The Crying Bridge

The Crying Bridge--Chapter Two

          Back at Del's house, Evan pulled two bottles of beer from the cardboard box and Del took the remaining four beers and put them in the refrigerator. When she returned to the porch, Evan was seated on the swing, right in the middle. Del smiled a little, noticing his position and the fact that she had no choice but to sit very close to him. She did so and accepted the cold bottle from him. She checked the label and found it was some micro-brew she'd never heard of. She took a sip and her eyes widened in surprise. "Wow, that's not bad," she said.

          "It's one of my favorites. I'm glad you like it."

          "It's been ages since I had a beer. Probably since college."

          "Why's that?" Evan asked as he took a swallow from his own bottle. They were sitting close enough that their shoulders touched every few seconds or so as their legs made the swing rock gently back and forth.

          "My life, at least for the last few years, hasn't really been the beer-drinking sort. My ex was a huge snob, strictly a fine wine, single-malt scotch and aged cognac sort of man. The idea of beer was completely unacceptable to him."

          "Okay, I gotta ask...what are you doing here? This can't compare with Chicago. I mean St. Louis isn't too far, but that can't really compare, either. It seems like you've been used to a little more culture than we can offer here."

          "Oh, Chicago wasn't really home for me," Del said. "I grew up in a town not much bigger than this. And the big-city life of Chicago isn't what it's cracked up to be, at least not for me."

          "How so?"

          "I only moved there because it was the only teaching job I could find after I graduated from college. And that job nearly did me in."

          "What happened?" Evan asked.

          "Well, it was like some bad talk show or something. It was an inner-city school with all the usual problems you find in such a school, but I was so naive. I wasn't fully prepared for the disrespect, the violence and drugs. I was there for about four months and I heard this commotion in the hall outside my room. I went out to see what was going on and that was my first mistake. Two bigger boys were beating the crap out of a freshman, a boy who was so much smaller than them. I tried to intervene and that was my second mistake. I got shoved, fell and hit my head on the corner of a locker, then the floor. I woke up in the emergency room with twelve stitches and a concussion. I resigned the next day."

          "Jeez, we've never had anything like that happen at the schools here. Sometimes things get a little rough at the youth center where I volunteer, but nothing close to that."

          "You wanna know something?" Del asked. "I didn't quit because of what happened. I quit because there were other classrooms in that hallway being taught by men, big men. I know they had to hear all the racket. And none of them tried to stop it. It was a student who went to one of those rooms and begged the teacher to come out and help me because I was bleeding all over the place. That's why the school board didn't fight my resignation. Letting me out of my contract was easier than dealing with a lawsuit."

          "That seems so alien to me. I could never just ignore something like that. So what did you do after you quit?"

          "I had met Gavin shortly before that incident and he had some connections with a pretty affluent private school. He called in a favor and I got a position there. But that wasn't much better. I mean there was no violence, but the drug usage was still there, and these kids could afford anything. I was feeling pretty disillusioned and Gavin and I got engaged within a couple of months of my working there. I'd moved into his house and he told me I didn't have to work if I didn't want to, so I left that job, too."