How one discovers Scranton (part 2)

Outside had gotten way colder for our jean jackets, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. When we hit the tracks below, we slipped on them.
Everything wet had turned to ice.

This was gonna make the bridge walk something we didn’t wanna think about.

But we had to get home.

Right when we got to the bridge, a train began to come across it from the other side. We were relieved the timing was perfect to not catch us yet on the bridge.

So. We waited for it to come across. And waited. And we were freezing. But nope. The headlamp of the train wasn’t blaring its light anymore. That was weird. Maybe it went a different way?

It was so cold. Jean jackets too thin. Freezing. We had to get home.

When we took to the bridge, it was slick. And so dark. If we slid and fell off, we would die in three different ways.

But we just acted cool instead of scared, and joked, and never showed the other how terrible this long walk was.

And, most importantly, we kept moving in the dense black void, high above a murky black death.

Step by step. Slip by slip. And hoping the wind wouldn’t pick up like it usually does in the middle of the bridge to where ya have to lean in to it instead of being blown off.

Half way across is the most perilous spot since it takes the same distance to go in either direction if the worst happens.

We kept moving. Talking to each other to dispel any fear. Then finally, when we had at least gotten just passed our day time hangout pier, which meant we were almost home free, a blinding spotlight snapped on ahead of us.

Train dead ahead, and coming fast toward the bridge. Impossible to tell how far away it was yet from the edge of the bridge. Our best chance would be to turn back to that pier, however slippery it would be, and wait the train out.

There was no choice.

We turned to hustle.

Instead, we froze in disbelief. The entire bridge was moving like a nightmare. It was a kaleidoscope of shadows caused by the steel girders and the oncoming train spotlight at our backs.

The bridge was alive, and moving like a death defying web.

Now, there was no way to tell what was real and what wasn’t bridge.

Without saying a word, we looked wide eyed at each other, and then tore off running towards the light.

The icy tiles mattered less now running scared as fast as we could. The light was getting bigger faster, and the sound of heavy metal gnashing on steel rails had become the dread of monster.

I mean, we couldn’t tell which, or what, anything was.

We could have just as easily been running the wrong way into the train. Our minds, hypnotised to the onslaught terror, like a deer frozen in a car’s headlights.

Which now was a train. And we were running to meet it half way.

We hit the end of the bridge, and dove down the coal embankment just as the train roared onto the bridge.

Holy hell, that was close.

We laughed that stupid laugh of survival.

And then…

Sparked up a Marlboro.

Epilogue:

Come the summer, Hurricane Agnes rolled up the eastern seaboard, and raised the river level to six feet over our roof line.

When it receded, we had nothing left.

And that’s how ya get to Scranton and Arizona at the same time. Mom relocated to higher ground, and Dad was getting remarried in Tucson. It sounds like bad news, but it all saved my life from any more bridge hanging.

Probably.

PS: My first girlfriend out west was a Navajo woman named Agnes. Just like the hurricane. It all made sense to this new desert dweller feller. The bridge… did not.

The end.