Saturday while walking my dogs down the bike path I spied a lone shoe poking out of the shrubbery lining the path. It was pointed skyward, suggesting that the sneakers occupant was still in residence and on his/her back, hopefully birdwatching.
“Ah” I sighed, “I suppose I have some moral or perhaps societal obligation to investigate this”.
So, reluctantly, I approached the footwear.
“Oi! Hello? Are you okay in there? You need any help?”
No response.
Now, I should point out that the afformentioned patch of shrubbery is a well-known haven for transients, so odds were this wasn’t foul play any fouler than somebody who’d had too much malt liquer, thus I was a little reluctant to investigate. I tossed a few small pebbles into the bush. No response. I tossed a few larger, less polite sized rocks into the bush. No response. Finally, after a really impolite sized rock didn’t produce any results, I nerved myself to venture in…
“Still there?”
"YEEEEAH!!"
I was so focused on the Mystery Shrub Occupant that I failed to notice a middle-aged fellow walking a Cocker Spanial down the path behind me. Turns out he’d seen the shoe as well, and had decided that if it were still there he’d investigate.
So, armed with a tree branch to part the bushes (and perhaps to club a beligerant drunk) I ventured in.
Shirtless, unshaven man who resembled a less-healthy Iggy Pop. Chaming eggplant color. Strangly, he smelled like gumdrops!
“Dead?”
“I’m no authority, but I suspect so, yes.” I called back.
“Perhaps I should take a look. I’m a doctor.”
He tied up our dogs and ambled over.
“Dead?”
“As a door nail” he sighed. “Say, are you eating candy?”
So, the Cocker Spanial guy called the police on his cell phone. As we were waiting I learned he wasn’t so much a doctor as a podiatrist (nice guy. He’s going to have a look at my dad’s corn tomorrow). Anyway, a police officer arrived, poked our purple friend with his flashlight, sniffed, and radioed for the coroner.
Now, despite having pronounced dead by the combined authority of a cartoonist, a podiatrist and an officer of the law, dispatch still insisted on sending a team of paramedics, who arrived as we were finishing up our depositions. Using their refined medical expertise they determined that the empty bottles of licorice, peppermint and cinnamon schnapps a likely contributing factor to Shrub Guy’s demise. Honestly, I don’t know what’s sadder. Drinking yourself to death in a bush, or doing it with sickly sweet syrupy liquer.
Apart from that I had a quiet weekend. Clones was pretty good.
