Soon to be beyond the HVNs...

You know, recently, I have been feeling like `hey, New Haven's not so bad, it'll be nice to be here for the summer when all the Yalies are gone.' And that's kind of true, but then it's also true that I've just become immune to all the shit that this town has to offer, I'm not shocked or bothered most of the time, and can just pretend this is a nice place where I get to ride my bike and knit my limb-warmers and enjoy a tween-school vacation.

And then I get the reminders.

Nothing huge or traumatic, but as I was biking up to my house yesterday, I noticed a dark lump on the sidewalk in the shadows and almost ran over it, it turning out to be a guy slumped against my neighbor's hedge. I parked my bike and walked back with my bike light, to see if he was ok. He didn't respond to me, other than to start rocking a little bit back and forth as he sat there... There was another family walking down the block, too, and while the mom wanted to just ignore the guy and keep moving with the toddler and stroller, the dad stopped with me and sort of gently shook the guy by the shoulder to see if he would respond. The guy sort of half-mumbled a 'yes' to the "are you ok?" and a 'no' to the "do you need an ambulance?" But dad-dude and I sort of agreed that the responses weren't convincing, and I called 911 to get an ambulance to come check him out - whether it was drugs or some psych thing, I dunno, but it seemed uncool to leave a guy rocking on the sidewalk, barely responsive.

By the time I had gone to put my bike inside and come back out to make sure peeps arrived, a bike cop had come down from the corner. He was more aggressively yelling at the guy, trying to make him wake up, and told me I was no longer needed and could go back inside. And then another cop car pulled up, and then another one. And I decided I was needed, because five white new haven police dealing with one incapacitated black man was not the kind of situation I felt should go unobserved, and then I started to doubt whether or not I should have called 911 at all. After another couple of minutes an ambulance (and one or two more cop cars) did show up, and the paramedics seemed to take the lead in talking to the guy, so I went back inside.

But really, what the fuck? What kind of horrible place do I live, where I feel more guilty and worried about having called for help than having not done anything? Fucked up.