Posted by
G.G.Plant December 30, 2009 -
797 views
Rough draftEvent: Old man falls to curb after walker trips over pedestrian yellow bumpy thing.
Today is the weird day in between xmass and New Year4’s eve when the GENERIC FREE WEEKLY comes out. No matter how late I start at the dock, loading the truck with papers, I always manage to catch up to the times and spots so that by one o clock, I am almost always only a fraction behind schedule. This means that if I began at nine instead of eight, I have somehow shrunk the discrepancy between time observed and the particular spot number I am delivering to. Sound like gobbledygook? Good.
As I passed the wells Fargo bank on Fourth st. I scoped out the entrances to Loveland Drive-Up Convenience Store. The side street entrance is still closed. I notice there is a vehicle in the open drive up lane to the window where I hand over new GENERIC FREE WEEKLY and take back unsold copies and as I try to decide whether to park in the dumpster area or pull in behind the drive up grocery shopper, all in the two or three seconds it takes for me to roll past the dumpster are option, I see him. He is hitting the curb and slowly rolling into the street as the walker he was using falls the opposite way onto the stupid man-made bumpy skateboard fucking-with yellow pedestrian shit that his walker has just tripped over. I notice this diabolical city project shit after I have run over to help, so let’s back up. …I decide to pull into the drive up lane and stop the truck as soon as I’m off the street. I’m afraid the guy is going to be run over. I’ve seen this happen, in Washington D.C. He cannot get up. He is down. After I pause the current audio book – James Herriott’s All things big and beautiful,- I jog over to the poor dude and take his hand. He’s on his right side, his upper body in the gutter and street of Fourth street, his legs on the supposedly wheelchair friendly curb at the north side of a bank drive up and parking lot entrance. The wind’s been knocked out of him and he is tense with the effort as he grabs my hand so I can help get him upright. Christ, but he was a tall vato, big hands that grabbed me as I tried to pull him to his feet. I realize the walker’s because his legs don’t work. I see the yellow bumpy surface of the sidewalk. I can’t get this guy upright. I grab him under the shoulder and pull him to his feet, we’re swaying there as I try to get him into the walker positon again, but no matter how I try to position the walker, He can’t get his own balance. I notice a dude standing behind the guy, for a moment I think he was just appreciating the idiotic humour of this scene: A five-six little guy, trying to hold up the dead weight of this aged Hispanic, nearly twice the little white guy’s size. He say’s “Alex, where were you going?” I can tell immediately that this new guy knows this cat. Lucky break because I am simultaneously realizing that I can’t get this guy into his stride again. He’s had it for the day. I need to finish my route…. Really though, the guy’s winded, can’t talk, can’t walk anymore, he’s drooling and spitting and would probably puke if he had anything in him, but shit, where do we go? What do I do with my truck? I am trying to figure out if I can get him into the truck when I realize the new dude is helping get Alex upright and soon we’re both holding him, either side like you do when someone can’t fucking walk on their own but still is not needing to get to the E.R. Alex tells the new dude he was going to Wells.. his voice is weak and I translate and ask if the new guy can fit Alex in his car and drive him home. I notice the new dude has the hoopty I see on Fourth sometimes and then Io look and recognize the new guy, someone who’s always on fourth with his ruka and kid and I immediately know, again, that this guy knows Alex from the hood. I briefly wonder if it’s Alex J. SR. The father of the guy I worked with and who still runs the service dept. at Knadjian’s rugs. He sold bootleg liquor and maybe this is his ironic end in life. Alex and Sons is just across the street so I also wonder if that’s why the guy fell over. -He’d just sampled a cheap purchase of the good stuff to be had out of the closet across the street in the bridal and tux shop. –But he doesn’t stink of drink and there’s no parcels or bottles or urine or anything, the stains on this Alex’s pants are from eating in a seated position -but with a shaky hand. There’s soup all over his pants over the lap. No it wasn't puke either. This guy was shaven and showered and all that shit. He just has trouble changing his own pants.
Meanwhile another voice comes from streetside behind Alex, “what happened? Is he alright?” Then, because we’ve decided that the new dude has room in his hoopty for Alex –his chick is now moving a package of eggs, her celly and some keys to the back seat so Alex can slide easily in to the expansive Lazboy style front seat of the buick- the new voice asks “where are you taking him? Do you know him? Where are you taking h8im?” We’re on our way to the hoopty now and I glance in the direction of this Samaritan, to discover an offduty officer with his APD sqauad car, lights going. This new new guy is really suspicious. To him it appears that me and new dude have just run over this old man and are now trying to flee the scene with the only remaining evidence cleverly sequestered in the offending vehicle! I tell the cop that these two know eachother from the neighbourhood, that the old guy’s walker tripped over the yellow surfacing of the handicap curb and that he was trying to get to the bank. The cop retains the same accusatory and alarmed look on his face. By now We are at the car. Alex catches my eye and stops trying to move for a second and says “thanks you.” It takes some effort but he holds my eye with his as he says it and then gives himself to the new dude –a young white vato with a fade and baggy pants, but in that daily wear style that isn’t too silly like the other ridiculous below the crack style. He helps Alex in to the car and I bend down to give a wave to the cop who is now in his car, looking at the computer and then the hoopty and then me and then the computer and then me and he still has that same nazi look on his face. I leave anyway and jog back to my truck. One of the Loveland people is smoking and rubbernecking my truck, the cop, then: Me. Here I am. I explain it to him through my window as I drive in a little ways from the street and then hand him the Alibi’s. I split, go around the corner in between W.F. and the post Office and as I approach Candelaria who do I see turning towards the bank? It’s the Hoopty speeding Alex on his way, apparently to the bank and then home or to the store or wherever,. That’s the power of community, man! More people should help eachother out in the first fucking palace so people like Alex aren’t left exposed on the curb like that. Like that. Rough.
