The kids were enjoying the parade, waving hi and looking for fire dogs and dancing to the marching bands. It was a long parade however, but they were doing really well. Suddenly, I hear a shuffle behind me.
I turn around, and there is a man falling in slow motion to the ground. He can't get up. He rolls over and is looking at me. I ask him in a panic, wondering if one of the bazillion highly trained EMT's would like to access this situation rather than me, a lowly housewife dripping with kids. No one stepped up to the plate however.
"Sir, Sir, are you alright?" He looks at me in a panic. I am wondering if he's having a heart attack. I see blood starting to poor out the side of his face. "Sir, can you speak?"
He nods yes, and mumbles "I'm... I'm Ok." I realized at this point, he was completely inebriated as I inhaled the waft of man marinating in vodka and beer for two days cologne he was sporting. The man was clean enough, but had a two day growth of facial hair, and the stare only an embarrassed drunk who has lost control of his body could inhabit.
Of course, Aiden, the little mimic he is, starts coming over and asking him if he is alright. I redirect Aiden to go by daddy to watch the parade, which he does for about two seconds, and let the man know he is bleeding. The man tried to get up from the sidewalk, but could only manage to roll himself back behind where we were sitting and prop himself up on the fence.
I looked around again, and no one seemed to be paying much attention. Todd walked somewhere, I assumed to tell someone about what was going on. We discussed briefly if we should call the authorities, but decided that wouldn't really help him and that kind of scene for the kids wouldn't be good.
I grabbed some tissue from our stroller and handed it to him. I had put the tissue in his hand and direct him to where the blood was coming from. Luckily it wasn't gushing, but I didn't want the kids to see it. I then walked to the pizza parlor and got him and myself a bottle of water.
When I came out, he was quietly sitting and holding the tissue in the wrong spot on his face, now with a blood trickle drying down his cheek. I gave him a bottle of water, and washed my hands with part of the other one. Then I helped him to wipe the dried blood from his face, (Being sure not to allow any of his fluids to actually touch me, and Tammy was kind enough to give me hand sanitizer immediately after.)
He thanked me, and he sat there like an old uncle at Thanksgiving who everyone ignores. We enjoyed the rest of the parade and got the kids ice cream which was a good distraction. When the parade was over, he was able to get up and walk across the street onto his next adventure.
The funny part was, when I was getting the bottle of water, Aiden grabbed my camera and got a couple of classic shots of the scene in it's entirety.
Classic Aiden! While the picture of our fine friend is somewhat artistic... it was actually really funny because Aiden was telling him to say "cheese" as he was clicking the picture.
