Civic duty
My company’s building is in a semi-industrial area and across a side street from a liquor store. There are obvious benefits to being next to a liquor store — access to liquor (and other comestibles), pretty much whenever we need it — and there is one pretty big minus: a veritable stream of litter that washes across our frontage with regularity. Every day that I’m in, I’m out there picking up brown paper bags, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, lottery tickets, empty sample-sized bottles of booze and everything else imaginable. There’s a trash can front and center in front of that liquor store, but people would just rather drop their trash while they walk away. The problem is further compounded by a Jack in the Box on the other side of the liquor store.
The other thing we get too frequently is auto accidents. There’s a major intersection by that Jack in the Box, and there’s that side street, and there’s a significant artery that splits in two just past us. Especially if you don’t know where you’re going, it can get complicated. We’ve been here two-and-a-half years and I think I’ve seen five accidents.
Today there was another one. It sounded a little different — certainly a car hitting something, but the impact sounded lighter, more plastic-like. I ran out to check and saw the remnants of a blue motorcycle splayed across that side street, its two riders sitting curbside, the driver holding his head while blood poured from his nose, and nearby the driver of the Jeep that had hit them. Somebody else at my company, plus a neighbor with another business, both called 911.
I went back inside and got a cold bottle of water for the motorcycle driver and gave it to him. He accepted it gratefully then asked if I had any paper towels. It was then that I saw the blood was gushing all over his hands and legs. I said sure and ran in and got him some paper towels and brought them out. I hung around to see if there was anything else I could do, but there didn’t seem to be anything, so when the ambulance and the police cars showed up I went back inside.
I’m here late tonight and there’s nothing left to eat in our refrigerator or freezer, and I don’t want to be here that late anyway, so I headed over to that liquor store to buy a beef stick and some Bugles. Just something to tide me over. I could see that everything from the accident had been cleaned up. The motorcycle pieces were gone, and the police had put sand over the areas where the motorcycle’s gas and oil had leaked into large pools. Yes, everything was cleaned up… except the bottle of water I’d given the driver. There it was, uncapped, half of it drunk, left right there with a bloody thumbprint on it, for me to clean up.
Many, many years ago, my friend Rich Roesberg told me that his job as the manager of a bookstore was to reorder and sell books — and to scrape the gum out of the carpet. I think of that every day.