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I Really Wanna Know

It has been a while since I've had so strange a morning. I woke up at about three this morning, trying to get comfortable while the cat was sleeping in the middle of the bed, curled up around my legs. I tossed and turned, thinking about everything from going to Iceland and Vegas this year, to practising conversations about how I'm going to explain the Tali/Trynn dynamic to my therapist, to what it is about sexuality, duality, gender, peace of mind and whole-being that I just can't seem to come to terms with, to the longest one sylable word I could think of (which at the time was "strength". Finally at 4ish, I decided to just get up and have a shower.

I got dressed, and decided I wanted to go for a drive, maybe see if I could find a breakfast drive-thru for some early morning sustinence. I took a tour of Cold Lake's mainstreet, find nothing but the 24hr convience store open, and no offense to the workers of convience stores, but the food is generally bad. Anyway, I decided I should probably just head home and get ready for work. I turned down two streets that I never take on the way back. I was going up the alley behind some apartments near my place and I saw someone laying on his back, lengthwise across the road. Odd, I thought. I drove up to him, shining my lights and honking the horn to see if I could stir him, but he didn't move. Right about then every episode of CSI I've seen flashes through my already wound up mind; body dump. I got out of my jeep, very cautiously because for all I know, the guy's a cracked out vagrant looking to jump some unsuspecting sucker to steal a vehicle, that is if he's not dead.

I approached him, calling out, "hey buddy, are you ok?" Still nothing, but now I can hear him breathing, steady and heavy. He's asleep, and smells of booze. I shook him a couple of times, but he wouldn't wake up. I started walking back to my jeep and called 911. I got into my vehicle, and talked to the RCMP dispatcher, who kept putting me on hold, while I backed out of the alley, just incase the unconcious guy decided he needed to make a break for it. I explained to the lady the situation and she asked if I could give him a ride home. I said no. Seriously, a) I can't wake the guy up, b) I don't know what state of mind he's going to be in when he does wake up, and c) I was a little frightened of the propect. What if he's armed?

In the time it took me to get turned around to where I could see the road and guy laying in the alley, he stood up and started to run down the road past me. He was hardly able to stand, totterring on his shakey legs. I was still on the phone with the dispatcher when I rolled down my window and called out to him, "hey, are you all right? Do you need a ride?" He turned to face me, his momentum still carrying him down the road and he fell backwards, hitting his head on the pavement. The dispatcher put me on hold again as I got out of my jeep to make sure the guy was ok. He must have hit his head pretty hard, I figured. He started to talk to me, I asked him where he lived, and I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Literally. It was english, but gibberish. He was drunk. I got back on the line with the dispatcher, who asked again if I was going to drive him home. I said no, the guy was obviously intoxicated and I would stay with him until a police officer showed up. She told me there should be one arriving soon and hung up.

In the meantime, I'd walked back to my jeep and my new young friend followed. I unlocked the door and let him in. He tried talking again, but there was nothing coherent. He yammered on for the next 8 minutes, asking if I knew some people, told me about "bygones and bygones" and something about "by the time we get to the light down there at the second floor". I told him I couldn't take him anywhere, but to just sit and relax and warm up a bit. He said he just wanted somewhere warm to sleep and get sober. As if on cue, the cop car came rolling up. The officer escorted the guy into the cruiser and asked me a few questions about my contact info.

posted by September @ 6:59 AM