Man Shot

I only heard him because I had taken off my headphones.

When I saw a middle-aged Latino woman set down her purse on the North Carrollton sidewalk and half-run, half-walk down a driveway, I knew something was wrong. I followed her and the man’s groans: “Help,” he cried, over and over, a deep guttural sound. “Ambulance.”

He was a black man with a gold tooth, and he was bleeding, the blood pooling onto the pavement from a fleshy hole in the side of his neck. He lay on the ground with his head resting on a brick, the Latino woman’s attempt at first aid.

I do not know first aid. The blood appeared in fingerprints all over his white t-shirt and on his jeans. The Latino woman said, “Who did this to you?” I told her, “I don’t think that’s really the important thing right now” (unable to avoid sarcasm, even in moments of crisis). She said, “But if he dies, we’ll never find out.” If he dies. His eyes rolled, and one leg convulsed. A vial of some clear liquid had fallen out of his pocket. He would or could not tell me his name.

When the first policeman arrived on the scene, I called for first aid. The policeman walked back toward his car. When EMS arrived, I ran toward the ambulance, telling them the man was bleeding, and asking them to hurry up, could they please hurry up, the bleeding. They unloaded the gurney with all the sauntering ease of men practicing for a bomb threat, a mock terrorist attack.

As I stepped back, I watched them cut his shirt open with scissors, then hoist him onto the gurney and roll him away. Time did not stand still: the ambulance sat in front of the driveway for at least five minutes before moving.