The Haint on Cryin Baby Bridge

Xequina Ma. Berber

 

YEAH, I’VE HEARD “Ode to Billy Joe.” Who hasn’t? How he jumped off a bridge and everybody discusses him over the black-eyed peas like something on TV It was a song by Bobby Gentry, created a big stir because it was so mysterious and symbolic, everyone wanted to know what it meant. That was obvious: nobody cared about a dumb hillbilly without enough sense not to kill hisself.

Weird thing is, that song came out just before someone I knew really did jump off a bridge. We were in seventh grade when we started doing stuff together. Don’t know why Jimmy Jean, called J.J., took a shine to me. Maybe she could tell there was something different about me too. Knew it long before I did. She wore baseball caps long before it was cool, and taught me the proper names of bugs and trees. We’d catch snakes and turtles and go out to the swimming hole, but J.J. didn’t ever go deep. She was afraid of the water on account of almost drowning when she was little.

Otherwise, J.J. was the bravest person I knew. She would fight boys bigger than her even if it meant she was going to get whupped. Once in the children’s section at the library a man got his weenie out. Us kids were peeking and laughing, but J.J. got mad and went after him with a bat. He only got away because of this lame foot J.J. had from the way she was born. 

We talked about all kinds of things. She explained the difference between plain old naked (like when you go skinny dipping), buck naked (you still have something on, like socks), bare-ass naked (every last thing off), and nude (how models get for artists, and it’s not nasty). She told me how to get a baby, and we both took vows we’d never let a guy do that to us. That led to practice kissing—my idea, so we’d know how when we went on dates. J.J. always volunteered to be the boy. Kissing led to fooling around—J.J. starting it because she said that’s what boys do next, only I wouldn’t get p.g. with a girl.

People saw her go off that bridge, but they didn’t see why. I knew. I was with her when it happened. It was summer, getting late. We were walking across the Telame Bridge, just hanging out, talking. About halfway across, these two hoodlums, about seventeen years old get on the bridge and start coming toward us. They hated J.J., were always calling her “dyke.” I didn’t know what that was, thought it had something to do with the geography of Holland. J.J. stayed away from them. She let it slip that they’d done something to her once, she wouldn’t say what. Just that they’d tied her up first.

So J.J. sees them and says oh great. Of course we were near the middle of the bridge. We turn round and start walking back the other way, fast as J.J. could go, which wasn’t very. You run, she told me. Don’t wait for me. I looked back. I thought maybe those guys would be nice this time, they were smiling, not hurrying. I say, what about you? Do it! She yells, so I did, but once off the bridge I looked back to keep an eye on her. J.J. was getting closer to the side of the bridge. When they caught up with her Eli starts to grab J.J., but she twisted away from him and got to the very side of the bridge. I screamed NO when I saw what she was going to do, but she jumped, holding her knees, cannonballing like she seen me do, down into the dark water of the Telame.

We all stood staring at where she went down, me holding my breath like I was doing it for her. J.J. didn’t come up. I scrambled down by the side of the river, looking all along the bushes and trees, screaming her name, but she was gone. You killed her! I screamed at those two idiot peckerwoods. We weren’t goin to do nothing, Eli yelled back. Why’d she have to go and jump? They came off the bridge at me so I took off running. You better not go telling any lies on us, Cash yelled after me. We know where to find you.

Couple of kids fishing saw J.J. jump, pretty soon everyone knew what she done. Cash and Eli acted like they were heroes trying to stop her from jumping. Sheriff talked to me too, asked what I saw, if she’d been depressed, had she ever talked about killing herself. I thought that was like blaming her somehow. Yet I didn’t tell what happened. I wasn’t brave like J.J., I was scared of those two bullies. Then Sheriff said until we found the body, we couldn’t even say she was dead.

Ma said Jimmie Jean wasn’t too smart, going around looking like a boy, competing with them an everything. She drew attention to herself. You can’t do that if you’re “different.” Did she think this was California? My brother said people like that should tiptoe, but carry a big stick with a nail in it. So you see this story is a lot like that song. That’s why I couldn’t listen to it again.

They dragged the river but never did find J.J. I figured she got stuck in some place deep under sunken trees and eaten by river animals. Just the sight of fried catfish could make me throw up. I stayed home moping till Ma made me go out with other friends. Mary Sue Parsons down the street was real nice to me, but it wasn’t the same.

School started but I couldn’t concentrate no more. I was stunned from watching my best friend drown and really mad at myself for being a coward. First I betrayed J.J. by leaving her, then by keeping quiet, even if it wouldn’t have served a purpose. Eli and Cash actually had tried to keep her from jumping, and I didn’t know what made J.J. want to keep away from them enough to make her jump into deep water.

On Halloween night I went with Mary Sue to chaperone her little sisters trick-or-treating. A full moon painted the houses and roads with a soft ghosty light. The smell of burning chimney smoke filled the air with the reminder of winter coming. After they got a bunch of candy the little girls asked can we go out to Cryin Baby Bridge. That’s a nickname for the Telame. Story is a long time ago, someone left a baby there who wasn’t found till after it was dead. People said when it was real quiet, you could hear it crying.

Mary Sue looked at me. I hadn’t been back there since J.J. jumped, but I was gonna have to face it sometime or other, so we headed over. The houses got less and less the closer you got to the river. The black, leafless trees looked like long, skinny fingers scratching at the sky for mercy. The little girls were all excited and kind of scared about maybe hearing a ghost. They talked about Casper being a little boy ghost, and he was nice, so why wouldn’t a baby ghost be?

When we got there, who should we see but those pudding-headed guys Cash and Eli, on the middle of the bridge, smoking. They sees us, that we’re just four girls, especially me, the prize-winning chicken shit of the county, and Eli says hey let’s beat up those kids and get their candy. Mary’s sisters screamed and started running, but I couldn’t move. I just stood there with my mouth falling open because I couldn’t take my eyes off the other end of the bridge.

It just appeared out of the darkness, a girl, soaking wet, wearing a long, muddy T-shirt plastered with leaves. She had something, a fishnet I guess, tangled around her head, and through it you could see her eyes were big dark hollows and her mouth all bruised purple and bloody against her white face. She had pretty little cherub wings, and she was holding her hands clasped in front of her like she was praying. A sort of light came from her, especially around her head, like in the pictures of saints. Mary Sue screams it’s Jimmy Jean! and Cash and Eli look back, and at first they just stood staring too. Cash says, what is it? Eli says it’s just a kid in a damn costume, but he didn’t sound so sure.

Then J.J.’s ghost started floating toward them, pointing at them standing there with their mouths gaping. She said in a whispery voice that seemed to seep into my ears and make all my tiny hairs stand on end The Devil told me he’s waiting for you ’cause of the rotten lives you live!

It-it’s a haint! yells Eli, and he grabs Cash by the jacket and they run screaming into the night like a pair of ambulances from the scene of a crime. Me, I ran toward her, calling J.J.! She was so real I thought she’d come back. But when I tried to throw my arms around her she broke up and disappeared. Nothing and no one was there.

When I got back Mary Sue was standing there brave as can be, her little sisters holding onto her dress with cartoon-big eyes. She held me while I cried. I hadn’t cried over J.J. I thought if I did, I was admitting she was really gone.

None of us talked about what we seen. We just went home. I went straight to bed and cried and cried. After three days Ma brought in the root granny. She laid her warm hand on my forehead and looked in my eyes and said Girl, you’ve had a powerful fright. She sat there and prayed and blew tobacca on me with her corn pipe. That night I dreamed of J.J., laughing, happy as a honey bee.

Some months later Ma went to the city to shop and my brother was working. I was reading a book in the parlor. It was a breezy day, that warm kind of light wind that comes along and makes you glad for spring. Something like a shadow that wasn’t, passed the front of the house. I don’t know how else to describe it, because it wasn’t dark. I looked out the window, but no one was there. Then I noticed something white on the floor by the door. It was an envelope made of the lightest paper, and when I picked it up I saw my name in J.J.’s loopy handwriting! The paper was delicate, probably weighed less than a paper stamp, which it didn’t have. Instead it looked like it had a rubber stamp of an angel’s wing, only the ink was gold. Inside was a piece of see-through paper. On it was written,

 

I now your feeling gilty bout what hapended. You have no caus to, cut it out. You get here and wondr what was all that fear we had round dying. If you knew you could not wait to get here, and no one would have a life. Everyone needs a life so have a good one.

Love you.

Jimmy Jean

PS even our old pets are here.

 

I ran outside and looked up at the sky, but all I saw was distant clouds. Then I felt something touch my cheek, and I was sure it was J.J. kissing me goodbye.

 

THE GHOST OF J.J. put the terror of hellfire into those two useless no counts. They stopped hanging out together. Eli suddenly found ambition and started working his family’s farm. Cash studied his Bible and became a deacon at the Methodist church, eventually going to seminary. Neither ever said what caused their profound changes.

I think in her song, Miss Gentry was saying people need sympathy, no matter if they’re just a dumb hillbilly or homosexual or colored or foreign, whatever. Without it you go over a bridge, or become a hateful hoodlum. As such, I forgave Cash and Eli for their part in taking J.J. away from me.

I hope Billie Joe and J.J. will keep each other company till I get there.

 

~

Xequina Maria Berberhas been writing since third grade. She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature and another in Women’s Spirituality. She is of Mexican-American descent and the author of Santora: The Good Daughter, a novel loosely based on her strange life, and a children’s book, The Mermaid Girl. She came out during early middlessence and now makes up for lost gay time through her creative endeavors—short stories, comic strips and paintings celebrating lesbian themes and personalities. She also rewrites songs to honor dyke culture, which are then performed for the community with her partner Rome. Xequina lives in Oakland and works as a school librarian.