Bridge of Sighs

mystery we encounter in a mysterious world. We see them every day as they go about their business. Painting the fence. Painting it again. But who are they? Why do they paint that fence? One thing’s for sure, they aren’t telling us. Isn’t that so, Mr. Lynch?”
    Noonan turned around to look at Lucy, who was sitting directly behind him, and saw he was wearing a strange, distant, almost fearful expression, as if he’d just remembered he had a major exam next period and forgotten to study for it. He hadn’t even heard Mr. Berg’s question. “Hey,” he said. “Lucy?”
    The boy’s eyes flickered.
    “Lou,” Noonan said, worried he was having a spell.
    This time Lucy looked back at him.
    “Mr. Lynch,” Mr. Berg said. “Welcome back.”
    Lucy looked around, red faced, surprised to see everybody staring at him.
    “The subject is parents,” Mr. Berg continued, “and we’re anxious to hear your opinion. Do you know who they are, your parents?”
    “Sure,” Lucy blinked. “They’re my parents.”
    “You know all their secrets? What they’re thinking? What they do after you fall asleep?” This occasioned some snickering. “Do you know who they were before you came along?”
    Noonan couldn’t be sure, but unless he was mistaken, his friend was angered by this question.
    “I know who they are now,” he said, his jaw working.
    “You do. Excellent. How well, though, I wonder? Would you say you know them as well as you know yourself?” Lucy didn’t answer, and his silence was rewarded with one of Mr. Berg’s yellow grins. “And how well would you say you know yourself?”
    Again he was silent, but this time it didn’t matter because Mr. Berg had pivoted back to Nan. “You want to know another secret? I don’t want to frighten you, Miss Beverly, but I don’t know myself any better than I knew my father.”
    “How can you not know yourself?” Perry said.
    Mr. Berg threw up his hands in mock despair. “Too much evidence. Too much information. Most of it contradictory. Evidence here suggests one thing; other information suggests the opposite. No clear picture emerges. Won’t hold steady. I like jazz music, I know that about myself. And I like to smoke. But then sometimes I think to myself, Do I really like jazz, or do I just think I do? Do I like to smoke, or just the idea that smoking’s forbidden? What if I wake up tomorrow morning hating Louis Armstrong? Who would I be?”
    “The same person,” Perry said, confident, yet exasperated. “If I woke up tomorrow liking Marconi, I’d still be me.”
    “Except smarter,” Noonan said, eliciting a smile from Nan.
    “Mr. Berg?” It was Lucy. “I think I need to see the nurse.”
    Noonan thought so, too. Every bit of blood had drained from his friend’s face. He wobbled when he tried to stand and steadied himself against his desk.
    “Mr. Marconi,” the teacher said, “maybe you should accompany your good friend.”
    Same emphasis as the day before.
Good
friend.
    Later, Perry shrugged the class off. “He just likes to mess with us. What do you want to bet Lynch drops out?”
    “Why would he do that?” Noonan said.
    “He’s always been a pussy.”
    “It wasn’t very nice,” Nan said, “bringing up David Entleman like that.”
    “And your dad?” Perry said. “That sucked, too. What is it with this guy and our parents?”
    “What about David Entleman?” Noonan said.
    “He and Lucy were best friends, weren’t they?” Nan said.
    “I know I’m sticking around until Marconi gets his,” Perry said.
    “Maybe I won’t,” Noonan said.
    Noonan feared Kozlowski might be right. The next class might well put
him
in the hot seat, the others smirking while he squirmed under the Berg scalpel. Did the man know, for instance, that his mother had been trying all her married life to run away? That on her first attempt his father had caught her, broke open her suitcase and tossed all her intimate apparel into the street? And what about the woman on lower Division? Would he make reference to this when they read a story about adultery? The possibility was real. In the first week of class Nan’s, Perry’s and Lucy’s parents had all been introduced. Did Mr. Berg not understand that there were boundaries, or didn’t he know where they were? Despite the man’s brilliance, Noonan wasn’t sure, and this, more than anything else, was what made the classroom experience both thrilling and scary.
    That evening he stopped by Ikey’s. The color