots of relatives there, and I’m going to work with my uncle, who’s a cabinetmaker. Also”—Crow pauses, watching me—“Roland is there.”

  The way Crow says this, an edge to his voice, I know something is wrong.

  “See, chérie, Roland is my son.”

  “What? Who—”

  “Roland is my son. I’m his father.”

  “His father?”

  I sound like someone in a cartoon. I am so totally stunned.

  “Claudette, whom you met at my father’s shop, she’s Roland’s mother, she’s divorced. I got to know Claudette a few years ago when I was visiting Quebec in the summer. We went out, we hooked up. Claudette’s five years older than I am, I think she was just kind of playing with me at first. Then we got serious…. Anyway,” Crow says abruptly, “Roland is our son.”

  “Your son! You and…”

  I’d thought Claudette was Crow’s sister!

  For a brief while I’d even thought Roland was Mr. Saint-Croix’s son.

  “We don’t always get along, Claudette sees other men. She says she can’t trust me. She doesn’t want to get married yet. She likes men, she even flirts with my old man—you’ve seen her.” Crow smiles to show that he’s okay with this, but his face has a tight savage look as it had when he was fighting with T-Man. “Anyway, I’m going. Claudette can be a bitch, but she agrees a boy needs his father.”

  All this while I’ve been standing a few feet from Crow, staring at him, unmoving. My eyes are blinded with tears. I want to protest, You are so much a better person than Claudette! You are the most wonderful person I know.