Insensate on State Street that Great Street

I was walking down State Street at lunch when I saw a man fall down on the asphalt and crawl to the curb. Where he passed out.

I fished my cell out of my pocket. A woman asked me if I was calling 911. I said yes, and I called.

Then she and I went over to look at the guy. He didn't seem like a homeless person. He seemed like a working man. A profoundly drunk working man.

He was on the sidewalk, technically, a two-foot wide sliver of sidewalk between the street and a concrete planter. Unfortunately, his fetal position on this narrow strip left his butt hanging out over the street. And his butt was bare, because his trousers and boxers had slipped down.

We tried waking him up. He would "come to" for about 5 seconds and go back to sleep.

We were worried a bus would clip his butt, or that he might even wake up enough to roll into the street - into the path of the onrushing traffic. So we stood there waiting for the cops, shooing the traffic around his exposed self.

I got tired of looking at his butt, and I pulled up his boxers.

Finally, the cops showed up, and after that, the paramedics.

And I washed my hands. More than once.

With soap and hot water
I washed them well.

Then a whole lot of squirts
of alcohol gel.