The Story of A Teenager I Met On The Bridge…..

Sunday night I took a walk along a bridge that I like to call Bridge Four in the city of Louisville, which I unfortunately live in. It was dark, cold, snowy, icy, and windy. I was talking along and spotted a kid up along the rail of this bridge: he was peering out into the distance, just watching the dark water below as the currents passed. As I approached closer, thinking that I would just walk by, he spotted me and asked me if I had a cigarette. Now I don’t usually smoke but once a week at the most, but as it would be I did indeed have cigarettes on me, so I of course bummed him one. I gave him a light, and he turned away to continue looking out towards the water. This teenager, this boy, he looked so miserable, sad, emotional, and I could tell by the streaks on his face he had been shedding some heavy tears. I casually lit up a cigarette myself and posted up on the railing, also looking out to the dark water below. I asked him why he looked so bummed to which he replied it had been a rough couple of days for him. A bit of silence passed before I exhaled smoke and proceeded to ask if he wanted to talk about it at all. More silence passed, and he sighed as he started to recall the events of the past few days.

This is the story of the teenage boy I met on the bridge…..

He used to live in Lexington, not far from Louisville at all, and there he felt unhappy, filled with discontent towards his high school experiences, uncomfortable with his familial situation, and on the verge of breaking. Luckily he had one thing in his life that he cherished more than anything else in his world: his beautiful girlfriend who resided in Louisville. So one day awhile ago this boy made the major decision to drop everything he had in Lexington. He dropped out of high school, he ran away from his home leaving his parents nothing but a note, and he took off completely. His destination was Louisville, where he could be close to his girlfriend, the light of his life. When he arrived, life was not immediately as awesome as he thought it would be. He didn’t take into account living situations, money, food, job – the basics of living which I know I sure took for granted when I was a teenager. But as time passed on, and with the incredible generosity of his girlfriend’s family, he landed the necessities. He was able to work for his girlfriend’s father, and live with his girlfriend at her older sisters apartment. It was like a dream come true for this boy: work, get money, go party, meet new friends, eat like a king, have stable living quarters, and spend the whole while with the one person he’d selflessly do anything for. This is the way this teen lived his life for awhile. But things changed for him this past weekend. He told me him and his girlfriend were set to go to this party on Friday night. He was excited as usual and arrived home that Friday to an empty apartment. His girlfriend nor her sister were there. He called out, but no answer. He looked around the apartment and then found a note. After reading this note, this teenager’s world flipped and he horrifically realized this was no regular note: it was a suicide note, his girlfriend’s suicide note. He told me that he panicked, freaked, cried, screamed, and fell to his knees with overwhelming emotions. He quickly got his phone and called his girlfriend’s sister, who alerted their dad immediately. The two came to the apartment to find this boy out of control with sadness. They, too, were teary eyed and heavily worried. They got the police involved and started the preparations to look for this missing teenage girl. The boy was quickly spinning out of his wits and began to feel the paranoia that somehow he was too blame. He felt like everyone was going to think he was suspect and that he was responsible for his girlfriend’s disappearance. Now, of course anyone listening to this story could tell this child was just scared. He was afraid, lost, and tormented by the idea his girlfriend may be dead somewhere. I did not interject into his story. I just stood there at the railing with him listening to his story, almost absorbing the intense emotions this boy was emulating. He told me that he soon could take no more of it at his sister’s apartment and embarked that night to find his girlfriend. He looked everywhere he could think of, all the places they’d ever been, all the places he though she might have gone to in order to pass from this world…everywhere…anywhere. Eventually the night turned to morning, the morning waned on until 12:00pm noon Saturday. It was at noon that the boy lost composure completely, he snapped, he flipped, and had the breakdown of his life. He got his hands on some alcohol, drank himself stupid drunk, and drove into the West End somewhere. If you are unfamiliar with Louisville, the West End is not always the friendliest place, especially for a drunk teenage boy out of his wits. He told me he got out of his car, wandered around until he stumbled into some complexes where he ran into a crowd he should not have been messing with. Let’s be honest here, I knew, he knew, and I’m sure you must know, this was a drug house plain and simple and he knew to some extent what he was getting into. He said he had tried opiates before, but he said, and I quote, “Never in my life would I have thought I would do heroin, let alone shoot it into my veins.” So what does this child do in this drug house? Completely drunk, trying to control his sobs, miserable, and cold, he takes an injection of both heroin and cocaine. A part of me teared up when I heard this part: too many of my own friends are gone because of drugs, and I myself am no saint for I have my own share of moral failures of will power in drug abuse. He described to me that he was overcome with a feeling he’d never felt before, and for a split second he forgot who he was or what his troubles were. That ‘split second’ turned into the dark hours and hours of total blackout. Those hours will be forever lost in this child’s life, and god knows what those in the drug house did to him or what he did further to himself.  His story resumed the following Sunday morning when he told me he woke up dazed and confused, laying in the snowy yard of some ghetto ass shotgun house way further west than where he remembered he was last. He didn’t have his phone, he didn’t have his wallet, he didn’t have his keys, and he didn’t know where his car was: I assumed he was robbed. By this point, the teen was so sick from last night and emotionally overloaded that he said he experienced a new break in his mind. Not the sort of break where you lose your mind emotionally, but the break where you become immune to caring, sadness, and doing anything worthwhile. He was done with it, overflowing emotion to the point of carelessness for he could not physically or mentally handle anymore of anything. He told me he roamed back to downtown Louisville, and just walked. He walked the streets for hours and hours and just thinking, contemplating. Eventually suicide entered his mind and he began to weigh it out. He ended up going to Bridge Four at some point, I don’t know how long he had been there but when I arrived on the bridge, this child looked like he had been there for sometime. When I passed by and bummed him the cigarette, I became a part of this story.

When he finished telling me his story, we had both gone through several cigarettes and were on the last two I had remaining. We just stood there in the cold, dimly lit bridgeway. Thinking. Watching. Contemplating. Hoping. Wishing. Wondering. I somehow felt responsible for this teenage boy. I’m only 22 myself, but I saw something in this child that reminded me of myself during my teenage years. I asked him if he’d take a walk with me down the bridge and back. He sighed again, nodded, and  flicked his cigarette out to the dark waters below. We walked, mostly in silence, but also with a few random words here and there. When we got to Bridge Four’s ramp down to the surface, I was relieved to see this kid continuing to walk with me instead of going back up to that dangerous spot he was standing. Before I headed on my way, I asked this boy if there was anything I could do to help him: maybe I could give him a ride to the part of the West End where his car might be? He declined. He did ask me if I would buy him alcohol though. And I mean I just couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. And I told him that. No matter how hard reality can become, no matter how harsh things may seem, I just can’t aid another person in clouding his world with alcohol and drugs so things may temporarily not burn so bad. Whatever “bliss” you may get from drinking or using drugs, just know it cannot last forever and it can ultimately lead to more problems than what you started out with having. This teen and I eventually parted ways and I still think about it today. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then. It makes me contemplate life and everything about it in ways I never considered before Sunday night. Life is a tragedy and it is not always your fault. I would like to say that boy didn’t go back  up to that bridge and jump himself. I would like to say he found his girlfriend, safe and live,  and regained the passion and motivation in his life. I’d love to say things worked out in the end for that boy and his life. But as I do not know for sure….It would only be a lie…..