I saw a dead body on Monday. I was already late for work because of an accident at Lover's and Central when I saw signs for another accident at 635 and Central.
"God damn," I said.
The road bottle-necked to one lane and there was an ambulance and two police cars on the left side of the road. Two regular cars had parked under the high five. It didn't look like an accident. And then I looked to my left and saw a blue tarp. The tarp wasn't big enough to cover the thing it was trying to cover. It rested on top like a layer. When I drove past it, I couldn't take my eyes away from it. There was a jeans pant leg, a sandal (I think), a black t-shirt, and a blue and purple arm. There was a pool of black blood underneath.
I got to work forty minutes late and told my boss what happened. I stayed late to make up for lost time, and I muscled through my work day pretty well. I got to talk to my boyfriend during my lunch break and tell him what happened. Periodically I would remember the leg, shirt and arm and the memory would unfold like the page of a pop up book.
When my day was done, I went to a cafe and used my laptop to find out what happened. A 51 year old man from Ellis had jumped from the 635 high-five onto Central Expressway below at 8:05, the paper said. "God dammit," I said out loud. I rubbed my eyes and my head and saw the leg-shirt-arm again. Why did that tarp have to be so short? Couldn't Dallas county afford some longer tarps?
I bet he wanted all the commuters that morning to wonder why he'd picked such a public place to kill yourself. I figure that if all he wanted was to die, then he could have just jumped off the roof of his house, or if that wasn't tall enough, any of the bridges that spanned over the Trinity River. Then you're dead and no one else is late to work. But he jumped into the way to work so many of us took. He must have wanted to die but not to go unnoticed. Maybe he thought there'd be a news story, that they'd release a suicide note, that there would be lots of media coverage. But of course there wasn't. There's just a traumatic experience for a couple of lucky commuters. Maybe that's all he wanted, too. ...I don't know, I just wish it hadn't happened.
"God damn," I said.
The road bottle-necked to one lane and there was an ambulance and two police cars on the left side of the road. Two regular cars had parked under the high five. It didn't look like an accident. And then I looked to my left and saw a blue tarp. The tarp wasn't big enough to cover the thing it was trying to cover. It rested on top like a layer. When I drove past it, I couldn't take my eyes away from it. There was a jeans pant leg, a sandal (I think), a black t-shirt, and a blue and purple arm. There was a pool of black blood underneath.
I got to work forty minutes late and told my boss what happened. I stayed late to make up for lost time, and I muscled through my work day pretty well. I got to talk to my boyfriend during my lunch break and tell him what happened. Periodically I would remember the leg, shirt and arm and the memory would unfold like the page of a pop up book.
When my day was done, I went to a cafe and used my laptop to find out what happened. A 51 year old man from Ellis had jumped from the 635 high-five onto Central Expressway below at 8:05, the paper said. "God dammit," I said out loud. I rubbed my eyes and my head and saw the leg-shirt-arm again. Why did that tarp have to be so short? Couldn't Dallas county afford some longer tarps?
I bet he wanted all the commuters that morning to wonder why he'd picked such a public place to kill yourself. I figure that if all he wanted was to die, then he could have just jumped off the roof of his house, or if that wasn't tall enough, any of the bridges that spanned over the Trinity River. Then you're dead and no one else is late to work. But he jumped into the way to work so many of us took. He must have wanted to die but not to go unnoticed. Maybe he thought there'd be a news story, that they'd release a suicide note, that there would be lots of media coverage. But of course there wasn't. There's just a traumatic experience for a couple of lucky commuters. Maybe that's all he wanted, too. ...I don't know, I just wish it hadn't happened.
