Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig Page B

later, with paper and pencil, back in his apartment. But if he ever did draw it, he lost it later on.
    Spring night, late spring, the dark air mild. Alex was high and euphoric, dazzled. He’d been smoking hash, and drinking too much beer, which wasn’t a good idea, he wasn’t in control of his blood sugar, but he was trying to balance it out by eating french fries and ketchup. Walking on a wire. Out on the dance floor of a club on Bloor Street, a bit unsteady on his feet, the flash on his camera going off in chains of light as the keyboard player climbed up onto his Casio, sweat dripping from his forehead and soaking his shirt, and began to play the heating pipes with a pair of drumsticks. Alex firing off another shot, knowing that by some process he himself didn’t understand, he would come out of this with pictures that were clear and dry and precise, recognizable Alex Deveney photos, all this heat and desire purified into an image, a hieroglyph of objective thought.
    The band left the stage and the taped music came on, the bass shuddering up through his feet in time with his pulse. He leanedagainst the wall near Adrian’s table, wiping his face with the neck of his T-shirt.
    Adrian had brought Evelyn with him, and she was sitting beside him, reading a book in the flickering light; this was a bit of an event, since none of Adrian’s friends could remember having ever seen Evelyn before, and some of them had recently expressed the opinion that she was imaginary. They were in the middle of a conversation which was incomprehensible to Alex, but evidently intense and somehow entertaining.
    â€˜So I told my supervisor about it,’ Evelyn was saying, ‘and he said to me, “You used the word
apophatic
, didn’t you?” and I said, “Yeah. I guess I did.” “Well, serves you right, doesn’t it?” he said.’
    â€˜Did you say
a
ff
ective
, too?’ asked Adrian.
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know. Probably.’
    Adrian lit a cigarette and held the pack out towards Alex, who hardly ever smoked tobacco, but that night he wanted cigarettes with the same hunger he wanted everything, dope, music, love. He pulled one from the pack and took out his lighter, squinting down at the fire. He seemed to be having trouble getting the flame to connect with the end of the cigarette.
    â€˜Alex. Man,’ said Adrian. ‘You’re really shaking.’
    â€˜I’m okay.’ He managed to light the cigarette and lift it to his mouth.
    â€˜I don’t think you are, actually. I think you’re going hypo.’
    â€˜I told you, I’m okay,’ said Alex impatiently, and started to walk away, but he lost his footing and nearly fell, and Adrian grabbed hold of his arm.
    â€˜That’s it. Come with me.’ He steered Alex towards the vending machine by the bar, the lights moving dizzy against the walls.
    â€˜You have money?’
    â€˜Of course I have money. Jesus.’
    â€˜Can I trust you to buy yourself a chocolate bar?’ asked Adrian, glancing back at Evelyn sitting with her book. ‘Or do I have to stand here and watch you?’
    â€˜I will buy myself a chocolate bar, mother. Scout’s Honour, okay?’
    Adrian went back to the table, and Alex put a hand on the vending machine to steady himself, blinking a few times until his vision cleared. The machine had several kinds of candy, but he realized now that he was both very stoned and very shaky, and somehow it seemed impossibly hard to operate. He pulled a handful of change out of his pocket, but when he tried to work out what he needed the numbers kept blurring in his mind, breaking up along the shiny glittering edges of the coins under the flickering bar lights, too damn complicated, and then it was quite difficult to get them into the narrow change slot, he didn’t know why they made those slots so narrow anyway. So he didn’t notice the voices behind him until he was