Bart

Sometimes, the universe gives you exactly what you ask for, exactly when you ask for it.

(This just happened to me.)

It was noon. I had already done some writing on a story that I’ve been working on. I’m nearing the end of it, and it feels like I’m in the middle of a boss battle. I’m currently writing what seems to be the core emotional center or climax of the piece. It’s a difficult part. I can’t force it. But I can’t leave it alone.

However, after spending the better part of last night as well immersed in writing, I realized I was hitting a limit of time spent in fantasyland. I tried to write outside so that I wasn’t cooped up inside all day but was immediately beset by mosquitoes and angry about it.. I had an unshakeable feeling that I needed to get out into reality and connect with it, right now, during the day. I could come back to writing at night. Now was the time for reality.

With that solified in my mind, I decided to go out and walk, and do a bit of running, which I have wanted to do but am struggling with a calf strain. Just let my feet take me somewhere, and move my body in the sun. I changed clothes, threw on shoes, and out I went.

Immediately, as I turned right to go up the hill and into the depths of my East Nashville neighborhood, I saw a man on the ground in the grass across the street. He was about thirty feet down the way, rolling around near the sidewalk. I didn’t recognize him. I saw that he was old, had snow-white hair. And at first, I thought that he may have been doing yoga or something. I approached him with great curiosity and growing concern. I realized that he was not just doing some noonday stretches, but he trying to get up off the ground, and he was shaking and rocking rhythmically, like he was having a small seizure.

I walked up and studied him. There was no else around. I asked him if he was okay, and what had happened. I now noticed that his forehead was covered in a smear of blood. It was shining and deep red. It was the color of blood. He seemed confused, and I was trying to figure out what had happened to him. Was he having a stroke? Did he have a concussion? How conscious was he? Was he on drugs? He was not coherent at all. He only kept asking me to help him get up.

I could tell that if he did get up, it wouldn’t help him much. He was going to fall right over, and risk hurting himself again. I knew then that I needed to call an ambulance, and I looked around for anybody, but there was no one around. I didn’t have my phone on me and would have to go back and get it. I didn’t want to leave this man, but that was what I had to do. As I walked over to the man I had heard a siren, and I was hoping that maybe they were on the way for him, although there was no one around that I could see that would have called the police. Well, I hung around with this man, who was becoming angry at me, that I was not helping him stand up, which he couldn’t do anyways, and he started yelling at me, when I let go of his hands, “Help me, God Dammit!!” I grabbed his hands again, calming him, and then I saw turning the corner at the end of the street, a fire truck. That was a relief, and I waved to them. They pulled up, and three guys hopped out of the truck.

The lead guy was middle aged, shaved head. The two guys following behind were younger, wearing sunglasses. The shaved head firefighter walked up to the old man, and said to my surprise, in a friendly way, “Hi there Bart! Need some help?” The firefighter knew this guy. That was good. Bart said, not looking up at them, “I don’t want your help. Don’t help me.” He seemed to know them too. He was not happy to see them.

I backed off, and let the professionals take over. They talked to him, grabbed a plastic chair off the nearby porch and sat him down in it. As they picked him up, he collapsed again. The two other firefighters were sitting with him now. The lead firefighter now turned to me and gave me an explanation, in low tones. “He lives just over there,” he said, gesturing to the houses back behind. “He has Lou Gehrig’s disease and does crack, smokes weed.” He talked about it as if it were regrettable but common. All I could really thing to say to this was, “He’s having a tough time, I can tell.” The firefighter now walked over to Bart, and at that time an ambulance and a squad car showed up, everyone getting out of their vehicles. Six personnel were on the scene, and my role here in this small play was finished. I went off on my walk.

I thought briefly about this. I reflected on the plight of this old man, of the casual, matter-of-fact way of speaking about him, in his patheticness, of the firefighter.. This man, a man of my neighborhood, in such abysmal condition, and his story so natural and normal that I don’t even bat an eye at it. It’s not surprising to me at all to have encountered this situation. Especially after New York City, and from my time at the Cummins Station Starbucks, I am not shocked to see these things anymore.

Underneath the normal veil, the standard quietness of this suburban space, today, where I do my writing and my gardening, and things seem so normal, there was a rupture. I learned that my neighbor is doing crack. He is not okay. He is suffering.

Bart punctured the veil.

I am supposed to write something memorable and significant here, in conclusion. I know that. But I don’t really have anything to say.

I left my house seeking reality, and yet I was immediately met with a somewhat fantastical event. I guess it’s just that kind of day. The lines are blurred.

I hope Bart is okay.