Not my turn

Fiction

I found her laying there. She was face down and not moving. My initial reaction was to keep walking up the stairs. I’ve seen this before, girl comes home from a night out, having drunk too much, she misses the last stair and finds her beauty rest early. I’ve been meaning to contact the management company about that last step, it’s been loose since the family next door moved out. I live in the heart of the city that neurotically counts the hours while you sleep, waiting for you to wake up so that you can feed it with your anxious and self-absorbed energy. My building is old, creaky and has a familiar, yet unidentifiable smell. I make my way up the three narrow flights every morning after my run and occasionally bump into ashamed, hoody-covered faces that you know are sneaking away for different reasons.

I’ve had conversation with one neighbor in the four years I’ve lived here. Paul lives in apartment 2b, and has since before the industry left and the rats moved in. He’s a local firefighter and interesting man, though he’s not home much. I’ve never seen him with another person, which surprises me because he’s a very likable and attractive man. He’s the kind you might envision when you think of a stereotypical firefighter, tall, broad shoulders, sharp jawline. He also has a underlying cleverness that can be overlooked if you’re not paying attention.

I’ve had countless “Good morning”s and “Hey”s, and those silent semi-acknowledgments that you have when you have reached the point where it’s been too long to actually make an introduction without it being awkward. The apartment complex is filled with transient young adults that come for a few months and leave once their number is called. There are the occasional families that come, but leave after only a few months, looking much more tired than when they moved in. I often try to guess what each tenant does in between the times they lock their door in the morning and stumble home at night. They are all young, and clearly not wealthy, but not also impoverished; disheveled, but in an intentional way. They all have an energy about them that makes it seem like they know something that you don’t and that they are just waiting to tell the world, but can’t yet. So instead they use their energy for drinking, running covert drug operations and experimenting with the limits of birth control. I don’t know whether they hit the jackpot or got evicted, but they all left abruptly and a new batch came to replace them.

This girl, however, was different. She was more than just drunk and passed out. Her body was not spread out in the belligerent, floppy way that a drunk would have fallen. She was leaned over the final step. Her arm extended as if grasping for a hopeful wrung to help bring her the rest of the way up the stairs. Her hair was falling over her face, which was tucked under the extended arm. A single pink streak interrupted the perfect black hair. Her hoodie had a tear at the back, just to the side. It looked like it had been snagged on something a long time ago.

I paused and knelt down.

- Should I try to help this girl? — I thought. I knew that I had to get up early in the morning and had made a pact with myself years earlier that I wouldn’t meddle in the affairs of any of my neighbors. I wasn’t sure what this girl had gotten into, and I really didn’t want to find out. I could easily make it to my apartment, close the door and let the scotch take care of the rest.

- It’s not my place to get involved. — I told myself.

I stood up and started my way back up the stairs. As I made the turn up the final flight, I could still see her skinny jeans, and purple Chuck Taylor’s propped up against the stairs, as if she were frozen while crawling her way to the top. I knew something wasn’t right, but I also knew that there are times when it’s best to stay out of it.

When I got to my door I could hear someone punching in the code to the front entrance. That was my permission. I was free to go about my night. I was absolved of any duty to this strange girl on my stairway. She was someone else’s problem and I was going to get my chance at playing Batman another day.

I slipped into my usually nightly routine of reading ranting blog posts, 18 year old scotch and soda and eventually coercing myself into sleeping.

It was 3 AM when I heard the pounding at my door.