West Oakland Bridge

Jennifer A. Leland

December 2005

Darryl saunters through the thick sunlit air.

"Chuba, 20, Fo-tay, Black as an ace of spades, as black as me" he calls out to no one in particular as his slow strut comes to a halt before me. He does not look at me, but instead kisses my forehead and smiles, a child’s grin across a man’s face.

These are words for heroin, something I don’t do any longer. I’ve said no to him for two years now but I still say it again, saying, "No Darryl, I’m alright today. OK just how I am."

Darryl is sick most of the time or he is high. There is rarely an area of gray up here on this freeway overpass, suspended above the flatlands flat-landsakland. Either you are high or sick, straight or doped, buyer or seller, snitch or fiend. I am the only gray around here and I am leaving.

Some folks would say you can’t stay clean among dirt. But Darryl is my friend and isn’t that the same "black-and-white-thinking that makes defines addicts in the first place", words I learned in NA. Darryl and I started meeting at this overpass 3 years ago, when I was 17 and he was 15; but I always felt younger than him. Darryl fingers his bag for an extra cigarette filter to tip off his point (needle) and across the way his lover, Emanuel points to his eyes, assigning himself lookout to protect our spot from cops. Darryl loads his point with last nights water, residue that drips from bars still wet from this morning’s fog. He empties his needle into his arm and then turns to the freeway below but does not care. It is all internal now. I sit near him and lay my head on his shoulder.

The sun floods my face with heat and light and I realize that I don’t care as much about Darryl these days. He has always been a big, wise brother-type to me, but you can’t care about someone you know is so sick like him. I peek over at him and ache with desire to tell Darryl about Sal, about how handsome he is and how we got married at the Church of Elvis in Portland last weekend. Only 5 bucks to get hitched and Sal gave me a Zoe watch from the Muppets that makes me smile inside and out. Darryl’s eyes grin now and flash and I know he is feeling better. If I did tell him, I can already hear his response spinning in my mind.

"Wants make aches and you ain’t fixing to be aching your whole life, are you?"

So I stop wanting to tell him much of anything. So, I don’t tell him.

The bottom of the sun floats over the horizon now and Emanuel is finished with his lookout so I point to my eyes while he fixes himself. I put my forehead to the cold fence and hang my eyes over West Oakland like a god. I know this is my last time here on the overpass; "the bridge" is what we call it. I don’t fix anymore but rituals are hard to come by and this being my last day and all. I just want to be here for some reason. Tomorrow, Sal and I are going to Mexico, not for a honeymoon, but to go and live under an unknown sky for awhile. We both bought new boots this morning from St. Vincent’s, leathered all the way from Italy, big and brown. Sal told me they will carry us any old way the day decides to take us. I smiled at him smiling and I know I’m finally in love when I can sink myself between Sal’s long lashes and something already broken breaks in me again. Breaks into a sweet sort of sadness and warmth. This how I spell love.

I squeeze Darryl’s hand to say goodbye but I know he already knows. This is how goodbyes are for me above 880 and its 5 freeway lanes stretching towards the sunlit south. I know Sal is waiting for me and our new boots that are going to take us anywhere and I must leave this place. I can say goodbye to Oakland because right now, it is only a reminder of where I don’t want to be. It doesn’t tempt or taunt because finally I am leaving. I don’t want it, so it doesn’t make me ache. It just lies there, all hot and industrial with chemicals and filth choking the air and kids selling crack on nearly every corner, mistaking diamonds on their fists for shields. But if you look for truth, you can find it too. Just look to corner shrines, the way a church swells on a hot Sunday afternoon, the way a BBQ bends aggression into acceptance. It’s beautiful-sad. These are fusion words and vocabularies that Darryl and I made up one day on the bridge. Beautiful-Sad. Angry-Sad. Fear-Wish.

Darryl’s eyes are half open slits now and his head slides back across the fence. I think about what he doesn’t know-- that having no wants also makes aches and even when you get what you want, you have to protect it. It aches no matter what. These are the words I want to leave Darryl with but he’s gone like a dried up river. Beautiful-Aches. I check my new Zoe watch because finally time means something to me and I kiss the soft spot on Darryl’s head goodbye and say thank you. I climb down the ramp into the shadowed city and walk toward where Sal is, where the 7th Street ghosts roam and mutter and all I have to do is look for the brightest eyes and sometimes the saddest eyes leaning against Dr. Bills Pharmacy, not buying points or cotton but sipping on an orange soda smiling his whole face up at me.

Jennifer A. Leland lives in San Francisco with her girlfriend and too many animals. She works at Juvenile Hall and writes in her spare time, making it no longer spare.