I saw a real, live dead guy yesterday.

My son & I went to have lunch with Queen Grands, at her place of employment, & in doing so, we got to travel through a substantial amount of the city. That type of scenery is always the backdrop for an interesting & entertaining conversation between my son & I, because that’s how we roll. & when we roll, we’re usually together. I’d decided I’d stop bragging about him so much, online & beyond, because that type of thing has an expiration date. Just like any other nozzle activity. But, the kid’s very cognizant & his comprehension is awesome. That’s to say I can gingerly converse with him on any subject, fluently, within the grasp of above average 7 year old reality. But that’s not the point.

At [REDACTED], where my wife works, there’s a gigantic parking lot. The type that demands extra attention for horrid drivers, as well as aggressive homeless folks. I noticed “Caution” tape in the distance, covering a small area between a trash can & some type of car. My son & I started walking towards it, out of mere curiosity (that same shit that kills cats), & like clockwork, my daddy sense started tingling. Looking at the tape, I didn’t notice all the uniforms off to the side. Once I did realize that they were standing about, in no hurry whatsoever, near that tape, I knew what time it was. I told my son to wait, but fuck all that, though. I needed a picture…

^behind that yellow tape: the dead guy. the lady next to the officer: the woman who did not kill him…

The first time I saw a dead body (no ‘Stand By Me’ or ‘Boyz N Da Hood’), I was about 15. My ace boon Teron was spending the night, & my Grandparents were flying back home, to Lewzanna. My mother asked us to ride with her to the airport, & like most young boys, we jumped at the chance of going to a place that’s potentially full of boobs at any giving moment. At the airport, for whatever reason, I called the house to talk to my dad. He told me that someone had gotten shot in front of our apartment, minutes after we drove away, & that the guy’s in the alley. Dead. (That’s not as awesome as it sounds, for the record) My dad said that the police had taped off our whole block, because as the shooting began, he ran, & bled, & possibly dropped all types of evidence. The gunmen drove away, which my dad saw because we lived in an upstairs apartment, only to come right back, & shoot the man more. He stumbled to the foot of the alley, & expired.

When we got home, my mother, Teron & I, we had to drive an extra 2 blocks to come around on the opposite side of the block, & the rest of the way, we’d walk. It turned out that, the alley wasn’t blocked off on the other side, because the man went nowhere near there. So, that’s the way we went in. This gave us a chance to walk within literal feet of the newly dead body. So, we did. The wind blew mildly enough to ruffle the white sheet, & we talked for what seemed like hours about how, what, why. (We already knew when & where.) After awhile, we went in, made a snack, admitted it was the creepiest thing we’ve seen in life (at that point), & played Super Mario Kart until the sun came up. That way, if he zombied-up, we’d be completely safe.

Contrary to popular belief, seeing a freshly dead body is not normal. It wasn’t then, when I was about 15, & isn’t now, that I’m most certainly 34. Anyway, we walked away from the scene of the, umm, crime, & had lunch with the matriarch. By the time we’d finished our delicious meal, word had spread all throughout [REDACTED], into the parking lot, & all the way over to the dining area of the cozy strip mall where we dined.

From my intel, I found that the lady standing next to the cop in the photo, is the person who called the police. Also, the person who hit the man. However, not the person who killed the man. Apparently, he was already dead, of what seems like natural causes. So, the man just ceased to live, right there in the parking lot where he lived, behind a trash can, alone. Not for nothing, but it turns out that the woman not only hit the man, but drove her car over his (already dead) legs. She got out to see what the bump was (yikes!), & the rest is history. Literally & figuratively.

I offered to walk my son closer to look, & he said no, which was okay. I wasn’t doing it to tease him, or play some cruel joke like a lot of these young-minded fathers would do, but rather use this as a visual aid to the bullshit I pound into his brain/mind everyday of the Christian calendar. Life is real. Life is short. Life is once. Or, somethings to that effect. I saw his curiosity peeking around his fear, & encouraged him to talk about it, & he admitted he was sad, but also made it clear that he understood the gravity of this situation. (Aware & empathetic; mission accomplished?)

When we walked past the scene, from a moderate distance of course, the coroner was doing his “get the dead guy up off the ground” routine, & my son voiced his opinion on how gross handling fresh carcasses must be. (“Fresh carcasses,” roffle mayo.) Well, not ver batim, but you smell my cologne. That backdrop for interesting stories theory is dead on, because then, I told him the story of how my family had a party for my grandfather, while he lay in his bed, deceased, waiting for the coroner to arrive.

Oh, & the morning after the guy got shot in front of my apartment complex, the neighborhood “kids” walked around looking at the clumps of blood, plasma & other bodily fluids that trailed the sidewalk like a roadmap to his redemption. Made me think about my own. Maybe you should too.