Human waste
At a similar time to my first story, I was combining fighting a hangover and getting my mother a birthday card with a trip to the same Tesco in Huddersfield.

My still foggy brain led to me taking a slightly different route, and hence I noticed something in the street. “A pile of rags.” My brain told me. People walked by and seemed oddly unaware of it. Looking any were but at it.

As I got in close I realised it was a man, and by his look, a very homeless man. He was out cold, broad daylight, middle of a fairly busy street and nobody paid any attention.

I asked if he was ok, no response. I asked louder, again, nothing. I could see he was still breathing, So I looked to see if I could see any injury, or any sign of what was wrong. I found the culprit, a bottle of “white lightning” (strong, cheap cider to our more cultured readers). Seemed the old fellow had drunk himself to pieces. A group of girls came over to see what was wrong. They quickly decided it wasn’t too important, and not worth touching his “piss soaked rags” over. They quickly left, but a woman, appearing to be around 30 appeared. She asked me if I knew what had happened, I said that it looked like he’d been drinking and had passed out. Another man walked over, he appeared 30-35, and we decided between us it would be best to phone an ambulance. The man asked if we would be ok dealing with it, he had a place to be.

As soon as he was off, the tramp began to stir, got to his feet looked around, clearly still blitzed, I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t seem to notice, then he feel down on his back pretty hard. The woman phoned for an ambulance, and I waited with her. We didn’t really say much, I didn’t want to leave her alone with the guy, and I also didn’t want to just walk away from him. The ambulance turned up and the guys recognised him, said he was a regular, and would be better off with the police. They summon up a few police man and are off. We waited for the police to bundle him off, I felt a bit guilty but realised he’d get a fairly comfortable cell, probably a bit of decent food and some clean water, so it was probably a favour to him.

As we went our separate way, the woman and me said goodbye and there was a moment when we looked at each other and seemed to share a thought. “Why did so few people stop?”

Remember while your laughing at stories of drunken, crass, smelly and strange men, they are people too, and the majority of tramps suffer from mental problems and a huge number are ex service men unable to readjust to civilian life. I’m not trying to be preachy or tell you off, just don’t forget that there are people underneath the rags, people just like you or me.
(Mong goose, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 1:54, 3 replies)

That gets a click from me

( The magic of chutney Shakes it like an Instagram filter!, Sun 5 Jul 2009, 19:31, closed)

*click*
*click*
(it's not hash mixed drops, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 4:26, closed)

Thanks!
Nice that stories that show a human side to tramps get some appreciation too.
(Mong goose, Tue 7 Jul 2009, 17:07, closed)