Bridge of Sighs

Except for Harold’s, which was really two units, her mother’s had always been the best, and looked like it still might be. There was a window box outside, and the flowers blooming there were the only living, growing things visible, unless you counted the grubby, largely unattended children. One tiny kid with coffee-colored skin and a runny nose had forced his head between the upstairs railings and was crying in a language Sarah didn’t recognize for someone to extricate him.
    Sarah had no idea how long she’d been standing there, taking it all in, before she was startled by a voice at her elbow.
    “You from the state?” said a small, round black woman of indeterminate age. “You look loss.”
    “I
feel
lost,” Sarah admitted. She’d been so sure at Grand Central that coming here was the right thing, as if her mother had left a trail of bread crumbs for her to follow.
    “Who you here for?”
    “No one,” Sarah told her. “I used to live in that apartment, actually. Summers, with my mother.”
    “Musta been a while ago,” the woman said, not disbelieving her exactly, just letting Sarah know that her story needed some work. Several curious children of both genders and half a dozen mixed races toddled over. A tall, lanky black girl who was maybe twelve looked on from the doorway of the apartment crammed with all the clothing and shoes. Why wasn’t she in school?
    “I
was
thinking about renting an apartment, actually,” Sarah told the woman, immediately regretting the emphasis and realizing she’d probably offended her. She’d
been
thinking about renting
until
she saw the skin color of the people living there. That’s how it must have sounded.
    But if the woman took offense, she gave no sign. “Go ’cross the street. Sundry Gardens,” she suggested, then consulted her watch. “Fact, you bess get goin’. Doan mean to be unpolite, but the gangstas all be wakin’ up soon.”
    “Gangsters?” Sarah said, not sure she’d heard right.
    “Wannabes, most of ’em,” the woman acknowledged. “But aroun’ here? If that’s what you wanna
be,
that’s what you end up
be
in’.”
    “What if you’re a girl?” Sarah smiled at the lanky girl in the doorway, who surprised her by smiling back.
    “If you smart, you learn quick.” She followed Sarah’s gaze and turned to regard the girl. “You doan
wanna
be nothin’. You juss be.” She said this loud enough for the girl to hear, and Sarah couldn’t help thinking this was for the girl’s benefit, suggesting maybe she wasn’t as smart as she needed to be.
             
     
    A T THE OFFICE of the Sundry Gardens, a tough-looking woman roughly Sarah’s age, talking with a lighted cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, seemed shocked that she’d been across the street. “Lucky you made it out alive. It’s Banger Central over there.”
    From where Sarah stood at the desk she could see into the adjacent living quarters, where a teenage boy with a pimply face was stretched out on a sofa. The layout, from what she remembered, was a mirror image of Harold Sundry’s office-apartment. “Banger Central?”
    “Gangbangers,” the woman explained, ash from her cigarette falling onto the registration form. “Wait till sundown. They come out like roaches, hang out down at the corner in front of the old gas station. Conduct their business right out in the open. The cops drive by every hour or two, pretend they give a shit. The real fun begins after midnight. Hope you don’t mind foul language. Muthafuckin’ this and muthafuckin’ that, calling each other nigger.
Shoot
you if you did.”
    Sarah smiled, remembering how Harold, forty years ago, would open his window late at night and call across the avenue, “Kiss my ass, Elaine.”
    “Anyhow, I’m putting you in back where it’s quiet. Quiet
er.
So, is your husband dying or what?”
    “I’m sorry?” Sarah said, brought up short. Had Lou had another spell—how would
this
woman know?
    “Women like you, the ones renting by the week? Their husbands are usually in the oncology unit. The motels near the hospital are more expensive. That’s not you, huh?”
    Sarah shook her head.
    The woman waited for her to elaborate, and when she didn’t, pushed the paperwork forward for her signature. “Read this,” she said, pointing to the asterisked paragraph that explained the refund policy. “You may think I don’t mean it, but I do.”
    That she said “I” instead of the customary