The Inconsequential Man

Adjusting my ascot and staring outside, I notice a man sprawled face down in the middle of the road. I adjust the ascot all wrong and make a high bleating noise of despair. The maid comes over to help me. Her hair smells like oranges as her deft fingers manipulate the ascot into the perfect shape.

“There there,” she says, trying to stop my bleating.

I gesture outside and say, “Did you notice...”

“The guy out there?” she says. “Yeah, I seen him.”

“Should we do something about it?”

“I don’t see how it’s our responsibility.”

I shrug. She has a point, I guess.

“I’m gonna go clean all them jars,” she says.

I nod. We did indeed go through a lot of jars last night. I can’t take my eyes off the man out there in the road. What could possibly be wrong with him? Was he dead? Did he pass out? Was he drunk? Beaten?

A loud car with flames painted on the side, driven by a guy with a mullet, comes roaring down the road, running over the man. The car does not stop or turn around. I pull up a chair and continue to stare out the window. I bellow at the maid to bring me a sandwich. She brings the sandwich and I tell her I don’t have time, just shove it in my mouth. She goes about it with a bit more brutality than I appreciate and I tell her she’s this close to being let go, holding my thumb very close to my forefinger. She looks over my shoulder at the now pulped man out in the road. “Still out there, huh?” she says.

“It’s fascinating,” I say.

“I gotta get back to them jars.”

I wait for one of the passing cars to stop. None of them do. I wait for someone to show up. No one does. Again, I bellow at the maid, this time for a phone. I tell her to dial emergency. She does this with fingers puckered from cleaning and hands the phone to me. “I ain’t talkin to no cop,” she says.

“Are you aware of the situation on C Road?” I ask.

“What!?” a gruff man shouts.

“There’s a man out on the road...”

“Is this a prank!?”

“No. I’m afraid it’s fairly serious. There’s a man...”

“You got the wrong line buddy!”

“Is this the police?”

“You got that right.”

“Then I have an emergency I need to report.”

“We don’t have time to deal with that!”

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“Jesus, would you leave us alone!? Take your business elsewhere!”

Then he hangs up the phone. I continue to watch the man. Sometime during the night, the maid tells me she’s pregnant and leaves. She doesn’t come back.

The man stays in the road for days. Eventually two burly old men in t-shirts and sweatpants come outside and gather around the pulpy lump in the road. One of them complains about the stink. The other one tells him he’ll take care of it. Both men depart. One of them comes back about a half hour later with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. He scrapes the man up off the road and carts him away. I wipe the sweat from my brow and call the maid service, looking for a replacement.