Bridge of Sighs Read Online Free PDF Page B

hurry back to school
after
I’d seen the public school boys at the footbridge, a genuine threat, but it was another to run away from a shadow that might, for all I knew, be that of a first grader. My eraser duty had taken a good fifteen minutes, and then I’d talked with Sister Bernadette for a while, which meant the public school boys had probably come and gone by now. Or such was my reasoning as I continued along the path to the edge of the trees, where I stopped to peer down the bank into the darkness below, my head cocked, listening. There was the sound of the stream, of course, but was that all? Was some other utterance mixed in with or obscured by the burbling of the water?
    I don’t know how long I stood there before starting warily down the path, the trees and the darkness closing in behind me. In the middle of the footbridge lay a workbook. Public school workbooks were different from ours, used year after year, filled in with pencil and then erased at year’s end, the answers still visible on the page, ghostlike, along with the checkmarks identifying incorrect responses. Was it possible for this workbook to be sitting there without its owner nearby? An urgent whisper slipped out of the trees. Still I stood transfixed, waiting, but it was quiet except for the sound of the water and the wind in the upper branches. Stepping onto the footbridge, I immediately heard a sound behind me and, turning, saw a grinning boy come out from behind a large oak to block my retreat. Ahead, two others materialized, then two more.
    One was Jerzy Quinn, who grinned and said, “Hey there, Lucy-Lucy.”

    W E FOLLOWED the stream. Though it happened long ago, that afternoon’s journey is still vivid in my recollection. I was flanked on both sides to prevent escape. With one exception they made it clear that I would remain their prisoner until they chose to let me go. When I lagged or showed any reluctance to get too far from home, they shoved me forward, hard, and took turns cuffing me on the back of the head and asking if I was a girl, since I had a girl’s name. All except for Jerzy Quinn, who remained aloof from the fun. Each time I was pushed or tripped, he helped me to my feet, talking to me the whole time, explaining how I had public school kids all wrong, that they weren’t such a bad lot. How I was being treated in the meantime didn’t seem to Jerzy to undermine his case in the least.
    No, I was informed that he and his friends had started a charitable club, the purpose of which was to assist the unfortunate, cripples and widows and the like. The dues collected went to pay for their crutches and groceries and medical operations, and their club had already performed many good deeds. Did I know Janice Collier, the fourth grader in the wheelchair? Well, who did I imagine
got
her that chair? There was a good deal of smirking and snorting behind my back as all this was explained, then somebody tripped me again and I went sprawling in the stream, skinning the palms of both hands on the rocks, much to the delight of my captors. But again Jerzy Quinn helped me up and assured me that I was fine, after which he continued to recruit me for their club, as if he saw no reason I wouldn’t want to join. In the event I needed further inducement, I should know that my old friend Bobby Marconi was also a member. “We’re his best pals,” Jerzy gave me to understand. “Those East End kids are all fags, so he comes down here to hang out with us.”
    “Are you a fag, Lucy?” one of the other boys asked.
    “He doesn’t even know what it is,” said another, which was true.
    What a strange downstream journey it was. The juxtaposition of the other boys’ jostling ridicule with Jerzy Quinn’s feigned friendship was what scared me most, that their behavior and his soothing words were at cross-purposes—the boys making it clear that they’d hurt me, even as their leader assured me that I’d come to no harm. Stranger still, while I knew