Public Drunkenness

The power went off in my office yesterday, so after 45 minutes of assing around, computerless, my coworkers and I wended our ways home. It was already like, 4 p.m. when the transformer blew (or whatever the hell happened; the whole block save the two unaffected businesses, which are clearly in league with Satan, were dim), so it was a little mini-go-home-early card.

Here's where it gets surreal: as I'm walking up the hill that leads to my neighborhood, I see a prone figure lying half on the sidewalk and half in the gutter. [I'm kicking myself for not having taken a photo with my phone.] The way this guy was situated, he was alongside a parked van, on the passenger side. It was entirely conceivable that the driver could've gotten in and driven over this guy's head.

As I passed, a few people started to gather, and I stopped. "He's breathin'," one woman said. One of the guy's sneakers was about 10 feet away on the sidewalk, and his fly was down. Piss drunk and passed out was my immediate thought. Then I felt bad - just because this area has a string of crappy bars that seem neverendingly populated by inebriated contractors didn't mean this guy wasn't actually hurt. The store owner whose sidewalk he was on said he would call 911 (though I eventually called when it seemed like it was taking a while, and the dispatcher confirmed my assumption that I was the first caller).

In the meantime, one of the onlookers came up with a pitcher of cold water, poured it on the guy's face, and he miraculously revived. O Lazarus! Have a brewski! The man was so hammered he was nearly unintelligible, but that didn't stop him from staggering up the street. At this point, I was irritated that I had wasted a 911 call on this dipso asshole, but shortly thereafter the cop arrived (5'10", 275 lbs. of pure donut), and drove the short distance that Drunkie had managed to cover in several minutes of laborious ascent up the paved hill. Last I saw, he was being escorted to the station house, which is about 100 yards over and across the street. Ah, sweet justice! It was a weird day.