Rolling

 "It was crazy all night," my neighbor texted. "I had to call the cops twice. Around 4 am I woke up from two women fighting."

My neighbor lives down the street, on the next corner. Opposite the club. There's a shady spot on the corner diagonally across from her, and the homeless have started to gather there since tent city got broken up.

I was a block away watching the police cuff and stuff a guy for something. He protested his innocence, or at least his innocence of some aspect of the things he was being arrested for.

"There is one rolling on the ground right now looks like he is on something," my neighbor wrote. "This is ridiculous."

I told the police there was someone potentially overdosing on the next block.

"He's going to have to wait," the officer said. 

I walked back over there. 

When I got there, one guy was standing, but folded over with his arms hanging down and his fingers touching the ground. Another was on his side, feet hanging in the street, two pools of vomit in front of him. Sitting in a plastic chair between them was Red, calmly looking at his phone. 

Keeping in mind what the police had told me, I called 911 anyway. The neighbors had already called. 

I've learned a few things about the police and 911: the more people call, the more likely there will be a response. Even if that response isn't immediate. Also, if you can, ask to speak to the officer. If you do that, they have to make contact with you.

As the neighbors and I watched and waited, the two zombified guys slowly picked themselves up and dragged themselves away. I've seen this before. Usually they get the idea we're calling the authorities and they get moving to avoid arrest.

I can't back it up with any facts, but the impression I get is the ambulance will show up well after the police for situations like these, if it shows at all. 

Later that day I was driving down the street one block over, and there was another guy passed out on the sidewalk. Two police officers were standing over the guy, and told me they had called an ambulance.

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