Carl Banks - Over the Bridge

 

I am a guitar player. It is a pretty sweet job. A lot of perks. [chuckles] One of the perks, is that I play gigs late at night, and my days are pretty much wide open to do whatever I want. I took up running to fill up this time of my day. I have this little AM/FM radio I plug in and I just cruise all over the city. I love it. I love watching the city unfold in front of me and being in tune with the rhythms of it. 

 

I spend a lot of time on the Queensboro 59th Street Ed Koch Bridge. I live on the Queens side. I run across to Central Park very often. It is structurally a beautiful bridge, but the energy on the path that the pedestrians use is kind of anxious, uneasy feeling. That’s because it is a very narrow path and it is shared by pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, all sorts of people. It is compounded by the fact that you are mere feet away from cars with their exhaust, honking horns and police sirens. 

 

The most narrow part of the bridge is on the Manhattan side, where the pathway bottlenecks around a structural column in the bridge. It was there over the summer that I was running and I saw a woman. The woman had a large, wide-brim hat, and she was pushing a shopping cart, and she had several open beach umbrellas in the shopping cart and she was coming at me. That is not an odd sight to see in New York, but it struck me as odd that day. It became even more odd when she started waving at me, and I am running at her.

 

At first, I thought she was just waving to potentially get me out of the way, because she was out of control with her cart or something, I do not know. But as I got close, I realized she was trying to get my attention. So, as I got up to her, I took my headphones out, and she said, "There is a man on the bridge. He is going to jump. Go help him. Go help him. Go help him." It hit me like a ton of bricks. What I expected to see was somebody right on the edge of the bridge, what I saw was a young man who was probably about 17 years old, and he was on the safe side of the bridge, leaning against the fence. He had a 10 mile stare. 

 

He had a look on his face that I am somewhat familiar with. It looked like he was about to get into a fight, which is to say he was angry, he was scared to death and he was desperately trying to mask it with indifference. So, I stopped and I asked him if he was okay. He did not say anything. He just looked right through me and ignored me. So, I asked him if he was okay a second time. Still nothing. And so, I said, "There was a woman on the bridge. She said somebody was going to jump. Is that you?" Still, he did not say anything but tears started to stream down his face. 

 

And I said, "Look, man, I do not know you, but just do not do it. Just walk with me off the bridge. I have a story I can tell you. Just walk with me on the bridge. Please do not do it." He did not really move. And I said, "Listen, I lost my twin sister two years ago to a suicide, and I wish I could be there and tell her not to do it, so please just walk with me." And he started to move. And so, we started to walk off the bridge together. I recounted in great detail about the night that my sister passed away. He was really scared. When we had to walk in a single-file line, he would not even let me walk behind him, I had to walk in front of him.

 

I talked and talked, and when there was a lull in the conversation, he just said, "Tell me more about your sister." So, I did. I told him that she was an amazing visual artist. She was an unrepentant radical with a touch of anarchist. But she had a very extremely tender heart and was incredibly sensitive. She used to draw caricatures at tourists at Six Flags. She was so sensitive that she could not make any money doing it, because she would always give them away, either thinking it was not good enough or thinking it was so good that they just should have it for free. 

 

I told him how I missed her, how I never got to say goodbye, and I really wish that I could have. We got on a solid ground. I did not know what to do. I asked him if he had a safe place to go. He said he did. I asked him if he lived with his parents. He said yes. And I said, "If it is an abusive situation, you do not have to go home. You can come home with me." I already had a friend of mine sleeping on the couch, so I could not offer that. But I said, "You could come home. We can figure out some safe place for you to go." He said that it was not abusive and he had a safe place to go home to his parents. 

 

At that time, I just really wanted to give him a hug, but it did not seem like he was into a hugging mood at the time. So, I dabbed him up with what has to be the world's most awkward fist bump. [audience laughter] And then, he walked away and so did I. I went the other way and I started running. While we were on the bridge, I had this singleness of purpose, this focus that all I wanted to do was get him off the bridge. I was refusing to feel any of the feelings except for that. But as I started to run away, I put my headphones back in and I will never forget, Bob Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather started playing. All the emotion I had been suppressing on the bridge shot up through me like a wave. 

 

I started to cry as I ran home, and then I took a shower. It was a complete breakdown in the shower, on my hands and knees and crying. But I got out of the shower. I had a gig to go to. I wish I could say I went and played Bob Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather, but it is a really hard song to play. [audience laughter] I do not know it. I do not remember his face that well. I do not know that I would even recognize him if I saw him today, but I hope he is okay.