Falling Over

by James Everington

  I’d still like to know why, he thought.

  Someone crashed into him – well, it happens in crowds, Joel thought (he had been looking down, avoiding trash). But then the man gave a sarcastic, aggressive apology, and Joel looked up and saw the man was standing there as if daring him to make something of it. Had he crashed into him deliberately; was he drunk? The man wasn’t large but there was something boorish in his looks – his little piglet eyes were glancing from side to side, as if seeking support from others before he did anything. Joel just walked away. The man hadn’t smelt of booze, but now the thought had been put in his head Joel wanted a drink himself. The crowd seemed to be all moving in the opposite direction to him as he headed towards the nearest pub, making as many moves sideways as forwards. He heard whispers, some giggles. The quiet and dismal pub felt a blessed relief as he entered – the barman gave him a surly look but that was normal here. He got a beer and some food that he couldn’t really afford. As he waited he picked up a newspaper to read. Same old shit, he saw, but he told himself that he couldn’t be bothered with any real news after the morning he’d had. By the time his food came he’d read it twice, found nothing.

  ~

  Why don’t you call the police? Joel thought as he watched the people out front. They were committing trespass if nothing else; at least the ones at the front were, pushed over the boundary of the property by the ones at the back. And wasn’t there a law against unlawful gatherings now, hadn’t he read that? A story he should have read closely, but hadn’t, for he’d felt no premonition... But Joel knew he wouldn’t call the police – the idea was a sterile one in his mind, it didn’t lead to explanation or closure; just a temporary moving on of the crowd. They would be dispersed, but still looking back towards Joel’s house, still with that look in their eyes that Joel couldn’t quantify; gleaming and feverish eyes turned back, promising...

  That’s it, he thought, looking down at them, it’s like a fever, there’s no cause, you can tell they’re normal people really. And it will soon pass, stop spreading. How many of them were there now? His eyes got tired counting, and he lost which face he had started from. All the bodies outside his house looked too similar for him to be able to differentiate successfully, or to be able to keep Ian’s cheap zombie DVDs from his mind. A chant started up – this time they got it going successfully. But Joel could hear no words, just gutturals to a what-do-we-want-when-do-we-want-it rhythm. It seemed to give them confidence, each gave their approval to each other’s actions, and hence to their own.

  Would the police even move them on, Joel thought, or just join in?

  The sun was at its height – tracing its descent with his eyes he couldn’t see the crowd leaving when it got dark. They would still be here, hours later, camouflaged and wolf-hungry in the dark, looking up at the light of the bedroom. Unless he did something. But what the hell was there to do?

  Uncertain of his actions, Joel went downstairs, towards the front door.

  ~

  The clatter of the previous Sunday’s papers being delivered had stirred Joel’s consciousness from its solipsistic hangover, like the sound held some promise of significance. Wearily, his eyes trudged across the familiar landscape of his broadsheet, the facts obscured to him by pages and pages of analysis, review, and ‘Comment’. His headache was vicious – after getting the sack he’d felt he deserved to get drunk and now he felt nervous with heavy-lidded paranoia. He read through half the sections of the paper that he normally read, and when he looked up Ian was still on the sports pages of his paper. Joel’s hangover was his excuse for wanting the tabloid, for he felt a child-like sense of self pity and irritation. Why didn’t Ian hurry up and finish reading? His housemate was holding the paper in such a way that Joel couldn’t see his face, just half a headline – CAUGHT ON CCTV! The rest was obscured.

  “Hurry up with that,” Joel said. “With that trash,” he added.

  “Did you know your face is in the newspaper?” Ian said.

  “What?” Joel couldn’t see the meaning of Ian’s joke. “Fuck off.”

  “Look” – Ian refused to give him the paper, but showed him the offending page. The usual tabloid schlock, he saw, but off to one side of the ‘news’ (above an advert for an internet clairvoyant) was a thumb smudged photograph of Joel, close up and face on, like a passport photo or a mug-shot. The photo was a grainy black and white, and Joel couldn’t see where or how it had been taken. It was outlined with a black frame, and captioned with his name and age (except they were a year out). Nothing about the photo had any relation to the rest of the page; but there it was.

  “That’s not me,” Joel said pointlessly. “Is this some kind of joke?” He wasn’t looking at Ian, but still staring at the newspaper page, waiting for something to click and make sense, like an optical illusion when you saw it the other way. He reached for the paper, wanting to take hold of it, to see if the mirage would fade at a closer distance, to be able to crumple the paper up with a laugh when he had seen the trick. But Ian moved it out of his reach.

  “I’m reading that!”

  “Ian, it’s got my fucking photo in!” Joel said.

  “So what? I’m reading it.”

  He must be in on it, Joel thought, taking a step back from his housemate. He couldn’t have said why he felt agitated and threatened by seeing his face in the paper – after all, how did an obvious mistake at the printers actually affect his life? It was either an accident or a joke – there was no ‘why’ to it, no reason to intellectualise about it and expect any reward. But his mind was agitated and couldn’t let it go – there must be some symbolism or causation he had missed. His hangover reminded him of its presence, and he winced and hung his head. Ian retreated back behind the paper, and Joel couldn’t help but be suspicious. He went to make himself a coffee, figuring caffeine would be good for his nerves. He felt dislocated in the kitchen, because his mind was still thinking of the paper in the front room. Before the kettle had even half boiled he stormed back into the lounge. It had his picture in for fuck’s sake!

  “Give it to me,” he said, but Ian was gone. He’d taken the newspaper with him.

  Joel stood still for a second; he felt like something was going to happen, but nothing was. The kettle shrieked and silenced itself behind him. He told himself that nothing of significance had occurred, that his day was unchanged. He told himself that going up to Ian’s room and demanding the paper would be childish and be admitting that it mattered. If this was a joke he was best off acting like he wasn’t bothered. He went to make himself a black coffee and sat and read his own newspaper again, cover to cover. Everything he read seemed logical and realistic and quotidian, even the disasters and the remorseless wars, and none of it went any way to explaining why he still felt so sick and why his nerves had begun to clench at the slightest sound outside.

  ~

  Joel paused in the act of unlocking the front-door, wondering if what he was about to do was wise. They were only people and he’d done nothing wrong. But again, he thought of newspapers naming and shaming, of gypsies handed round the country, of real petrol shortages caused by front-page lies about queues, of paediatricians beaten up by idiots who’d only half-read their idiot stories – he imagined the people who did such things looked exactly like the gaggle outside his house (he was looking through the spy-hole in the door): slack jawed and almost eager to be losing their identity, their arms hanging loosely for lack of action.

  You’re just being snobbish, he told himself, you don’t even know that your photo appearing in that paper is the cause of all this. But he didn’t see how it could be otherwise: they had printed his face two days in a row, and no doubt a third time today. What had they printed today – an explanation? As he looked out at the crowd he suspected the paper had printed something more prosaic – an address. They had done that for people on the child-crimes register, he remembered, until the police complained.

  Joel straightened up from the spy-hole – he had to do something
. The people outside were normal people and would listen to reason. He unlocked the door and flung it open; sunlight flooded in and he flinched like it was something unnatural, because he had been procrastinating in the ill-lit hall for so long. The people outside paused; words Joel had been unaware of died from their lips. Their eyes widened in unison; Joel tried to catch the gaze of a couple of them, but failed. He felt a curious lack of empathy, which he fought against. They didn’t move.

  “Hi,” Joel said, wanting to sound normal; the words chocked in his throat and sounded weak. “Hello,” he repeated. Someone shouted something at him, coarse and angry. Someone took a step towards him, as if to start a rush, but no momentum built up behind, and the man looked around at his fellows, confused and off balance. He was a young man, Joel’s age, dressed in such a way that under different circumstances Joel would have assumed that their tastes were similar. The man swore at him, but the feeling that in a different world his words would have been friendly didn’t leave Joel. The guy was Ian’s age too, he thought. “Look, what’s going on?” Joel said, his voice raised, speaking directly to the young man who had taken a step forward. The inane thought that they both had the same trainers clouded Joel’s mind, and he shook his head. “What is going on?” he repeated.

  The young man looked back at the the crowd, and then raised his fist at Joel and started shouting. It was no chant, and any rhythm was a by-product of his anger. His face was twisted and transformed, and Joel wasn’t sure if his feeling of dislocation was because what he was seeing was unrealistic, or because what he had been expecting had been. His head swam as if processing two different sets of sensory impressions together – the words of the boy in the crowd recombined in forms he couldn’t understand, a Doppler-effect between them.

  “Please just tell me why...” Joel started to say in exasperation. The young man’s face twisted in anger at his appeal, and he took another step towards him; this time a few of the others did too. They only need to get slightly more worked up, Joel thought, and they’ll rush me. He half wished they would – then he could sue their asses off. But the feeling of potential violence unnerved him, and instead he shut the door. The last thing he saw was some of the crowd bending down, as if to pick up stones.

  ~

  The kids had been shouting and swearing at everyone; it wasn’t just him. Joel kept his head down as he walked. Monday – and he wasn’t at work.

  He had called the agency that morning but they had said there was no work, not with the downturn. It was the first time the employment agency had failed to find him an assignment – maybe he should sign up with another? But Joel felt a sense of fatalism, of lethargy – not that nothing mattered, but that what did matter wasn’t here. Something had yet to begin. It was a stupid feeling, undeniable.

  “Fuckin’ layabout!” one of the kids called again, triggering giggles and expletives from his friends. “Fuckin’ student!” – but, Joel realised, that last insult had come from a different angle, been in a deeper register. He looked up and saw workmen leering from some scaffolding, swearing and doing mincing impressions of him. Joel wanted to give them the finger, but didn’t dare. He just carried on walking. He wasn’t going anywhere, but he hadn’t wanted to stay inside. He had been brooding in there, and he had thought that leaving the house would break the chain between what had happened yesterday and his current state of mind. But every time he tried to think of something else his errant thoughts found a way back home – his picture had been in the newspaper and he didn’t know why.

  Where had Ian gone yesterday? After he had disappeared with the paper Joel had stayed in all day but not seen him again. The waiting had stopped him doing anything, and been pointless for he hadn’t known what he would say to Ian if he did see him; hadn’t known why he wanted him to return. He had read his own paper a third time, and maybe it had been his mood but this time it seemed dumbed-down and tabloidesque: the way they crowed about the resignation of a Minister that they claimed to have predicted the day before; the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Fashion section, predicting next season’s trends. When Joel had forced himself to bed, Ian hadn’t been back; before Joel had risen Ian had presumably already left for work.

  But you’re being stupid, Joel thought. Ian’s wasn’t the only copy of that newspaper in the world. There were at least three newsagents within walking distance. He sped up, leaving the taunting kids behind, pleased that his walk now had some purpose. Maybe he would find that the other copies of yesterday’s paper were normal, and that the whole thing had been a joke. He imagined some standard story of jingoism or whipped up paranoia in place of his mug-shot.

  “Have you got any copies of yesterday’s papers left?” he asked the teenager behind the counter at the nearest newsagent. The boy looked at him like he was an idiot, shook his head at him like he was deaf. Embarrassed, Joel bought a copy of that day’s paper instead, aware that the lad was still staring at him. He tried to look normal. He didn’t want the paper – he stood outside and flicked through the pages, ready to dump it into the bin as soon as he had checked its contents. The stories and photographs jerked from page to page like a faulty flick-book. It was enough to establish that the world and the paper’s view of it hadn’t changed: celebrity scandals that kept them celebrities, feel-good charity and knee-jerk editorials, stories of foreign disasters in which one British person had grazed their knee. Earthbound astrologers and money-off coupons. His face.

  Joel almost dropped the paper. He stared at his own face staring back. It was a different shot, at a different angle, taken outside for there was a green blur for a backdrop (he had warranted colour this time). Again there was no context, no connection with the news stories on the page. But there was a longer caption this time: again Joel’s name and age, but it also said CURRENTLY UNEMPLOYED.

  “What the fuck?” Joel said out-loud; an old lady glared at him, her small dog yapped and glared at him too. She was still twittering and muttering to herself as she tied her dog to a lamppost and went into the newsagent. He glared back at the dog, disliking the way it had absorbed its owner’s pre-war conservatism. The pet strained on its leash and looked as if it wanted to attack him, yapping its self-importance to the street. Joel didn’t turn away but stood watching the little beast. Eventually its owner came back out the shop – is she still muttering about me? Joel thought.

  She had a newspaper tucked under one arm – the same one he’d just bought.

  Joel went back into the shop, not putting his new paranoia under scrutiny. He bought every copy of the newspaper that had printed his photo. Again, the boy behind the counter looked at him like he was crazy; Joel could barely carry them all up to the till. “I’m collecting the coupons,” he said to the boy’s look of tensed incredulity.

  Later, at the recycling centre, he checked each copy before he threw it into the paper-bank. Not only for an absence of his face with real news in its place (although that would have been welcome) but, if his face had to be there then he was looking for an explanation. A paragraph misplaced from earlier editions, a sentence maybe, that would tell why he was considered newsworthy. He felt like even a comma in the right place would lead to clarification. But the papers were identical, and by the time he’d checked them all his hands were black with print.

  CURRENTLY UNEMPLOYED he thought – how had they known? The agency had only told him they had no work this morning, otherwise he would have been in some office or warehouse as normal. But, Joel supposed that was the least of the mystery. He headed back home, weary, sweaty, his face smudged with ink where he had wiped away his perspiration. The builders took another break to do impressions of him; kids shouted and swore in his face then ran away giggling. He could no longer pretend that it wasn’t directed towards him personally.

  When he reached his front door it was dripping with smashed eggs – Halloween come early. Those fucking kids, he thought as he looked at the mess, shell and slime like some form of obscure and threatening graffiti; meaning warped as it s
lid downwards.

  ~

  Ian’s bedroom window faced the street, where the crowd gathered; Joel’s room was at the back of the house, with a view of the small garden, more gravel than grass, surrounded by low, stone walls. Over the other side he could see other people’s back gardens, and the alleys that led down the side of their houses to the front of their streets. Even from his back room, Joel could hear the crowd. It was still a small mob, the last he had looked, unsure of itself or its geography, and they had no presence on any other road.

  Outside into the garden, Joel thought, over the wall and a quick sprint and he could escape and go – where? And to what purpose?

  To find today’s newspaper was one reason, he thought, to find out what those bastards have written about me today. For surely, whatever text accompanied his picture on this third day must be more substantial than merely his name and a misquoted age? Surely, to draw this crowd there must have been allegations, something factual that he could refute. Those people round the front of his house had to be there for a reason. It wasn’t enough to think that the mere appearance of his face in the press could have caused this display of ill-feeling. No, it had to be that they thought he’d done something which they wouldn’t; that he had something that they wanted.

  He went to the other side of the house, to Ian’s old room. The noise of the crowd was louder – the neighbours must be disturbed by it, Joel thought, why hadn’t they complained? Why was this being allowed to continue?

  All these questions are getting you nowhere, he thought.

  But he still felt reluctant to actually do anything. After all, he’d first thought of escaping via the back garden hours ago – hopping over a low wall and running to an empty street was hardly a plan of genius – but he hadn’t acted on it. Just like had been reluctant to call the police, his friends; even his family. Anything he did would be an admittance that this wasn’t just going to blow over, that despite the unrealistic and other-worldly aspect that it had, it was all real enough.