Girls Fall Down Read Free

figures in papery white suits crept down the stairs, breathing through masks, holding up instruments with lights and dials. The security guard who remained in the station held a towel across his face as he led the white figures towards the train. Behind smoky glass, another guard sat with his head down, trying to breathe, his hands damp.
    Decontamination
, said a white figure, its voice obscured by the air filter.
    The guard nodded.
    What about the girls?
said a figure.
    Telephone the hospital
, said another.
    Just precautionary. That’s all. Can’t be too careful.
    After the Bloor/Yonge station was cleared at both levels, the trains stopped running north up as far as Eglinton, and south to Union; the eastbound line halted at St. George and the westbound at Broadview. And at every stop along the route the people of the city spilled out, onto subway platforms, into underground walkways and shopping malls, onto the sidewalks and roads, driven upwards into the air. At Queen, as the train pulled into the station, a forty-year-old bass player with thinning red hair, dressed entirely in black leather, was saying to his companion, ‘Drummers. They’re like a different breed, man, eh? Seriously, drummers are a whole different breed.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said the other man, staring out the window. ‘They’re totally.’
    The metallic voice of the PA system interrupted to tell them that the train was terminating, and that they should go to Queen Street to catch a bus northbound. They joined the flow from the train andup the escalator, pausing on the next level. A group of people were gathered at the wall with the map of the PATH system, that complex underground skeleton of corridors and courtyards that could lead them into the malls or the banks, the bus terminal or City Hall, outlining the shape of the downtown core in concrete and tile.
    â€˜It’s like they’re not even the same breed as us, you know?’ said the bass player, as they stepped onto another elevator.
    â€˜Fuckin’ A,’ said his friend.
    â€˜Somebody must of jumped on the tracks, eh? ’Cause it happens like every day, but they don’t admit it. It’s like a public policy they don’t admit it.’
    â€˜Fuckers.’
    â€˜Or it could be one of those, you know, Middle East things, you know, about the war with Iran or whatever.’
    â€˜Iraq,’ said the other man. ‘They’re gonna have a war with Iraq is where.’
    â€˜No,’ said the bass player. ‘No, I gotta tell you, man, I’m pretty sure it’s Iran.’
    They stepped out into the chilly evening, the corners of the wide streets filled, the tall glass windows of HMV reflecting the arms of people waving at the buses, pushing for space.
    â€˜You know what, man?’ said the bass player. ‘Screw this, is what. I’m seriously going home.’
    Between Broadview and Castle Frank, one train waited, poised on the bridge over the ravine. A man with a briefcase took out a tiny silver phone and sighed impatiently. ‘Yeah, the train’s stuck again … I don’t know … I don’t know … ’ Beside him, a pasty-faced boy in enormous pants stared solemnly at a piece of paper on which he had written the heading RAP SONG, and carefully printed
I get more head than King Kong/My style is grim and
… He studied the page for a few minutes, changed
grim
to
grem
, looked at it for a while longer, and changed it back again. In the seat at right angles to the boy was a couple, probably in their sixties, their faces pouchy and collapsed. The man was very drunk, a smear of alcohol fumes in the air around him, his eyes closed in half-sleep, his head on the woman’s shoulder. She was staring ahead, not smiling, not frowning, blank and still.
    Another woman looked out the window, down into the ravine, seeing a red tent half-hidden among the trees at the edge of the twisting river. She