Elf Sternberg

I was driving up the road that leads into my subdivision (cue Rush song) when I saw something in the road ahead, about half a block. It looked to be a rug that had fallen out of someone's truck. As I got closer, however, I saw that it was a man lying face up spreadeagled in the middle of the road.

I pulled up next to him and said, "Are you okay?" He didn't say anything, so I pulled to the side and got out, taking out my cellphone and dialing 911 on the pad. "Sir? Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not."

"Do you want an ambulance, sir?" I said.

"I don't care," he mumbled. "I'm fucked up."

By this time, another car had pulled up with a couple behind the wheel, one man and one woman. He got out and she slid over to the driver's seat. He walked over and started talking to the man as well. "You okay, man?"

"I'm fucked up."

"Well, he's going to call an ambulance." He pointed to me. "Is that okay?"

"I don't care." He was mumbling, his voice slurred. I pushed DIAL. While I talked to the operator, he started to get up and walked south. Then, he turned about and started heading the other way. He walked back and forth saying, "I'm fucked up," over and over. The other man who was helping me tried to convince him to sit down, but he just wandered about the street aimlessly, finally walking into Bud's yard (Bud is this nice old guy who has this huge garage sale every year, and the incident was right in front of his house). Bud came out a few minutes later and said he'd told that man to stop walking through his yard. "Healthy people just don't lie down in the middle of the road like that."

A minute later the EMTs arrived. We told him the story, and they wandered into Bud's yard and into the subdivision behind it. While they were gone, the sheriff showed up. We told him the story, described the young man. The civilians were convinced he was stoned out of his mind, but the EMTs kept telling us that without a test or a confession that would just be hearsay, "But, y'know..." We nodded.

The sheriff said that he thought he knew who we were describing. He didn't need any further statements. The EMTs and the sheriff both drove off, leaving the witnesses, and Bud, standing there a little puzzled. Eventually, I got in my car and drove home.