I refused to acknowledge it

Now that most of the remains of the Key Bridge have been removed, I am noticing more and more things that I never saw (or perhaps never wanted to see) before. One night I was watching the evening news and the weather report came on. Behind the weatherman was a projected live scene looking out across the inner harbor. On this one station this is the same view, unless they switch to another camera north of town. But something seemed different that night. Perhaps it was the clear weather and lack of haze, I don’t know. But in the very background I noticed I could see the remains of the Key Bridge, with its one undamaged pier and both ramps that lead up to it. Surely that would mean that the intact Key Bridge would have also been visible from this vantage point all along…or would it? As far as I know, that station has always had that camera looking out over the harbor. I just don’t remember ever seeing the Key Bridge in the background. But it had to have been there, just as plain as its wrecked remains now stand. Likewise, many years ago I went on a cruise with my mom, and being that we left from the port of Baltimore, we would have passed beneath the Key Bridge coming and going. But again, I don’t remember it. I never looked for it, or thought to look. To me the Key Bridge didn’t exist…If I didn’t look upon it, or acknowledge it, then it wasn’t there. I was not unlike those who pay to be driven across the Bay Bridge and then cover their eyes so they don’t have to see the bridge. Of course, the bridge is still there before them, and then right beneath the wheels of the vehicle they are traveling in. It still exists in all of its horrible splendor, but they refuse to acknowledge it. Just as I refused to acknowledge the Key Bridge, that sinister span that connected Dundalk to southwest Baltimore across the Patapsco river.

Those who hide from the Bay Bridge do so out of fear, like the proverbial ostrich that buries its head in the sand so it doesn’t have to deal with what it is afraid of. But I hid from the Key Bridge out of disgust and repulsion. Until that day two summers ago when I found myself unexpectedly heading towards it again, and then having to cross it to get to where I was going. I faced it, and I traversed it, but in reality I really didn’t face it at all. I was still deep in avoidance mode, trying to distract myself from the fact that the bloodthirsty metal monster was right beneath and around me as I drove over it. The Key Bridge, in all of its fearful pale grey steel symmetry and dreadful history, spanned the river far below me. But again, I didn’t see it. I glanced out over the water, to the left and right, taking in the scenery. Though of course, I mostly looked straight ahead at the road itself, but I didn’t actually want to look at the bridge. Or worse, to let my mind wander and imagine a shattered body beneath it. My mom, who was also friends with the deceased, didn’t want to see it either. Neither did my friend when the cab driver took him across the bridge many years ago. It was just too much. It was best to let the past stay buried….