The End

A young woman is traveling home and is deterred by a familiar place.

The air outside is brisk, but the seat is warm.  The cold air would have had me curled up in a blanket today, but a friend’s birthday forced me out. The bus taking me back home shakes and jerks as it rolls past University Avenue. A sharp familiar pain rips through me and my body starts to turn numb. It’s not my stop, but my hand grabs the yellowish wire. My body tells me not to move, but my feet carry me off the bus. They walk me back across Burnside. They walk me up the hill, past the check-cashing place that was once, years ago, a desolate corner filled with wooden boards.

Crossing East Tremont, the pavement and my soles regard each other strangely. The pavement welcomes me back but my soles don’t know why I am returning.

I passed the blur of stores: the pizza shop, Laundromat, bodega, 174^th’s library, all of them, familiar.

Then the green gates come into view. They are right in the middle of University Avenue. My hands reach for them. My body screams for me to go but I cannot. I grasp onto the gates that house the building that once housed him.  My forehead leans against the rust. My breathing comes in quickly.

“Jada! You came to see me?” My eyes look up at the sound. My face stretches into a smile. He’s descending the brick stairs. The clouds part, the sun shines and he is the light. He finally hits to the bottom of the stairs and comes to the other side of the gate. I open my mouth to speak words of relief. To tell him I can’t believe my eyes. That I just knew it wasn’t true.

“Um…. excuse me.” My happiness haze is whisked away as the light dims and a man, with skin like his and glasses the same color as his, looks at me confused. He’s not on the other side of this gate. It’s some man whose face is distorting into annoyance quickly. “Can you move?” My mouth mumbles a sorry as my feet scurry away.

My chest feels weak but I don’t slow down. The sweat on me is making an adhesive. It’s sticking the black shirt, which was once his, to my skin. I finally rest myself on the bench of the Bx36 bus stop. It’s right on the corner of University and 176^th.

“Honey, do you want some water?” A woman says gently. “You don’t look good.” Her eyes look softly down at me. I shake my head, no.

My legs stand up quickly and make their way to the next block. The blaring of the cars zooms past me as I turn into the walkway of the bridge. The concrete and my soles are sticking together with each step I take. It is becoming harder to move.

I come upon the end. The ripped apart wired gate that is just before the tiny metal standing. That is just before the water. That is just before the end.

I crouch down to slip out the gate and my feet place themselves on the rusted metal. The wind whips through me. I stand before blueness and it scares me of how calm it makes me.

“Jada,” I hear him say softly. I look around to see if he followed me here but he is nowhere to be seen. “Jada,” he says, even more softly. “Can you hear me?” I close my eyes. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” my voice says as soft as his.

“Please,” he breathes. I start to shake uncontrollably as the metal creaks under the weight of me, of everything I carried here. “Please. Don’t.” His voice sounds like a cry.

“NO!” I yell. “You don’t get to ask me not to. You didn’t give me a choice when you left, so you don’t get a choice now.” My voice is strained and it starts to crack. “What am I supposed to do now? What does the rest of my life mean now?” Desperation creeps through. “Nothing.  So, please, don’t ask me not to.” There is an echoing silence.

“Baby Sis,” his voice stumps me and I close my eyes as I begin to cry. “I’m not asking you not to.” He used the voice that he knew always calms me down. “Not now and not like this,” he says. “See the world, tell our family you love them, have your own family, accomplish every dream because I know you can, grow old first.” His voice is fading softly. “Then see me.”

His words echo through me as I open my eyes and look down at the end of my life.  The silence takes him, so it takes me too. The wind pushes me and I step back through the wired gate. Away from the end and I leave everything I carried there. I climb back to safety and a sigh leaves me. The wind whips and wraps itself around me, like a hug. I look up to the heavens and almost see his face, smiling.

“For you brother, anything.”