The Man On The Ground

It was a cloudy day that whispered of rain when I drove down to the big city.

I sped past a bus stop and saw someone there. They lay on the concrete pavement, bare feet crossed with one arm wrapped around their head. The person looked old; I saw a flash of grey hair and tanned, wrinkled skin and a dirty flannelette jacket.

Then I was past, and they were out of sight.

Anxiety had me in its embrace. My breath came shallowly as the image of that man travelled with me. I wondered who he was. I worried he had fallen and hurt himself. Maybe stepped off the bus and tripped, with no one around to care enough to help. The thought of people walking past someone in need was all too plausible to me. It was all too easy for me to do the same.

I slowed, turned off the major road to a side street, and parked. On my phone, I input the location of the bus stop, and started driving again, taking a back road route that would let me park around the block and walk to the man.

I tried to take deep breaths as I drove. In, out. In, out. Slow, turn. Stop, go.

As I went, some part of me hoped he would be gone by the time I arrived; A problem someone else had stepped up to deal with.

Soon, I was parked a minutes walk around the corner from the man. It was a residential street of large, old homes, lined by aged trees that dropped green and yellow leaves on my windscreen, which stuck there in the raindrops that had begun, hesitantly, to fall.

I took a deep breath and got out.

My hands shook as I walked, and I squinted against the falling drops of rain. I kept my back straight as I walked past the houses, rounded a corner and passed shops, rounded a final corner and saw the man on the ground ahead of me.

He still lay sprawled in the same position. As I approached, I could see him stir occasionally, bare feet knocking against the mobility walker that sat parked nearby. An old woman waited at the bus stop with hunched shoulders and crossed arms, a few meters from the man. She looked at me and I looked at her, but neither of us spoke.

The acrid, sickly stench of vomit was in the air as I knelt before the man.

“G’day mate! Are you ok? Do you need an ambulance?” I asked. The adrenaline roared in my ears. He let a soft groan. “Are you hurt?”

Slowly, the man propped himself up on one elbow. He had a square, tanned face and beard that had mostly given way to the grey. He looked at me with glassy eyes that were the most startlingly blue; like glacier ice exposed to the sun. Clean and pure.

There was vomit on his face. An orange, clumpy smear running down his cheek he didn’t seem to notice.

The stink of it filled my nose, making my belly churn once with revulsion, twice with the anxiety that I found myself in this position. I felt unequal to the task.

“Do you need an ambulance?!” I said, louder, for the wind had picked up and blew stray raindrops under the cover of the bus stop.

The man looked at me, mouth bobbing up and down as he tried to speak. I could see he had four teeth left.

“….. -.. No ambulance.” He said, softly. It seemed an effort for him to get the words out.

“You don’t need an ambulance?” I asked. He shook his head in a small jerking motion. “Ok, well. Just wave someone down if you need help, ok? Just let someone know if you need anything and they’ll help.” I continued, trying to find a way to leave with a guilt free heart, but I’m not sure he even understood me.

Slowly, the man laid back down, lacing his fingers across his belly with another groaning sigh.

I stared for a moment, then glanced at his walker and saw the thin neck of a white wine bottle peeking out of the storage compartment. Through the gap it made I could see he also had a rotisserie chicken in there. A snack for later on, I supposed.

I stood and took a step back.

I looked around and saw the old lady still watching me. I walked over to her.

Up close, she was the height of my chest, with short grey hair and glasses.

“I tried to see if he needed anything. I saw he was sick.” She said, nearly shouting with her weak voice to be heard over the wind and passing cars.

“Yeah. I was just checking if he needed an ambulance. Or if he was hurt.” I said.

“I asked that too, but I couldn’t hear what he said. I can’t hear well.” She replied, gesturing to her ears, “I saw him sit up and have a drink.” I remembered the wine.

“I guess he’s just drunk.” I said, grimacing as we stared at him.

A white hatchback pulled into the bus stop and their window rolled down. Inside, a middle-aged woman sat in the driver seat.

“Is he ok?” She asked, pointing to the man on the ground. It was hard to hear her.

“Yeah, we think he’s just drunk and sleeping it off.” I said, leaning down to make eye contact.

“Oh, gosh.” She said, then glanced around her car, “I don’t even have any water for him. The poor guy.”

“Yeah-” I began.

“I have to catch this.” The old woman said.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“This is my bus.” She gestured to a bus driving down the road.

“Should we call anyone?” The woman in the car asked. She hadn’t heard us talk.

“I think he’ll be ok. It seems like this is where he wants to be.” I said, “But you need to keep driving. Bus.” I gestured down the road too. The woman glanced over her shoulder.

“Yeah ok!” She said, and her car started rolling. The bus came, air brakes hissing, and the little old woman stepped on. I stepped back and watched her go.

I don’t remember if any of us said goodbye. Maybe the meeting was too brief and strange an encounter to merit the formality. We didn’t even know each other's names.

I glanced at the man and began walking back to my car. The raindrops beaded on my jacket, and my heart was in a jumble. The anxiety slowly drained out of me, replaced by sadness and confusion.

At my car, I opened the passenger door and grabbed a bottle of water I had there. I had drunk half of it, but it was the best I could do. Bottle in hand, I started walking back.

I rounded the corner again and saw the man still lay in the same position, chest slowly rising and falling. I breathed through my mouth as I entered the cloud of vomit-stench and left the bottle beside him.

“Here’s some water, mate. For later.” I said, but he didn’t wake.

Standing over him, I wondered what he really needed. I wondered what he would say if he were sober. I wondered who he was, and who he could have been.

Who wondered where he was right now; who was waiting for him to come home?

I wondered what place in society someone like him could have. People like him seem to exist everywhere, but I wondered if that was because there could never be a place for them, of if it was just because no one cared to make a place.

Are they failures, or has life failed them? No one would pick this life for themselves.

It was too much for one person. It was too much for me.

In the end, for all I cared to help, I just left the man on the ground with a half-full bottle of water, and walked away.

I didn’t know what else to do for him.