juvies

Scenario: A 14 year old girl is pressured by everything, by whatever, by the boy's she's seeing, by her family, by some burden bigger than 'atlas shrugged' on a cafe table,*** to pick up a gun because it's the only option. To shoot her best friend because it is the only option. Because if she does nothing, if she just watches films during the day, or sits on staircases and stoops, the opposing gang (that the other's sleeping with) will kill her family, the gun-toter's family, that is, because she won't reprimand the ex-best friend. It's complicated/simple. She does it. What else? Now the shot-up girl's paraplegic, obese, wheeling around and showing cameras her scars, trying to make me understand that "she understands": that it was the "only thing" this other girl could do. Imagine me, sitting next to you, on steps, just watching a screening, trying hard not to do anything at all, and all I'm thinking about is how hard this is. How hard it is just to sit next to you. Take it back, I can take it back. It's not hard. It's not hard compared to this girl who's still a-smilin', jack-o-lantern faced, with walmart bullet scars like strikethroughs. I carry no weapon, coming empty handed, empty-headed.

*that force a girl in a newsy's cap to tumble down a san francisco hill before the screening starts. dave eggers chuckles. everyone makes their own joke about what a perfect san francisco moment. think of lewis carroll here: the hunting of the snark. yet, still seeing others suffer and the laughter after. we didn't know the girl. don't know any of these, really.