Blargh!

Ok so Friday, there I am, on my way home from a fantastic turkey dinner (Harmanie rawks), with half an undercooked apple pie. I get down to the Bay LRT station and it is pretty much deserted, except for one girl near the stairs I came down, and one person at the other end of the platform, who appears to be eating some chips. I wander towards a seat, and the person at the other end makes some movement that my brain processes as being strange when glimpsed from the corner of my eye, but I am in the process of turning away. The instant he is out of my field of vision, I hear a sound, and I just know he's fallen on his face. Cold dread lumped in the bottom of my stomach, I turn to look. Sure enough, there he is, face down on the ground, with his hand in the bag of potato chips.

A scrawny redheaded guy comes down the stairs at that end and, presumably thinking the body on the floor belongs to some sleeping homeless person, takes a seat nearby.

I wonder if I should do something. Everyone else is pretending not to notice. The person is breathing loudly, on the verge of snoring. He groans and looks like he is trying to get up, but turns to face away from me. I decide he is just drunk. I keep my eye on him, he is still breathing, doesn't appear to be having any convulsions or anything, and won't choke to death if he pukes while passed out. Good enough.

I look again at him, and the hand he has brought up to cradle his head looks... wrong. I wander a little bit closer. No one else cares, no one else wants to get involved. There is obviously something wrong with this person, and with a sick feeling, I realize that if I do not do something, no one will. It is my responsibility, I decide, to at least make a cursory effort to see if he's okay. As I near him, I suspect that his fingers are bloodied. Maybe he hit his nose when he fell.

I stand just out of reach, and as I approach, I say "Hey, are you alright?" I lean over to see his face, and a jolt runs through me. His forehead is covered with blood, fresh and red, clotted black, watery and pink. There is blood all over his hand and on the ground beneath him. "Do you need help?" I ask stupidly. The Native guy groans something incomprehensible. "Ok, hold on," I gulp, stepping quickly to the blue emergency phone.

The redhead starts to look concerned.

I push the blackened red button (someone has tried to melt it with a lighter at some point) and from the speaker, I hear a phone ring once, then twice, then a voice answers. I feel stupid for being shocked, and have to think for several seconds before I realize the voice had just asked if I needed police, fire, or ambulance. "Uh, ambulance," I proclaim brilliantly, as if I were making an order at the McDonald's Drive-Thru.

"What's going on?" The man on the other end asks me.

"Um, there's a gentleman down here, he's laying on the ground, and he's bleeding from his forehead," I say, miraculously not stuttering. Just then the natives body convulses, and he lets out a loud fart.

"Where is he? Is he on the tracks?"

Moron, I said he was on the ground. "No! He's on the platform!" Why doesn't this operator guy know what I am talking about...?

"I can see where you are," comes the reply, with a note of exasperation on the side.

"Well, he's like... 10 feet from me," I gesture uselessly, forgetting there is probably a security camera pointed at me.

"By the...... round thing?"

"Yeah."

"Is he awake?"

"He's awake, but he's not very lucid." Lucid? I can't put together a sentence, but I can use the word "lucid"?

After asking my name and getting me to agree to stick around ("I'll be here"), the speaker goes dead. I realize I am shaking.

Redhead offers to stay until they get here.

Drunk guy starts bellowing for some water. Red and I urge him to stay still (Red keeps calling him Ma'am) since he obviously has a head injury. Drunk guy growls "Get me up!" over and over. Red eventually helps the guy sit up, apparently afraid he'd hurt himself more trying to do it himself. All the while, Red is asking Drunk what he wants help with, if he needs something. Drunk makes several statements like "I need something to kick your ass" and something that vaguely resembles a death threat. At one point, he grabs Red's sweater and gets blood all over the sleeve.

I quickly gather my stuff and move nervously away, trying to stay out of Drunk's line of sight. A train passes, and another. Red has to help buddy stay sitting, he can't sit up on his own. I get the same feeling running through my body as when there is a savage and unpredictable dog on the other side of a fence. I am terrified.

A third train pulls up, and two ETS security guards get off and walk towards us. Drunk guy passes out again just as they get to him, and they carefully lay him down. There is too much blood all over his face for them to know where it is coming from. The male security guy starts asking me questions, while the female security guy (omg, I am really starting to lose it at this point) asks Drunk Guy some questions.

I stutter while spelling my name, and struggle to remember my phone number and address. I draw a complete blank on my birthdate.

Paramedics arrive, talk to the Drunk Guy, who is swearing as loudly and vehemently as he is able. They call him Ma'am a few times too, then suddenly revert to Sir. They haul him to his feet and walk him out. Well, mostly carry, actually.

Waiting for the train.... "Thanks for sticking around, eh?" I say to Red.

"No problem." The silence is a bit awkward. "On your way home from work?" he asks casually.

"Nah. Just had an early thanksgiving dinner," I try very hard to sound normal. "Got the leftover pie." I hold up the plastic bag containing my Pyrex pie plate to demonstrate.

The train finally comes. We both get on. There are no seats, so we stand. He gets out his phone and starts text messaging. I desperately want to talk to him, to be friendly, but words no longer exist.

He gets off at my stop and we both walk down the stairs, pretending not to notice each other. As I go out the door, I thank him again. Then I phone my brother to come get me. The line is busy, so I call my mom, thinking he is talking to her. Sure enough her line is busy too. I call her cell phone a couple of times, and she relays the message to my brother to come pick me up.

I have to go back up and over the platform to get to the side of the road he will arrive on. By the time I get to the top of the stairs, I realize I am having a full blown panic attack and I cannot breathe. I start to black out as I weave through the throng of imaginary-seeming people, and take some deep breaths to get me safely down the stairs, into my brother's truck, and to the safe, normal haven of my home.