New Wave Dope Nod
In a t-shirt that I recognize as one of my own, not one of my own; he's not wearing mine, but one that I own, I mean: one just like mine. There is a man on the corner wearing a shirt that is the same as a shirt that I own. His is dirtier than mine, but somewhat surprisingly the print on his has faded significantly less. I suppose a rough life on the streets is no match for repeated and regular washing at the local laundromat.
When I say he is on the corner, he is in the road, at the corner. His legs are limp, or going limp. His upper body is at a right angle to the lower—his head bobs back and forth and his arms are by his sides. He moves, softly, back and forth. In one hand a can of coke, in the other a black plastic deli bag. Any second a larger model car; an SUV or Minivan, or something altogether bigger, will take the corner, the light green, and the man in the same t-shirt as one that I own, that’s at home in a closet somewhere, will be hit. I could have been wearing it. A missed opportunity to feel in someway connected to the tragedy that is about to occur.
His face will mark the bumper; the outline of his jaw, his ear imprinted into whatever it is that cars are made out of now, his can of Coke and a shoe flung upward first, and then outward, into the street. He will leave bystanders rooted to the spot in shock and then forever scarred. The driver will be blameless, and also in shock. He will be comforted by the scarred bystanders that have rushed over, have found their feet; have not yet realized that the man is dead.
The man will be, finally, totally limp. A few minutes from now he will lie in the road, and the wheels of the cars around will skid to a stop, and everyone will rush over to the man on drugs, in a New Order Posse t-shirt, too late to do anything but call three digit numbers in emergency on their phones.