My bridge story is like most people’s: not really about the bridge, but more about me. My sister-in-law called my wife to tell her to turn on the television. I was in the other room leaving a message for a friend whose dog had just died (a sad country song of a story in itself). “A bridge on 35W collapsed,” my wife said.
I thought first of the Diamond Lake Road overpass that they tore down a few months ago. I thought it must be an overpass somewhere that fell down—tragic, but relatively minor. I was wrong.
As I watched the news and listened to MPR constantly for the next few days, I couldn’t shake that helpless feeling. Like someone punched you in the stomach. I kept watching and listening, never really hearing anything new, but unable to turn away. I kept seeing this tangles mass of steel and concrete, splintered up towards the sky and swimming in the brown muck of the Mississippi. I couldn’t turn away. It looked to me like a movie, something not real, something that couldn’t happen a few miles from my house, something that doesn’t happen in Minnesota.
As I watched, my mind began to work in the exhaustive way it works—creating dark fantasies of myself driving over that bridge. What would I do?
Each day after work, I pick up my daughter from day care and drive her across town to our house in North Minneapolis. Each day I drive over bridges, past lakes and alongside that mighty river. I kept imagining myself with my daughter strapped into her Graco in the backseat, trying to get to her, underwater or teetering on the edge of a concrete cliff. These dark fantasies haunted me constantly. What would I do? How can I stand it? How can I protect this little, beautiful person? I didn’t want to tell my wife about these haunting thoughts, but I had to eventually, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I said plainly, “I keep thinking about being on the bridge with her. What if I had to save her, or worse yet, what if I couldn’t?”
“I know,” is all she said.
I think she knew, but I couldn’t really tell her what I meant. I couldn’t verbalize the twisted thoughts that were in my head. I couldn’t say them out loud.
Again, I kept looking at those images of the bridge. I couldn’t believe it was real.
I went out the Friday after the collapse to the 331 Club to see JG and Mary Everest. I was there by myself and I was enjoying the music, for the first part of the night, it was therapy to unnerve myself from the bridge and my nightmares. About 12:30 though, I found myself staring at the floor, daydreaming about that bridge. It was consuming me again, I knew it was right down the street and I knew that I had to go see it.
I drive down University to where the avenue intersects the interstate and I slowed and looked to my right. Powerful lights lighted the whole span and I could see a section of bridge tilted up towards downtown like a giant concrete launch ramp. I could see nothing beyond that, the road just dropped out of sight.
I drove home not feeling better, I sat on my couch and listened, through my headphones, to Cloud Cult’s The Meaning of 8. There are so many songs on that album about a parent and child separated by tragedy. It was just the kind of wallowing torture I needed. I stared blankly at the wall as I sat on my couch listening.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt better. The fantasies stopped. I still felt heartbroken and helpless, but I felt better. I think maybe my bridge story is still happening…
