Garbage by Stephen Dixon

street and a bus smashed into it and now cars are running over it. Other people left the crowd when I spoke and a few new ones joined, asking everyone else but me what I was speaking about and why’s the man on the ground and was that screaming before coming from here, though no one offers to call the police nor gives any sign he’s going to.
    â€œThen let’s carry him to the phonebooth so I can call the police,’’ I say to the two men. “That way you can stay with us and he’s getting pneumonia down there.”
    â€œAnd if his skull or arm’s broken or spine and he gets five times worse because we carried him and maybe dies, he’ll sue for hospital bills and damages or his survivors will and who’ll lose? You and we will if you have anything to, I know I do, so let’s leave him here.”
    I lift the man off the ground.
    â€œI said to leave him!”
    â€œAnd I say to get the hell out of my way if you’re not going to help,” and get the man in a fireman’s carry and carry him to the booth a half-block away. The two men walk alongside and several other people follow us. The man’s still unconscious it seems. His arms hang. He’s breathing. Blood’s running out of his head down my front. I kick away some snow, set him down, sit him up, pull him inside the booth till his back’s braced against a wall, button him up to his neck, lay my coat over his legs and boots, with my handkerchief dab the gash in his head and wipe the snow off his nose and hair, as his hat seems to have gotten lost somewhere from the time I first saw and then caught him. I pat his pockets and thighs and chest thinking maybe he has a gun. There is none but is a folded-up switchblade. I put it in my pocket.
    â€œWhat’d you just take there?” one of the two men says.
    â€œA knife.” I show it. “Think I want to get stabbed by him? Here, if you think I’m a thief,” and I throw it into the street.
    â€œThat better?”
    â€œWhat, for some kid on junk to find and stick in one of us?” He gets the knife and holds it.
    I dial the police. The officer says “Does he need an ambulance?” and I say “He just seems knocked out like any number of drunks at my bar and his bleeding’s about stopped, but I haven’t that much sympathy for him so do what you want,” and she says “A car and an ambulance if the hospital has one right away will be right there.”
    I hang up and say to the two men “To explain things, so you won’t go crazy attacking me thinking I want to steal, what I’m going to do now is try and find evidence on this man to see if he’s linked to the people who set fire to my apartment and are trying to kill my business place,” and the more talking one says “Why can’t you wait that for the cops?”
    â€œBecause they and the hospitals have a reputation of losing evidence out of bungling, I read, or when they just don’t want something to get known, and I know damn well they also won’t tell me what they find if I ask. Understand I’m not saying the police are in on it against me intentionally or in any way. But you can’t believe what I’ve gone through with them so far with my bar, so for all sorts of reasons like my health I have to start relying on myself, all right?” and the man says “Okay, go ahead, but everything you do and say we’re telling the cops, if we can remember it,” and a young man behind them says “I’ll jot it down,” and takes out a pen and pad and writes.
    I search the man’s coat and pants pockets. Wallet he has I open but it has nothing but money and my note and a photo of an old man and woman in it and I put it back in his pants. Tissuepack, paperback, keys attached to a nailclipper and religious medal and that’s all. The man’s eyes open a few times and I say “How are you?