Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Cloud Gate Incident





I was downtown today, it was in the high 60s. I enjoy writing in my commonplace book in the area around Cloud Gate, near the Art Institute. I enjoy background noise as I write, not the noise you get while on an el train, but noise in general. But before I had a chance to sit down, I walked around the bean-shaped sculpture, I think I started because I wanted to see the Trump Tower reflected in it, which you can't see in the 2008 photos I've posted. Here's where it got weird and almost tragic. I thought to take a photo of me at an angle where I looked about two feet tall, and as I'm taking the photo, a black teenage guy crumples to the ground. For all I know, the image is in my camera now. It was me and an Arab guy, me with no cell phone but a voice, so I yelled for a doctor or for someone to call 911. The guy had two younger girl cousins who were petrified. They said he wasn't diabetic, he just had seizures. His lips were dry, we turned his head to the left and he started coughing up blood. I don't really fault anybody because the way we were huddled, well, we could have been handling camera gear or even posing a photo. Its hard to explain, but in that area, you can see where it wasn't a don't get me involved attitude. A cop showed up and called for an ambulance, this took all of three minutes but it seemed like an hour. I hope the guy is well, and that the cousins know that people watch out for others. And I complain about my problems.