The Bridge

“How do we kill her?”

The entire classroom fell silent as they pondered the dark deed, and then suddenly, each creative writing student began to offer ideas. From grisly to ridiculous, theories were batted around the room. We’d grown close after only a few weeks, and each member offered pieces of themselves to the creation of the screenplay. Even though it was over a quarter-century ago, I can still remember many of those faces. After all, in studying characterization, each student offered a profile of a fictional character, and for the screenplay, the creation adopted the last name of the creators. Thus names like Thompson, Lentz, FitzSimmons, Walker, Gregory, Hiller, Marquette, Urban, Obermeyer, Nase, and Berg not only made the screenplay but a few years later, would make the Cinema Production version of Ghost Behind My Eyes. 

To kill Sommer, we needed just the right idea that would be brutal, gothic, and tragic. 

Death at a bridge!

The idea became a flurry of inspiration, and honestly, I don’t really remember who inspired whom. I was an open book for my students, and they knew it. I hated having unstructured time in class, and instead of turning to activities like games (which stirred them up), I turned to storytelling. If there were ten minutes to fill at the end of the class period, I’d whip up a story of my childhood or adolescence from the good old Tri-Valley school district. To this day, I’m not sure if they believed me or not, but hey, that was life in South Dakota. I told those tales the way I remembered. So whether they sparked my inspiration or I provided inspiration to them, the idea of Sommer’s death coming at a bridge resonated (pun intended). 

The screenplay built off the bridge idea and became known as Freak Bridge. I’d finished my first novel around 1997, and by the time Creative Writing fell into my lap, I’d received plenty of rejection letters including one from a very kind agent from Texas. Her advice to me: study screenplay writing. The reason became apparent. My Achilles Heel (did you know Achilles once made a bridge of Trojan bodies to cross a river to get to Hector) was giving too much information (see what I did there?). Writing a screenplay meant focusing only on dialogue and action. Students and teacher learned together. By the time we were done, we’d hammered out a damn good script, and as an exercise in writing different forms, we then practiced writing query letters. Heck, we sent it out! 

And an agent responded.

Oh, that easy acceptance letter hurt my novelist ego a bit, but the story was pretty darn good. We jumped through all sorts of hoops and went up the steps one at a time. By request, we even registered the script with the Writer’s Guild of America (I’ve still got the certificate), which required me sending home all sorts of forms to the parents. Ultimately, the company passed but it was just as thrilling showing the kids the publication process as it was watching them writing it.

A younger brother of one of my students signed up for Cinema Production class, and after other students produced three other films, he convinced his class to film his sister’s screenplay. So in 2002, Freak Bridge became Ghost Behind My Eyes. A few years later, I took a stab at making the novelized version of the film, which became my 2009 release of Cassandra’s Curse. Now, In 2026, I’ll be publishing The Summerbird, which weaves the story into my Dreamcatcher Chronicles universe. Each telling of the story centers around that tragic death at a bridge.

(Which was a South Dakota story).

My childhood farm in South Dakota

Since this is the first “episode” in my Tales of an Oxymoron: My Personal Cliches series, I’ll give a bit of context. My folks bought an acreage when I was five, and oh boy, did that place fuel my imagination. The barn became an ancient castle. The huge Box Elder tree became the USS Enterprise. The grove became the woods of the forest moon of Endor. I spent the better part of my elementary years exploring that fantasy realm.

By the time I reached Middle School, I began changing. I discovered fishing (about the same time I was discovering girls). Girls? I never understood. Fishing? Oh, I understood fishing. The only problem I had was if my dad didn’t take me fishing, I had no other opportunities to go fishing on my own. In the early 80s, we got some extreme weather in South Dakota that resulted in epic flooding, which was great for all the local lakes. It also filled up the local streams that’d been dormant for years. 

I remember how our grove grew a stream that was 15 yards wide that cut right through my backyard. Well, it turns out that nearby Clear Lake once had an outlet that went right through/past my farm, and that spring, nature took back property from many local farmers. 

On the bus ride, I saw all the tributaries of Skunk Creek fill up right to the road (and over the roads in some situations). When the flooding stopped raging, this left me with a fishing hole within a mile of my house. 

For a summer or two, this place was my mecca. It was a skinny old bridge (remember that later for the death of Sommer) with rusty metal posts that weren’t even waist high. Fishing from the bridge was a bit harrowing because there was barely enough room for two lanes of traffic (remember that detail for later too). So while I could’ve fished from the bridge, I chose to fish alongside it instead. Both sides happened to be cattle pasture, so the farmers made sure their cows weren’t going to escape, which made it a tad tricky to get down to the grassy shore.  In another tale, fishing Skunk Creek almost got me killed by a Buffalo, but I’ll save that story for another day. At the corner bridge, I don’t recall ever catching a fish in that little mud puddle, but I do recall the glorious world of crawdads, which is what we called them in South Dakota. Those miniature lobsters were everywhere in Skunk Creek. They created these strange little mud igloos along the bank, and if you lifted them up, you’d find a beady eyed crawdad looking right back at you.

Eventually, both the waters (and my interest) drained away, and for a few years, I largely ignored that bridge.

Tri Vally, the corner bridge, and my house (in the SW corner)

But oh boy, did that bridge make a lasting impact on me during my high school years. With the school board of Tri Valley Schools choosing a rural site smack dab in the middle of the school district, all the high school kids had to drive (or take the bus, ew) to get to school. While the kids from Crooks and Lyons went one way, the Colton kids had to head west and then north. My bridge was half a mile (or so) from the parking lot exit and effectively served as a finish line of sorts. Fast cars were important to the kids at Tri-Valley in the 80s, and there were some beautiful hot rods parked in that lot. We had very stupid but exhilarating ways to find out who had the fastest cars. Best handling car? You had to drive the cloverleaf of I-90 and I-29 late at night to see who could take the turns with the fastest time. Fastest car in a sprint? Kids spray painted the highway just north of Colton for some old-school drag racing. Just west of my house, there was a long stretch of flat road where you could clock top speeds. But there was another foolish badge of honor that could be earned between the high school and bridge corner. With a witness in the passenger seat, a driver would see how fast you could go while still stopping at the stop sign down at the intersection. That needle would rise, and then you’d mark the speed right before hitting the brakes. Let me tell you, those Crawdads got quite a show since that was about the place where you’d slam on the brakes. For safety sake, any contestant that’d skid past the stop sign would have the time disqualified. Safety first, right kids? 

My jalopy was the copper comet which had an engine upgrade and modified front suspension but was also a very light car. I don’t remember if I held any records, but my mind recalls reaching speeds of 88 MPH (but then again, that might be a memory of Back to the Future).

From Crawdads to the Copper Comet, there was also a very distinct memory involving that bridge: the time we almost killed Frank Summers.

This is a true story.

The events depicted in this tale took place in South Dakota in 1988. 

For the sake of the living, the names have been slightly changed. 

For those that were there, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Before cell phones…

Before video games…

Before computers…

It was boring, so we’d hop into our hot rods and just cruise the highways and gravel roads of South Dakota. So you’ll have to excuse me if the details of this specific night are a bit blurry. In fact, it’s been so long that I’m not sure if I was actually in the car or if I heard the story the next day. I know I can picture the details of the event, and fifteen years later, it became part of our creative writing screenplay. 

Let me paint the scene. 

My buddy Austin owned a pretty sweet 1978 Camaro, which fit right in with all the Mustangs, Novas, El Caminos, and Thunderbirds flying down those lonely SD highways. We were heading west from the town of Lyons, which meant we were going right past the high school. 

In my mind, my buddy Victor sat in the front passenger seat. We were really close in middle school, but after our freshman year, he transferred to Sioux Falls, so I didn’t see him as much. The strange detail was Frank.

You see, we were sophomores and Frank was a senior. It was a small school, so we’d often see upperclassmen and underclassmen at parties, but cruising was a bit more of a private affair between buddies, so I don’t really know how Frank ended up in that car with us. 

I do know that Frank rode my bus, so the route we took made sense. If I was actually in that Camaro (and not imagining all this), the route also made sense to drop me off. 

Austin, Victor, and I had been partying hard since middle school, so if we’d been at a party that night (which I don’t remember), it wouldn’t have been out of the norm. 

But Frank?

Frank was a lightweight.

With one or two beers, he was a mess. 

If I knew where he lived, and he was a sloppy mess at some casual gettogether, it made sense for us to gather him up and bring him home. After all, we didn’t want anything bad to happen to him on the way home.

Cruising in the 80s meant cranking out hair metal, so there’s not much for dialogue in this tale since the music was loud. 

I’m pretty sure I heard Frank first.

“I’m going to be sick”

The backseat of a Camaro does not have enough space for someone to vomit and not get it all over you. 

So I started banging on Austin’s seat, which prompted him to turn down the music with an angry “What?”

“Frank’s going to blow chunks.”

Austin was not pleased and sternly responded with, “Kind sir, I’d appreciate it if thou dost not expel the contents of thy stomach upon my floor covering.”

Something like that, but with a few profanities thrown in.

In the headlights of the Camaro, I could see the bridge, which meant Austin was already slowing down, but it wasn’t fast enough for poor Frank.

“Oh, oh, I’m going to hurl.”

At this point, Victor is also trying to solve the problem. The window came down, but the problem with a Camaro is that it’s a two-door with bucket seats. Frank and I were trapped in the backseat.

Between Austin yelling at Frank not to puke in his car, me trying to get out of the blast zone, and Victor trying to clear some room for Frank, things got a bit chaotic.

Finally, Victor managed to lean forward enough for the bucket seat to fold. Frank’s body began to spasm as his body prepared to upchuck. 

But at the last moment, Victor found the door handle, giving Frank a space to spew.

But here’s the problem: a Camaro door is heavy and long.

And our driver?

He’s taken his eyes off the road to make sure Frank wasn’t getting vomit on the carpet. 

Like getting hit by a cannon blast, the Camaro lurched, glass flew everywhere, and tires screeched to a stop.

That long Camaro door? It’d hit the guard rail post of the bridge. 

The bridge (like my memories) have changed through the years. The metal post doesn't even exist any more.

A few years ago, the State of South Dakota replaced that bridge and widened it, but back in 1988, it had a single metal post. When the door clipped it, it recoiled with the force of an aluminum bat back into poor Frank’s puking head.

Frank dropped like a sack of potatoes. 

Luckily, Frank had all of his nine lives still. 

Instead of brutally smashing his head between the door and frame, the door recoiled into his forehead, knocking him out. Yes, there was a bit of blood…and glass…and a big dent…but hey, at least there wasn’t any vomit, right?

This is why I doubt my memory of being there.

I don’t remember what happened next. 

How long was Frank unconscious?

What did he say when he woke?

Did we take him to the hospital or leave it to his folks?

All I remember is Frank showing up to class with a bandage over his forehead that looked like a headband from the Karate Kid. Down a few million brain cells, he laughed heartily about it as the story was retold again and again.

Unfortunately for Sommer Lentz, the students at Maple River were cruel gods who did not let their creation off with a concussion, a bandage, and a good story. Frank dodged a bullet that night, and that harrowing moment became fictionalized in the screenplay and novel.

(and I’m not even sure if I was there).

But that’s how I remember it.

The local bridge over the Blue Earth river near Amboy.