They've contracted out the tourniquets

Suicide threat | August 1, 2009

I’m sitting on the curb outside with a guy whose face is all cut up and bruised. I got him a bottle of water and he invites me to chat with him, but at the same time he doesn’t have much to say. Out in the road a bunch of people are all drunk and high. One is running around mooning people, the rest are playing a game that basically involves goosing each other.

Then Kelly comes over to talk to me. He’s losing most of his hair, but the hair he has left is long and stringy like a shrunken head that hasn’t shrunk yet. He’s carrying a  garbage bag full of empty cans and he’s a little drunk.

“All of these people are thieves,” he says. “Every last one.”

He’s exaggerating. He talks about going back out to the mountains and I say that would be nice, but then he abruptly changes course.

He says, “I’m going to jump off a bridge and kill myself.”

“Not in this city, man,” I say. “The bridges are too low. You’ll just break your legs.”

After a bit of back and forth, me trying to convince him to move out to the mountains, Kelly storms off around the corner. He throws his bag of cans at one of the other clients sitting by the building. They start yelling at him. I inform my coworker who chases after him. At the end of the block is a bridge over the river. He’s on there trying to climb the girders. My coworker and a guy from security go after him and start talking to him, while informing those inside the building to call police. Police refuse to come.

“Can you please ask for the name of the officer who said they would not be responding, just in case?” says the security guy through his radio. Then he looks at me and says, “They’re not going to respond to a guy threatening to jump off a bridge. Makes you proud to live in this city, eh?”

Eventually Kelly is coaxed back to the building where he sits on the sidewalk and has a smoke with my coworker. Police are eventually convinced to come by and take Kelly away for an assesment.