On The Sidewalk (Short Story)

“Oh, shit,” Mike said, and almost dropped his beer.

I turned to see where he was looking. He had just rounded the next corner, and he was looking at something on the ground. I stepped a little closer.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

On the ground in front of us was a body. He was an older homeless guy, and he was just sprawled out on the sidewalk, spread-eagled and facing up. He was wearing an old gray sweatshirt underneath a tan overcoat, but he was barefoot and his pants were really worn out. With only the streetlight to see by, it was hard to tell exactly what he looked like, but he had a bushy moustache and close-cropped hair.

We stood for a while. I think Mike didn’t want to look at me.

“Check his pulse,” Mike said.

“Are you kidding? This guy’s probably been dead for hours,” I said.

“You a doctor? Check his pulse.”

I cursed at Mike under my breath, but I walked over to the guy and knelt down by his hand. I gripped his wrist and lifted his arm a little off the concrete.

“How do you do this?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t know,” he said, “Try his neck. That’s easier.”

“No fucking way I’m trying his neck,” I said, “The guy’s dead. He’s definitely dead.”

Mike took a gulp from his beer. He looked at his feet and then to me. He put his hand on the back of his neck.

“Well,” he said, “Should we call the cops?”

That made me nervous right away. Mike and I both had minor rap sheets already, and we were carrying a little bit of weed, not to mention Mike’s open container. We were both kind of baked. But it was late, there was no one else around, and it freaked me out a little to think about this guy lying dead on the street until all the nine-to-fivers got up for the morning commute.

“Alright,” I said, standing up. “Get rid of the beer. Where’s the bag?”

Mike patted his pockets for a minute before locating the pot on his right hip. He pulled the baggie out and shook it up and down a few times triumphantly.

“Okay,” I said, “Just keep it out of sight. I’ll take a few minutes to clear my head and then I’ll make the call. Sound good?”

Mike sat down on the curb. I plopped myself down next to him. It felt weird sitting down near a corpse. I kept looking over my shoulder at it. The guy’s feet were mangled as hell, a mess of raw blisters, dirty calluses, and discolored toenails. I couldn’t stand to look for more than a few seconds at a time.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll make the call.”

“Keep your head straight,” Mike said.



Mike had more on his record than me. A couple months before, he had gotten into a fight and beaten up the guy pretty bad. They took him in for assault. He told me that he had called his mother and his brother first. They told him they were done getting him out of trouble. Next chance he got, he called me, but I didn’t have a job, then. It took me three days to scrape together the money for bail.

I remember seeing him come out of the holding area with his eyes glazed over. He told me he hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time for the last few days. I asked him if he had any trouble, but he never answered me. He just told me he wanted to go get a drink someplace.




I pulled my phone out and punched in the numbers.

A sleepy voice answered me, asked me, what was the situation.

“Um, I’m at Sixth and Washington—there’s, uh, there’s this guy. A homeless guy. I think, that, uh. Well, um, he’s dead. I think.”

The voice asked me, did it look like there were signs of violence.

“No,” I said. “We just kind of found him, and he was, like, lying on the ground and there was nobody near him.”

The voice asked, was there someone with me.

“Yeah,” I said, “My friend Mike.”

Mike smacked me on the back of the head.

I covered the mouthpiece on my phone and mouthed, “What the hell” at him.

“Why’d you say my name, dammit?” he whispered furiously.

“They don’t know which Mike it is, calm down,” I told him.

The voice asked, was I still there.

“Yeah, I’m still here. Yeah, I can wait. Okay. Bye.”

I hung up. Mike groaned, told me he didn’t wanna deal with cops. I told him to man up, that we were just gonna stick around for a few minutes, then the cops would take him away. He calmed down and was quiet for a while.

“You think they have funerals for bums?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“It seems like they should,” he said. “But, I mean, who would go? And there’s no way that guy has a suit they could bury him in. And I bet they wouldn’t buy one just for him, you know?”

I said, yeah, that seemed true.

“But what do they do if they don’t give them a funeral?”

I didn’t know.

“You think they burn them?”

I still didn’t know.

“I hope they don’t just burn them,” Mike said slowly. He looked at his feet. “That’d be fucked up.”

I said yeah, and that I thought I heard the sound of sirens.