The Bridge

by Bill Konigsberg

  CHAPTER 12C: DECEMBER 26, THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER

  It’s a small service, and Mays Jagger is a little irked.

  He barely knew the guy. He was a warrior brother, but he was older, and while he’d heard stories from that ancient dude Morris about how powerful a man this Michael Boroff was at one time, it wasn’t like he was a friend, exactly. Just a handful of meetings where the guy hadn’t said much.

  And where was the dude’s family? Here he was. Where were they? The guy was alive all these years. But the only people here are a few warrior brothers, most who barely knew him.

  Nope. Not a relative in sight.

  Mays leans over to Morris, who is sitting three seats away.

  “This guy have family?” he asks, barely hiding his annoyance.

  Morris’s whisper comes with a gust of sour breath. Old people, right? “He really didn’t,” Morris says, and Mays plugs his nose casually, pretending it’s a sniffle.

  This ancient-sounding song plays. Like the kind of thing created on an early-twenty-first-century digital. And the singing is like a kid or something.

  Mays shifts in his seat. He’s not really paying attention.

  The song is forgotten the moment it ends.

  CHAPTER 1D: APRIL 17, 3:57 P.M.

  The boy and the girl straddle the rail one hundred and fifty feet apart on the upper deck of the George Washington Bridge. They stare at each other like they’re playing a petrifying game of dare. Minutes go by.

  The girl goes through a silent litany of goodbyes, and as she gets to her younger sister, she hears Britt’s voice say, “You’re silly, Tillie.” It startles her, how real the voice sounds in her inner ear.

  The boy imagines them both jumping simultaneously, and he imagines a peculiar and spectacularly morbid synchronized swimming routine they’d do in the depths of the Hudson. This strikes him as a particularly stupid final earthly thought.

  The boy blinks first. He pulls back from his precarious perch, lifting his skinny leg back over the wall and climbing down. Once he’s on firm ground again, he runs his hand through his hair and strides tentatively in her direction, the frantic wind slapping him across the face.

  As he approaches, she sits up taller and turns her face away from him, toward the water.

  Aaron asks, “Are you okay?”

  A puff of air blurts from Tillie’s lips before she can swallow it down. It’s neither a laugh nor a scoff. More like pent-up incredulity.

  “Um,” she says, clenching the rail with all her might. Her left hand in front, her right hand behind.

  In silence, they listen to the soundtrack of the bridge, the rumbling, perverse, concert-decibel-level row of motors, and tires on asphalt, and wind, and they smell the exhaust, and they see the gray-blue sky, hazy with pain, and they taste motor oil and despair.

  She finally twists her face and torso back toward him. “Are you okay?”

  Now it’s his turn to expel a sound he doesn’t expect or mean to share. It’s a laugh. He looks down at his feet, and laughter escapes his lips like a fart he was trying to hold in, and then she laughs, too, and it’s the most inappropriate laughter ever.

  She sighs and dismounts, her heart beating too hard and fast for her body.

  “So,” she manages once she’s caught her breath and is standing on solid ground, her eyes glued to the concrete walkway beneath her.

  “So,” he responds.

  They stand there, and she leans momentarily against the fence before recoiling. Without a word, they move to the far side of the pedestrian path, as far from the railing as possible. The bridge shakes beneath their feet.

  Neither of them knows what to do now.

  “Tillie,” she finally says.

  He replies, “I’m Aaron, I guess.”

  Another pause.

  Comedy improv comes to Aaron’s mind. Yes, and. As if they’re in a scene, and they both have to commit to everything the other person says by adding, “Yes, and …” which is super hard because all he really wants to do is deny reality. It’s the hardest scene he’s ever played, and the difficulty takes his breath away. Too real for his taste.

  Tillie, too, is onstage in her mind. She pictures herself in the spotlight, doing a monologue about this very moment, and she comes up blank for words. Because this moment isn’t right. There’s not supposed to be an after. You jump and it’s over, pain gone, nothing more to say.

  “Yes, and,” Aaron says, and Tillie is like, What? for about half a second. Then, with some dread, she recognizes exactly what he’s saying from ninth-grade drama class. She thinks: I’m maybe one person in a thousand who would understand what you’re saying here. Someone else would probably just walk away, and you’d die. That’s how lucky you are that I’m here, me.

  “You do improv,” she says, monotone.

  He shrugs. “Not well, apparently.”

  “I write and perform monologues. That people make fun of, by the way.”

  Now there’s a look of recognition from Aaron. “Yes, and … I would like to see them.”

  She shakes her head. “No, but … you probably wouldn’t if you were like any other person in the actual world.”

  He frowns. “The rules,” he says.

  She rolls her eyes. “Yes, and … whatever. Yes, and … I will perform them for you.” She is lying. A moment ago she was in, but something about the artifice of this improv thing takes her out. This is her last performance. Once he leaves, she can do what she needs to do.

  “I’d like to hear them,” he says.

  “Yes, and … you are not going to jump off this bridge. Because …”

  Aaron looks up and away and his stomach twinges as he tries to come up with one good reason to stay.

  “Donuts,” he blurts out.

  This is clearly not what the girl was expecting him to say.

  “Donuts?” she echoes.

  And here’s the thing: Usually when he says something weird, it’s for effect. To make people laugh. But right now, at this very moment, it’s like his mind is pushing something out there, anything out there, so the conversation can continue. He wants to keep talking. Which means he doesn’t want to jump. Yes, and …

  She doesn’t know it yet, but this random conversation about baked goods, by the sheer fact of its continuation, is going to escort them off this bridge.

  He repeats it again, with more certainty. “Donuts.” And then he explains, “Because we are going to eat three each at the closest donut place.”

  “Fine. Donuts,” she says. “I just need to make a call first. Tell me where. I’ll join you.”

  It’s too easy. Aaron feels the void inside the loophole she’s creating.

  “No,” he says.

  “No?”

  “No,” Aaron insists. “We’re going together. Now.”

  Tillie wants to scream at him—Leave me alone! Can’t you see I want to do this alone? But instead what comes out is “You don’t know me. You can’t tell me what to do. I am so tired of letting other people dictate my life.”

  “I’m not dictating anything,” the boy responds. “I’m just saying donuts. It’s … an option.”

  She shakes her head. Why can’t he realize she’s out of options?

  He goes on. “I think the minute I turn my back, you’re jumping. Which makes sense because, if you’d turned your back a minute ago, I’d have jumped. I’d be—”

  She swallows. He can’t say the word. She doesn’t want to hear the word.

  But right now, it’s the only word. It’s behind every single other word.

  “Am I wrong?” he asks. “About what you’re going to do if I leave?”

  She swallows again.

  “So donuts,” he says.

  Tillie tries to find a way to say no to him. She is sure it’s there, somewhere inside her. But it’s hiding. Of all times for a no to fail.

  Options. It’s not the donuts that get her. It’s the word options. She has a choice. Still standing and breathing in the af
terburn of her strongest impulses, she asks herself if she really wants to drown in the Hudson. All because of other people’s meanness. All because of people who aren’t worth it.

  “Donuts,” she slowly repeats. “And fuck three. Six. This is serious.”

  He extends his hand and says, “You have yourself a deal.”

  It’s so stupid—the whole world is so stupid—but Tillie shakes his hand. They have themselves a deal. The only terms being: not jumping, and eating donuts.

  What a strange fucking deal.

  Neither one of them is crying. Neither one of them is laughing. Together, they walk in silence toward Manhattan, the wind beating down on them like a vengeful god who has had enough of their bullshit.

  The Dunkin’ Donuts they go to is a block past Fort Washington Avenue on 181st Street, which is to say nowhere either of them has ever been before. It’s hot inside, like the store’s been running the heater for decades without stopping, and Aaron takes off his blue down jacket immediately. Tillie puts her peacoat over a chair and goes to the counter, where she orders coffee and six vanilla cream donuts.

  “The same, I guess,” Aaron says, hoping he has enough allowance left for that. He opens his wallet and spies a five. “Sorry, um, make it four. And a glass of water instead of coffee, please.”

  Soon they are stuffing their faces with powdered-sugar-coated donuts with a vanilla cream so sweet it hurts their teeth.

  “So here we are,” Aaron says.

  “Yeah,” she says, giving away nothing. “We are here.”

  He studies her without learning a thing. Then he ventures forward with “I’m taking it that we are not going to talk about the bridge?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Instead we will …”

  “Eat donuts.”

  It isn’t until she’s on her third donut and he’s on his second that she breaks the uneasy silence that has enveloped their table.

  “I just,” she says. “I’m not sure what just happened, and I’m thinking that maybe if we just eat donuts for a while, I can go back to my life and try again.”

  This makes him laugh, and she shoots him a look. He quickly clarifies, “I’m laughing with you, I think. I mean, I’m all about that. Trying again even though I’m pretty sure this is like my hundred-and-thirty-first attempt at starting over.”

  “Yeah,” she says, like she knows. Then she stares out the window like she’s waiting for something better to come along.

  And that makes him say, “Yeah,” too.

  “What do you think happens?” she asks, momentarily peering into his eyes.

  He swallows. “I think about that all the time. Like, do you just cease to be?”

  “God, that would be nice,” she says, and something about the way she says it unleashes this thing in her and tears start to well up behind her eyes. She blinks them away.

  “I know, right?” he says. “How many times have I wished to stop feeling things?”

  “But,” she says.

  “Yeah. Forever.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “My psychologist says it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but so far I haven’t really seen as to how this problem”—and with this she points to herself and draws a big circle—“is temporary.”

  “I figure, like, if you’re just gone, then you’re just … gone,” he says.

  She snorts. “Deep.”

  He shrugs and blinks a few times, and she wonders if she’s hurt his feelings.

  “I mean,” she says, “but what if you’re not? Like what if your body dies but your soul or whatever stays alive and you just have to live in eternity without a body?”

  He takes another bite. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve thought about that.”

  “And you still almost?”

  He shrugs again. “Well, so did you.”

  It’s surreal to Aaron to be having this conversation. How is he having this conversation? He’s used to having it constantly in his head, but he’s always supplied all the voices. But now here it is. Out loud. With another person supplying the responses.

  It feels more real, like this.

  And having it feel so real makes him realize how unreal his life felt.

  Before.

  That’s real, too: The existence of a before.

  Tillie whisks her chin with the side of her hand, knocking off a puff of powdered sugar. “I’m just really tired,” she says.

  Aaron surprises her by reaching over and squeezing her arm. It’s the most personal thing anyone other than her mom has done with her in eons. Excluding Amir, of course, but he definitely doesn’t count anymore.

  “I so get that,” he says.

  She keeps her arm very still, though she wants to move it. She says, “Do you think we’ll ever not be tired?”

  He puts his forehead down on the table, which is pretty filthy, and he keeps it there for a bit. “God, I hope so,” he says to the floor. “Because this is not working.”

  “Yeah,” Tillie says. “I feel like I literally cannot take another minute of my life.”

  Aaron picks his head up from the table. “Ditto.”

  They sit for a while, chewing and sipping. Tillie wants to ask him why he went with just water, but she figures it’s too random a thing to ask. Aaron wants to ask her why she’s there, but he’s afraid it’s too not random a thing to ask.

  Finally, Aaron realizes he’s going to burst if he keeps silent. So he decides to say things about himself instead of asking things about her. It’s safer that way. He says, “Sometimes I feel like my dad is perfect, or at least now he is, post midlife crisis. All day he deals with imperfect, fucked-up kids, and he shouldn’t have to come home to that, too.”

  Tillie laughs and nods. “Right. With me, it’s like, when I show how fucked up I am, I just confirm what my mom and dad know. And my mom’s way of dealing is to micromanage my existence, and my dad’s is to wash his hands of me completely.”

  “Wow,” Aaron says.

  Tillie shrugs. “There are kids without clean water. Not just in other countries, but here, in our country. And I’m sad because my dad doesn’t love me hard enough. It doesn’t really matter.”

  Aaron chews his cuticle. “Well, it matters a little, because you almost died.”

  Tillie stares down at the table in front of her. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, well. Me too, so.”

  They both let that sink in for a moment, and the temperature in the room seems to dip some, which is good. Tillie pictures the bridge again, and she’s hit with the fact that this attempted intervention isn’t working. At some point they’ll finish eating donuts, and nothing will have changed.

  Aaron chews and ponders the bottom of the Hudson River.

  They look up at the same moment and catch each other’s eyes, and it’s like they both realize in the same moment how unsafe this all is. Two suicidal strangers chewing fried dough in a hot and humid donut shop in the immediate aftermath of a near dual fatality. Aaron remembers one time last summer, being at an amusement park on a roller coaster with some kids from school; the barely interested ride attendant half checked Aaron’s safety bar, and Aaron kind of knew it wasn’t tight enough, and for half a moment he thought, Don’t say anything. It’ll be quick and easy. But then he called out and the guy came back and tightened it, glowering as if Aaron was annoying for asking for the thing he needed to stay alive.

  Tillie sees the pain in Aaron’s face, and she experiences a comparable feeling of hopelessness wafting through her chest.

  “Jesus,” she says.

  “Jesus,” echoes Aaron.

  “Every instinct I have is broken. Nothing is even close to acceptable.” A tear wants to escape from her left eye and she tenses to stop it. It works, and her face stays dry. “Fuck. I am so done with me.”

  The door swings open. A lost-looking girl maybe a couple years older than them in a tattered brown down jacket skulks up to the counter.

  They can’t hear what she says to the
man there, but they sure can hear his response. “You go,” he demands. “Out.”

  “Please?” she says.

  “You people never buy. Always take take take. Out, you.”

  “You people? How am I people? I’m a person. I’ve never done this before in my life.”

  “Out!” he yells.

  She turns and skulks out of the store, her head down. The door slams behind her.

  Tillie looks at Aaron. Aaron looks at Tillie. It’s Tillie who stands first, steps up to the counter, and pulls out her wallet. “One coffee, please,” she says.

  Aaron follows and takes out his wallet. There’s just the change from before, but it’s enough. “And one donut, please. Cinnamon?”

  He says it like a question. With him, it’s always a question. But this question has an answer. A slight nod from Tillie, and suddenly they are both thinking the same stupid, infuriating thought.

  Yes … and.

  They step outside onto noisy, bustling 181st. The girl is standing to the side of the shop’s entrance, toward the street corner. Her head is down, her hands are on her hips.

  “Excuse me,” Tillie says to the girl.

  The girl doesn’t move. Tillie taps her, and she jumps away defensively.

  “What the fuck?” the girl asks.

  Tillie hands her the coffee. “Here.”

  The girl doesn’t take it at first. She eyes Tillie, and then Aaron, a bit suspiciously.

  “You put any sugar in that? I don’t eat that shit.”

  “No,” Tillie says.

  Aaron gently extends his bag to her. “Donut?”

  She shakes her head. “Are you kidding me with this? You trying to kill a person?”

  “Oh,” says Aaron. “Okay. Sorry.”

  The girl shakes her head like she’s disappointed with them. “Gotta stay away from that shit. That shit’ll kill you.”

  She nods at them and walks up Fort Washington Avenue, and Tillie and Aaron are left on the street, not sure what’s next.

  They stand there for a moment, watching the girl walk north, and then, when she’s out of view, they turn and start walking south. Neither knows where they’re going.

  Aaron is thinking that he’d really like to be home, sitting on his radiator, listening to his music, watching his fish swim around their aquarium. And yet there’s a part of him that knows he can’t do that. Because a couple hours ago, he chose to go up to the bridge, and nothing has changed since then, really. Which means that he’s not safe being alone. And also he’s not sure exactly when his dad will be home, but the thought of talking to Dad right now fills him with dread because he’ll have to act like everything is fine, and everything isn’t fine. He feels it inside him, like an actual physical presence.