The Bridge Read Online Free

that pipe, Darnell. All the scrapin’ in the world ain’t gon’ change that. Now if you spendin’, you can stay. But if you ain’t, you can get out. Matter fact, all o’ y’all get the hell out right now.”
    The pipers got up without a word and slowly shuffled to the door. Judy opened it and pushed them into the hallway. Darnell, who was last in the procession, turned to her as he left.
    â€œI know my sister,” he said with a mirthless grin. “Same way she called the cops, Daneen gon’ do whatever she gotta do to find Kenya.”
    â€œIt’s a li’l late for her to be tryin’ to do whatever she gotta do for Kenya, ain’t it, Darnell?”
    At that, Darnell’s eyes grew intense. He looked at Judy as if he was probing her for the truth.

    â€œThat’s what I’m wonderin’, Judy,” he said, staring at her as he walked out the door. “I’m wonderin’ if it’s too late.”
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    It was five-thirty, and dawn had begun to sift burnt orange sunlight across the cracked sidewalks outside the projects. A cab screamed to a halt, and Daneen burst from the backseat with a crazed look she hadn’t worn in the two months since she’d begun her latest try at recovery.
    She charged into the building, ran past the foyer’s shrinking shadows, then bolted up the steps. But as she knifed through concrete passages that the light of dawn had yet to reach, she was reminded of all the ugliness that lived and breathed within the Bridge.
    Huddled in dark corners of the stairwell were the faces she despised: men she’d tricked for half a cap, women she’d fought for less than that, boys who’d snatched her self-respect and locked it in crack-filled vials.
    She saw them and hated them still. Hated the glint of recognition in their eyes, the way their smirks withered to pity as she approached, the way their glances turned downward to avoid the awful truth that had brought her back.
    Kenya. The sound of her name was just beneath the silence. Daneen could feel it. And as she reached the seventh floor and ran down the hallway to Judy’s apartment, she silently prayed that she would soon be able to wrap her baby in her arms again, the way she’d done in the days before things fell apart.
    Daneen tried to hold on to the sound of Kenya’s name as she stood outside Judy’s apartment, trying to gather herself. But she couldn’t feel it anymore. It was as if her name was merely an echo, a reflection of what she used to be.
    Daneen tightened her gut in an effort to push out the premonition that lingered there, then forced herself to raise her hand to knock. But before she could do so, the door swung open.
    Judy was wearing a robe and a blank expression as she stared at
Daneen. When she saw that Daneen was frozen between her desire to leave and her need to stay, Judy opened the door a little wider and stood to one side.
    Daneen walked in hesitantly. When she looked around the room and saw that Judy was alone, her tension eased, but only slightly. She stood in the middle of the floor, not quite sure of what to do next.
    â€œAin’t nobody call and say where she was?” she asked, her words dropping like hammers against the silence.
    â€œNo,” Judy said. “And I ain’t call nobody, either. Not even the cops.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œâ€˜Cause somebody already called the cops for me,” Judy said, turning up the corners of her lips in mild disgust as she stared at her niece.
    Daneen folded her arms and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. She was clearly uncomfortable. “Look, Judy, what was I supposed to do? Sit there and wait for you to do it?”
    â€œDon’t matter,” Judy said. “I told ‘em wasn’t nobody missin’, and they left.”
    â€œWell, call ’em back,” Daneen said, her voice nearly a squeal.
    Judy ambled to