Brian Freeman: The Night Bird

Like a shiny Christmas display, red brake lights flashed to life across the five westbound lanes of the San Francisco — Oakland Bay Bridge. Two hundred feet above the frigid waters off Yerba Buena Island, the car horns, bangs, and skids of a chain-reaction fender bender transformed the traffic into a parking lot. Hundreds of gridlock-weary Bay Area travelers knew they were going nowhere fast. They turned off their engines, grabbed their smartphones, and settled in to wait.

Trapped in the rightmost lane, Lucy Hagen began to panic. Her fists squeezed closed; her nails dug into her palms. “Oh, damn, damn, damn,” she murmured, shutting her eyes. “Not up here.”

Her friend Brynn, who was behind the wheel of the top-down Camaro convertible, patted Lucy’s leg. “Hey, it’ll be okay.”

But it was not okay.

Lucy hated bridges. If she could have never driven across another bridge in her life, she would have happily done so, but Lucy lived in San Francisco. There was water, water everywhere, and going anywhere meant crossing a bridge. The Richmond Bridge. The Bay Bridge. The San Mateo Bridge. The Dumbarton Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge. She took BART under the bay whenever she could, but too often, she had no choice but to venture across the tall spans to get where she was going. Bridges were her enemy.

“Can you get us out of this lane?” Lucy asked Brynn.

“And go where?” Brynn sighed.

They were boxed in. The parked cars around them filled every space. Brynn switched off the motor of the Camaro, but she left the radio playing. Steely Dan sang “Do It Again,” and Brynn tapped her thumbs on the wheel with the beat of the music. She was utterly unaffected by their situation, but Lucy was living her worst nightmare — frozen on the bridge, inches away from the railing and the terrifying drop to the water.

It was night. Eleven o’clock. Tendrils of fog laced through the darkness like ghosts spiriting between the bridge cables. The giant suspender climbed above the car, outlined by white lights, with rows of taller and taller cables leaning toward the main tower. A cold, ferocious wind whirled and sang. Lucy sensed the almost-imperceptible sway of the bridge deck under the car, reminding her that she was trapped in midair. Clammy sweat bloomed on her skin. Involuntarily, her body twitched, as if she’d been shocked by electricity.

“Maintenance people have to walk up there to replace the lights,” Brynn said, pointing at the sharp slope of the suspension cable. “Now that’s freaky. Think about having a job like that.”

“Shut up, Brynn.”

Her friend giggled. “I guess this would be a bad time for the Big One to hit.”

“I said, shut up. Please. It’s not funny.”

“I’m sorry,” Brynn told her, reaching over to squeeze Lucy’s hand. “This is really bad for you, huh?”

“Awful.”

“You should talk to my shrink.”

“That won’t help. Nothing helps.”

“Hey, she’s pretty good. She helped me with my thing. What do you think is going to happen, anyway? Do you think the bridge is going to fall down or something?”

“No,” Lucy said.

“Then what?”

“Brynn, I don’t want to talk about this, okay?”

Her friend held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. Just relax. We’ll get out of here soon. I’ll turn up the music.”

Brynn did. The radio blared an Elton John song. “Bennie and the Jets.” Elton thumped through the speakers, and the music fought with the roar of the wind.

Lucy knew that bridges didn’t bother most people. Here they were, all of them imprisoned on a strip of steel and concrete high above the bay, and nobody else cared. She looked around at the other cars. A man in a Lexus beside them barked into a cell phone; he was simply annoyed by the delay. Several people texted; she saw thumbs flying. A DVD played on the dashboard screen in a minivan. She recognized the movie. Inside Out.

It was just one more California traffic jam.

Then Lucy’s mouth went dry. With her head craned to look behind her, she spotted a black Cutlass with smoked windows three lanes over and one car length behind them. The Cutlass was dented and dirty. She only noticed it because at the moment she looked, the passenger window rolled halfway down. The window was dark, the night was dark, and the car was dark. Even so, for a single moment, she saw a face behind the glass, deep inside the car.

Not a face. A mask.

The mask was bone white, with a grotesquely oversized smile, framed by cherry-red lips. The rounded eyeholes were chambered, like the eyes of a fly. The chin made a sharp V, and the white forehead had deep, exaggerated bones that stretched halfway up the skullcap. Ropes of black hair — a wig — hung down on both sides of the mask. It grinned at her.

“Holy shit!” Lucy exclaimed.

Brynn glanced at her. “What is it?”

“That guy! Look!”

Brynn peered over her shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”

The window of the Cutlass was closed now. They couldn’t see inside. Lucy wondered if it had ever been open. Maybe she was hallucinating. The terror of the bridge was making her imagine things that weren’t there.

“What did you see?” Brynn asked.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“You’re still really scared?”

“Yes.”

“Look, all you have to do is sit and wait,” Brynn said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I know, but I’m afraid I’m going to freak out.”

“Close your eyes. Breathe slowly in and out. My shrink said it was called self-soothing.”

Lucy shut her eyes and tried to measure out her deep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Twice, three times. It helped at first, but then a gust of wind rocked Brynn’s Camaro, and Lucy’s eyes shot open. She screamed and wrapped her arms around herself. Beside her, Brynn simply savored the fresh air blowing off the water. Even in her lace shift, which bared her legs up to her thighs, Brynn didn’t look cold. Her expression was dreamy.

Lucy envied Brynn because her friend was so damn put together. They both worked counter jobs at Macy’s. They shared a Haight-Fillmore studio apartment. If you weren’t a lawyer or banker or tech guru and you wanted to live in the city, you had to cram bodies into tiny rooms. Brynn was one of those tall blondes who sucked up all the male energy wherever she went. Great hair, great body, long legs, electric smile. That was annoying, but hanging with Brynn meant getting into the best clubs and the best parties. Lucy liked her. Brynn was pretty, but she wasn’t a mean girl who rubbed her advantages in your face.

You couldn’t be around Brynn and not feel her happiness. She had the magic touch. Looks. Sexy new boyfriend. Parents with money for when times got tight. Lucy wished she could trade places with her. Even for a day, it would be nice to know what it felt like to be inside her head and inside her body. To be confident and unafraid. Lucy felt anxious in the city every day.

“Come on, Lucy, let’s dance it up,” Brynn told her.

As Elton John crooned the chorus, Brynn sang about Buh-Buh-Buh Bennie and the Jets in an off-key voice. She swayed; she drummed on the dashboard. She shook her loose blond hair. Lucy gave in and sang, too. Nearby, other drivers saluted them with a toot of their horns. For a moment, Lucy forgot about the bridge and felt a timid smile creep onto her face. Seeing it, Brynn beamed at her and flashed a thumbs-up.