The fire next time

I searched my mind for an anecdote that could possibly match -- or even complement -- Robin's Dumpster fire, and came up empty-handed. Nothing that exciting has happened in New York, at least not that I was a witness to. But yesterday when I was walking the dog on one of my favorite Cobble Hill streets, enjoying the late afternoon light on the brownstones and a faint wind off the water, I noticed a group of people standing around, seemingly aimlessly, on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. It was a curious configuration, one I had not seen before. They did not seem to be waiting in line for anything, or socializing, or browsing at a stoop sale (Brooklyn's equilvalent of the yard sale). What, in fact, were they doing? As I got closer, I got a glimpse, between the parked cars, of a man lying on the sidewalk. Since the crowd did not seem violent in any way, I surmised he must have just collapsed, not been punched. One woman, on the other side from the collapsed man of the knot of people, was walking in tight circles and talking on her cell phone in nervous, clipped tones, apparently getting instructions from the emgergency dispatcher. She seemed to have taken charge of the affair, and the others were just hanging around, waiting to see how it would end, transfixed by the randomness of the thing. One moment you are walking down the street, enjoying a beautiful summer afternoon, and the next....
I kept going, resisting the urge to cross the street and join the curious throng, so I can't say I know how it ended. But I was reminded of one day years ago, a hot day in March in Raleigh when Robin came over to see me and we took a walk around my neighborhood with the beagle I had temporary custody of. We were walking up a street close to my home when we saw a man collapse in his front yard. He had been using some noisy power tool -- a lawn mower, perhaps, or a leaf blower -- and I remember we walked by just at the moment he fell over. Soundlessly, it seemed, though perhaps he made a sound that was drowned out by the roar of the motor. We looked at each other in some disbelief, and then walked up onto the lawn and to his supine form. He did not look good, but we were not sure what to do. As I recall it, Robin went to the door of the house and started pounding on it while I stayed with the man, feelig stupid for not knowing CPR. Why couldn't someone more useful have happened by, instead of us? Inside, the man's wife called 911 and a fire truck noisily arrived, drawing the attention of several worried neighbors, but there was no sign of the ambulance. We waited, not knowing what to do, not wanting to leave and not wanting to stay. Finally,the ambulance arrived, and we left. I remember that afternoon we were both working at the paper, where we read the man's obituary.

"Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have."

James Baldwin, "The Fire Next Time"