Yesterday, on my way home from work, I got off the train just as people were boarding the #24 bus that I am usually too late to catch. I got in line and waited to get on board. The temperature has been steadily increasing here in Washington, and yesterday was a miserable day. As I stood in line to get on the bus, I noticed a man lying unconscious on his back on the concrete sidewalk in the bus shelter. He seemed to be sleeping; his chest rose and fell rhymically, as if in sleep, but the hot evening sun was shining full on his face. His face was red and sweaty, but he seemed to be sleeping comfortably. He didn’t look like a beggar, though that was my first thought. He didn’t have any bags around him, as beggars usually do. His head lay flat on the concrete, with nothing under it all. His clothes were dirty, but not excessively so. He wore a yellow, plastic band on his wrist, as if he had just been released from a hospital. Other people boarding the bus were looking at him, too. The bus had pulled up and opened its doors so close that one had to practically step over the man in order to get on the bus. One young man, younger than myself but more professionally dressed, even smiled as he looked at the man. It was the kind of sarcastic leer with which one looks at a protester disrupting a politician’s campaign rally with a display of public nudity, as if to say, ‘What an idiot! Only in the city!” No one said anything about the man lying there. Each person boarded the bus, paid their fare, and sat down. I didn’t say anything about the man lying there. I boarded the bus, paid my fare, and sat down. The bus sat there for perhaps two minutes. Finally, a late-arriving passenger boarded and said to the driver, “Shouldn’t you call 911 for that guy?” The bus driver didn’t say anything, but picked up his CB and said into it, “Uh, I’ve got a man lying on the ground in the bus shelter at Takoma Station.” Meanwhile, the woman who had prompted him to act was preparing to sit down. She looked at all of us, the other passengers on the bus, and said, “He could be dying or something.” We all stared blankly back at her, saying nothing. She sat down. “24, I’ve got just one question for you,” the dispatcher said to the bus driver, “Is he breathing?” The bus driver glanced out the door of the bus and replied, “Yeah, his chest is moving up and down.” “OK. Carry on, 24.” With that, the bus driver shut the door, put the bus in gear, and pulled away from the station. I did not witness the denouement to this story, if there was one.
