for/lit/andcritique

"Is he bleeding?"
It took the young man a second to realise the implications of the question.

"No, I dont think so. No, he isnt bleeding, but could you just drive over there? It's right around the corner."
The taxi driver stared at his phone for a second, obviously reluctant to assist in anyway, wishing the young man would just go away.

"And I have to help him into the car?" he asked.

"No, I'll help him."

The taxi driver shifted  his attention to his phone again, waiting for a last second call to get him out of the situation.
"Look, I'm not doing charity work for drunks. You'll have to get him over here or you'll have to call an ambulance, I have to stay here." He turned his radio on, ending the conversation, obviously not interested in debating the matter any further.

The young man stared at the taxi driver for a moment, who did not lift his eyes from his phone, but could obviously feel the glare and his presence, but chose to ignore him completely.



He left the taxi stand and went back up the street he had walked down just 5 minutes earlier. His footsteps reverberated between the empty office buildings only to drown in the background noise of the city while the sparse light from the street lamps cast numerous shadows that trailed along his feet.

He felt a bit perplexed. There was a hostility in the taxi drivers tone and mannerism that was all to unpleasant. Everything about it screamed; "I dont trust you."
The young man, barely 19, was all to unfamiliar with becoming a stranger in the eyes of others. Gone were the days when his youth would invoke a paternal instinct in people to trust and help him when he needed it. No schoolyard teacher around to apply a bandaid to his scraped knee.
He wasn't sure how he felt about it. Since the age of 12, all he wished for was for all adults to stay out of his way, to get off his back, to let him be his own master. Now that he finally had all that, he wanted an adult to swoop in with a pack of bandaids.



Having retraced his steps on the unfamiliar route, he arrived back where he started and found the old man, still lying on his back on the middle of the sidewalk.

“Hey, how are you feeling?”

It took the man a while to register the direction from which the question came and turned his head, but could barely keep it still. It seemed like his whole world was spinning.

“Did.. did you manage to get a taxi?”

“Sort of, the taxi driver is a bit of a cunt and I we have to walk down there, cause' he wont drive up here.”

The old man sighed. “That's no good.”

“No, but I still think we should get an ambulance.”

“No! No ambulance!” The old man waved his hand in disapproval and let it fall back onto his face, almost slapping himself.

“Well then we have to get down there, think you can stand up?”
The young man took a hold of the old man's jacket and pulled, trying to initiate the old man to attempt standing up.

“Oh, I dont know, I'm so fucking dizzy, I dont know.”

He took a hold around the old man's torso and arm and pulled him off the cold pavement.

“Oh ow, ow, ow. Carefull!”

The young man ignored his bemoaning and got the old man to to his feet.
He could barely stand upright and if it werent for the young man supporting him, he would topple right over.

As he stood there, letting the man adjust to his newly aquired vertical position, he regretted having interviened. Though he knew he shouldnt. Still , he wished he had left the man there. Someone would have showed up eventually. He didnt take that chance at the time considerng the temperature was below freezing and he didnt know how long the man had been lying there.

“Just how many drinks have you had tonight?”

“What? Noo, no no. I havent had many, 3 beers maybe, nothing else. Nothing else I swear.  I suddenly started to feel really dizzy and I was... was on my way to the taxi stand and I must have slipped on the ice. Hit my head I think.”

The old mans breath told another story. If he took a solid whiff of the old mans breath and he could probably name the brand of the bottle he had been kissing all night, but that was a game he was not in the mood for now. All he wanted was to get this old drunk into a taxi and go home. Push the responsibility for his well being onto somebody else.