The Bridge: A Novel

by Solomon Jones

  The violence of the early seventies had died down, and street gangs had virtually disappeared. But as the culture of extended families and respect for elders eroded, so did the quality of life. The gang crimes that had once fulfilled a twisted sense of community were now committed for money.

  Senior citizens foolish enough to believe that their struggles had earned them the respect of the younger generation became robbery victims. Women were no longer sisters, but bitches. Children, increasingly enamored of pop culture, grew up too fast. The church, which had been at the center of every significant community gain, turned inward. The result of it all was chaos. And it seemed that no one could do anything to change it.

  Roxanne Wilson saw it all happening, and considered leaving the neighborhood. But she was convinced that as a homeowner who worked in law enforcement, she was a much-needed stabilizing force there. So she decided to stay.

  On the balmy summer day that she allowed her twelve-year-old son Rafiq to go out to play video games at a nearby deli, the streets were alive. Playgrounds pulsated to the thump of bass-heavy music. Charcoal smoke from grills mixed easily with the pungent scent of marijuana. Girls wearing scarves over rollers and jeans over curves displayed their hardened femininity like only West Philly girls could. And in the midst of it all was Rafiq—a bookish boy who took his parents’ divorce a bit too hard and his love of Pac Man a bit too seriously.

  He’d taken his usual route to the deli, down Thirty-sixth to Brown Street, then over to the corner of Thirty-fifth. He walked past the drug dealers who gathered there and into the deli with his friend Brian.

  Each boy had a pocketful of quarters, and set out to play until the machine’s top ten spots bore their initials. They were on their third game when the black Oldsmobile swung around the corner.

  Both passenger-side windows slid open, and two shooters sprayed the sidewalk with bullets from semiautomatic weapons. The dealers on the corner scattered. Two ran toward the projects, while a third ran into the deli and dived toward the floor near the video game.

  A hail of bullets crashed through the window. Patrons fled. Women screamed. Men dived for cover. When it was over, the dealer who’d been targeted got up off the floor, brushing broken glass from his hair and clothing. Brian got up next. He was stunned, but unhurt. Rafiq lay still, looking as if he was asleep. It was only when the storekeeper turned him over, and the blood poured out of the gaping chest wound, that they knew he was dead.

  Roxanne Wilson remembered the date clearly. She’d had it inscribed on a bracelet that she still wore every day: May 27, 1981.

  According to the case file, Kenya was born the very next day.

  Wilson looked at the file and wondered if God had taken her son from the world and replaced him with Kenya. If so, perhaps it was Wilson’s job to make sure that Kenya made it through.

  The thought of it gave her a portion of the peace she’d lost when her son died. But as she looked through the file and saw the events that had led to Daneen losing Kenya, the peace turned to outright horror.

  Human Services had first become involved in Daneen’s case when a neighbor called anonymously, in 1987, and informed them that Daneen was living in an abandoned house with six-year-old Kenya. The child showed signs of abuse and neglect. She was taken and, in accordance with procedure, given to a relative who was willing to care for her. While Judy took temporary custody of Kenya, Daneen entered rehab, and sixty days later, was reunited with her daughter in a homeless shelter.

  Later that year, Kenya complained of body aches at school. A teacher sent her to the nurse, and a short examination revealed bruises on the child’s neck, arms, and chest. Human Services was called in again, along with the police, and it was determined that Kenya had been beaten. Daneen was charged, convicted of child abuse, and placed on probation.

  Two years later, Daneen failed one of the mandatory drug tests that were required as part of her probation. Rather than turning herself in for what she thought would be a stint in prison, she went on the run, taking Kenya with her.

  It took the police warrant unit six months to find them. When they did, Daneen and Kenya were living in another abandoned house. Daneen was working part-time as a farm laborer, and hustling the remainder of the time to feed her raging crack addiction. Kenya, who was malnourished, filthy, and bruised, was taken again. Daneen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of child abuse, was sent to a county jail for six months, and did another six months in a rehabilitation center.

  Meanwhile, Judy petitioned family court for full custody. Noting a clear pattern of abuse, the court turned Kenya over to her, and from what Wilson could tell, social workers’ follow-up visits to Judy’s home revealed nothing suspicious.

  In one review, a social worker wrote that Kenya seemed to be adjusting well. In another, she noted that the relationship between Judy and the child appeared to be close.

  As Wilson continued to flip through the file, however, she saw numerous handwritten notes warning of possible drug activity at Judy’s apartment. There didn’t appear to be any follow-up, though.

  Roxanne picked up the phone and dialed a friend who worked as a supervisor in police radio.

  “Get me John Sutton, please.”

  She waited as the call was transferred.

  “John? Roxanne Wilson. Can you do me a favor and look up a location history for the East Bridge high-rise, Apartment 7D?”

  She waited while he punched in the information. When he came back on the line, he told her of the flurry of police activity at the apartment over the past two days.

  “Early Saturday morning, there was an unfounded missing person call,” he said. “There was an unfounded person with a gun call, too.”

  “Do you know who made that call?”

  “Came from a phone booth at Ninth and Indiana. Then there was a narcotics arrest and a crime scene detail assigned there on Saturday morning. The detail was resumed a few hours later.”

  “Was there anything prior to that? Any ’Meet Complainant’ calls or anything?”

  She waited while he double-checked. When he came back, he told her that there was nothing.

  “Thanks,” she said, and hung up.

  From what Wilson saw, there was more than enough blame to go around. Between the police department, Human Services, and her own family, Kenya had been let down repeatedly. But it had all begun with Daneen.

  And as Wilson dressed to go back to the projects, she did so with the intention of finding out if it ended with her, too.

  When Jim Wright finished questioning Daneen, Lynch grabbed her by the arm and half dragged her outside to his car. After they’d both gotten in, she tried to cut off what she believed would be another argument.

  “Did you find out anything new?” she said, fidgeting under his piercing gaze.

  “I talked to Tyreeka,” he said. “She told me she left Kenya in front of the building on Friday night and went to a house on Thompson Street with a boy named Scott.

  “I checked it out. Scott Carruthers is the boy’s name. He and Tyreeka spent the night at his aunt’s house on Friday. The aunt saw the two of them come in. Of course she didn’t say anything, because Scott’s drug money pays her bills. But that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is, she didn’t see Kenya with them. And my gut says she’s telling the truth.

  “After I left there, I went to Rochelle’s apartment. She lost a fight with Kenya and Janay and apparently said that she was going to get them. But she really had no intention of doing anything, and even if she did, she didn’t have the means.”

  “Oh,” Daneen said, withering under his stare.

  After a full minute of silence, she turned to him.

  “What you keep lookin’ at me for?” she said.

  “I’m looking at you because you’re in my way, Daneen,” Lynch said angrily. “You keep running me down like you need to talk to me so badly. Okay, I’m here. So talk.”

  Daneen opened her mouth, then closed it because she didn�
�t know if there was much left to say. Not about the past, anyway.

  “I just want to help,” she said, finally. “I don’t want to feel like I can’t do nothin’ to bring my baby back. I tried sittin’ back already, and I couldn’t do it, ’cause that ain’t me.

  “Matter fact, it’s a lot o’ things I’m findin’ out ain’t me. Like Wayne—that’s the guy I was seein’. I mean, he was nice and he wanted to take care o’ me and all that. But I was just usin’ him.”

  Her lips turned up in a half smile. “I know you think that’s all I do, Kevin, but I don’t. Not no more. I just can’t use people like I used to. I guess I know too much about what it feel like to be used.”

  Lynch laughed bitterly. “Nobody ever used you unless you wanted them to, Daneen,” he said. “And they never used you unless you were getting something in return.”

  “I wish that was true, Kevin. I wish I could say I always got what I wanted out o’ everybody that ever used me.”

  She sat for a moment, looking as if her mind was someplace else.

  “But I guess that don’t matter now,” she said. “The only thing that matter is findin’ Kenya. I can’t sit here and wait for her to come home, Kevin. ’Cause when I sit back, my mind start tellin’ me all kinda crazy shit.

  “I start thinkin’ I should be the one missin’, ’cause Kenya ain’t do nothin’ to deserve this. All she was tryin’ to be was a little girl—somethin’ I probably ain’t never give her the chance to do.”

  “Kenya’s best chance is for you to leave me alone,” he said harshly. “Just stay out of my way and let me work. I don’t need any distractions.”

  “Is that what I am to you, Kevin,” she said, looking up at him. “A distraction?”

  He looked away and gazed out the driver-side window. “I don’t know what you are, Daneen.”

  She looked down at his hand, which was resting on his knee. Then hesitantly, almost timidly, she reached out and held it in her own.

  “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.

  “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 train—”

  “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 him—Daneen.

  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.

  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, Eric—”

  “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 hard—after she’d already told him yes—he 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, ‘Why can’t I go?’” he repeated, alrea
dy 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 to—”

  “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.”

  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.