Maggie Helwig - Girls Fall Down

Lauren moved in even closer suddenly, almost touching him, then darted back. ‘ God , he smells !’ she cried. ‘God, mister, you’re so disgusting.’ She grabbed the girl’s arm. ‘He smells like puke .’

The girls were in an arc around him now, just out of reach, quick, feral, power moving between them. The man dropped his head in submission, surrender, and his hands moved into his lap in an instinctive gesture of self-protection.

‘ Jesus! ’ screamed the girl. ‘Look at him! What a pervert!’

‘God, it’s so disgusting that he’s allowed in the park.’

‘He’s jerking off, he is , he’s getting off on it, the pervert!’

Their bodies lit up like electricity, scared thrilled burning little girls, and without really being conscious of it the girl arched her back and lifted her arms, her smooth white stomach exposed, her long thighs angled.

‘Please,’ said the man. ‘I’m not a bad person. I just need a minute to think. Please.’

‘Sicko bastard,’ said Lauren.

‘Get out, you pervert,’ said Tasha, though of course the man could go nowhere, he was surrounded by their tense wild bodies, could only shrink further back into the bench.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ he said. ‘Please. I never did the crime. I never did it.’

Megan bent down and picked up a rock. It wasn’t clear if she meant to throw it. Maybe she didn’t, maybe she had no intention, only a thing in her hand. She tossed it from one hand to the other and might have been thinking of throwing it.

‘You have no right,’ said the girl desperately, clenching and unclenching her hands. ‘Being like this. God .’

Megan lifted her hand. It wasn’t exactly a throwing gesture, it was a soft compromise lob, deniable, scared. But the rock struck the man in the shoulder, and he ducked away and whimpered. The girl put a hand across her mouth, the hot flare of excitement in her throat.

Megan bent and picked up another rock. This time she threw harder, and it struck the man’s head, and he lunged away, and when he fell back against the bench there was a gout of blood on his forehead. His arm flew up, and the girl could smell him as he moved, that close to her, and he could have wanted to hit her, or to grab her, or to push her away.

‘Stop it!’ he shouted. ‘I never did! Ask her!’

The girl moved her own arm. She did not know what she meant to do.

‘I never did!’

He was so near her, that smell, dirty and thick and animal. She had nothing in her hands to defend her. There was a rock in the air. The man ducked.

‘You have no right,’ she said, and her nails were nearly against his skin. Her nails were long. The skin would tear. She felt saliva in her mouth, and the clean burn of anger, and she didn’t think, she pursed her lips and spat at his face, and then the sickness hit her again, instant, the sticky wad of saliva shining on his dirty skin. She thought of blood on her nails, and it was as if she had been standing there forever, her spit on his face, her hand

Someone pushed in beside her. Zoe. She stumbled, and her arm fell.

‘This is stupid,’ Zoe was saying, her voice harsh. ‘This is fucking ridiculous.’

Megan turned. ‘What’s your problem , Zoe? You in love with this guy or what?’

The girl looked at her hand.

‘I just think it’s stupid, it’s… what’s the fucking point, Lauren? I’d rather go to the mall.’

‘You like him, don’t you? You wanna marry him? The sick pervert?’

‘Oh, fuck you,’ said Zoe.

‘I think,’ the girl started to say, her hand held awkwardly in the air, and her legs began to shake; but Lauren glanced at Zoe and said, ‘Go ahead, then. Go to the mall yourself. We’re busy .’ And Zoe yelled, ‘Fuck you, Lauren, fuck you!’ and ran weeping out of the park.

The man had his head between his knees now, his hands folded above them, but the circle of girls had been broken, the shivery current was dissipating. The girl wiped her mouth, tasting sweat from her palm. She had a pain in her stomach.

She stepped backwards. The man glanced up, and she didn’t want to look at him but she did, the trapped grimace of his mouth, grotesque. Broken man. The dark hurt eyes.

‘Zoe’s a moron,’ said the girl. But she was moving, suddenly, drawing the others with her, away from the man, laughing and pushing each other.

They were moving away. She was taking them away. ‘God,’ said Lauren. ‘That is so random, letting him be in that park.’

‘He was so weird ,’ said Tasha.

‘Yeah,’ said the girl. ‘Yeah.’ And she laughed, a strange high forced laugh, and walked fast towards the sidewalk, and they followed her. She was doing this. She was taking them away.

‘Stupid pervert.’

‘Sick bastard.’

And when they got on the subway she was thinking wrong , she was thinking that certain things were wrong, were very wrong, and she thought somebody could hurt me .

They could, they could do that, though she didn’t know who they were or what they might do, but there was hurt in the world and she was just too close.

She was thinking wrong , she was thinking I don’t feel well .

‘He was such a pervert,’ said Lauren.

‘I bet he goes home and jerks off all night long,’ said Tasha, and the girl laughed her high stretched laugh again. Wrong . And her own half-distorted memories of being pulled from the subway car in the darkness, and trying to understand what she had done to make this happen. Bodies falling around her. As if it were a war.

You could get hurt. People could hurt you. People could hurt you for no reason, to make you scared, to make you go away.

It wasn’t right.

Because she had done something wrong. Or something was wrong, near or around her. But she had. And you couldn’t get away with it. You couldn’t. The man’s eyes, black, his twisted mouth.

‘I don’t feel very good,’ she said.

‘What?’ said Megan. ‘You feeling all upset for him? You wanna marry him too?’ But Lauren looked at her coldly, this was too much. Megan never knew when to stop.

‘Shut up, Megan,’ Lauren said.

‘I just don’t feel good,’ said the girl.

‘I feel… I feel really weird.’

‘Jesus,’ said Lauren. ‘You look sick. You’re scaring me.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Tasha, her eyes expanding. ‘Did you smell anything? Is there anything wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the girl. ‘I don’t know.’ And then she did, there was a smell all over the car, it was like roses, it was everywhere. Somebody could hurt me. And her throat started heaving, and then vomit was pouring out of her mouth, burning, violent.

‘Oh my God!’ cried Lauren. ‘Oh God, oh Jesus!’ The girl was dizzy, she bent down, nearly collapsing, her skin starting to itch and redden, and the others gathered around her but she couldn’t make out their individual words, and then the train pulled into the station, jerking her back against the wall, and a grey-haired man walked over to them and asked, ‘Does she have an EpiPen?’

Girls fall down because they have come to know too much, and have no words for that knowledge. Sometimes girls fall down and bring chaos to the city, not just because of the bad things around and outside them. Sometimes girls fall down because of a tiny emergent good.

You should go home,’ said Susie, curled up in a waiting-room chair, an old copy of the New Yorker lying unread in her lap. There was no expression on her face that he could read.

‘I guess.’