The other night when the temperature was 15 or so and dropping, and the wind came up Touhy Avenue as if it were a hand slapping our faces, my wife and I were on our way home from a movie. We were cold but relaxed. Then we saw something on the sidewalk.
”Probably some more garbage,” I said.
”I don`t think so,” my wife said. ”I think I see a shoe.”
Sure enough. And the shoe was attached to a man. He was on the ground, sleeping. ”Probably just a drunk,” I said.
”I thought I saw blood,” my wife admonished me. So I walked back to him; it did look like blood.
We crossed the street and called 911. As usual, the person who took my call was cordial and businesslike, but then he asked me a question I never expected to hear: ”Could you stay there and point out the body for our ambulance?”
Stunned, I said yes, although I didn`t want to get involved. ”Why not?” asked my wife, reading my mind.
”He might just be drunk,” I answered.
”So?”
”Well, I`ll be embarrassed wasting everyone`s time.”
Then she reminded me of something we city folks seem to have forgotten:
compassion. ”It doesn`t matter,” she told me. ”It`s 15 degrees out here. He could have frostbite. He might have fallen and hit his head against the wall. He could have been knocked out or jumped on. Maybe he`s just sick. Maybe he had a seizure.”
The ambulance arrived, and I pointed out where the man had fallen. He was drunk and had passed out, but he didn`t freeze to death on Touhy. He was taken somewhere warm.
My wife was right. Embarrassment has no place when someone is in need.
