And the Dead Guy?

Mac thinks her neighbors dead. One thing I've learned in this mortal coil, if you ever think your neighbors dead... He's dead. Trust me on this.

I was going to comment over there with my dead neighbor story but then I remembered my friend Jennie's dead neighbor story which is even better...

About 5 years ago when we lived in SF, Jennie and Leah came over one Saturday afternoon. We were just hanging out chatting about nothing really when Leah interjects a non sequitur that something smells like it died in Jennie's apt. building hallway. Having had a little experience in this dept., the missus and I asked about her neighbor across the hall. They hadn't seen him in a few days.

"He's dead." we said. "Yup. Definitely dead. Let's go see..." We all piled into the truck and thus began the mission to find the dead guy.

When we got over to Jennie's place and she opened the front door to the building, any doubt we had was quickly dismissed. There's only one thing that smells like rotting human flesh, and that's rotting human flesh.

Chuck, a guy who lived on the third floor, came down and we all decided that before calling the cops we should really confirm that there was indeed a body. After a little deliberation and a cocktail, it was decided that Chuck and Leah would be the ones to climb out Chucks window upstairs and shimmy down the fire escape to peer into the neighbors window. And there he was, splayed out on the kitchen floor next to his bowl of cereal.

Jennie called the cops. When the police dispatcher asked Jennie what the address was, she gave the woman her address. To which the dispatcher said "... And... the dead guy? What's his address? That's the one I really need..."

"Oh right! Right... Well he's in 2C but he's not going anywhere!" Bwaahhah...

Then we ordered pizza.

Turns out that cops can't just break into an apartment - even if the neighbors have confirmed by precariously hanging off of a fire escape that there is a body in there. First they must get permission from the building owner. This building was run by a big property management company and it was Saturday evening. We were all going to have to wait a while until someone at the answering service could reach someone who actually had the authority to permit a lock popping.

20 minutes later, we finally got the go ahead to break in - but now we had to wait for the lock smith. As I noted - the dead guy wasn't going anywhere, so there really wasn't a need to break down the door or anything...

Then the pizza arrived and thank god we ordered enough because it was getting a little crowded. By now we had 4 cops, 2 EMTs, the Coronor and his Assistant, Jennie, Leah, Chuck, the Missus and Myself all crammed into Jennie's one bedroom apartment. Slow night I guess. As civilians, we of course were well into our third cocktail. This was Dead Guy Party #347 San Fran Style!

The locksmith finally showed up and at this point it was time to turn it over to the professionals. Frankly, I didn't need a close up of the body. But just then the Coroner turned to us and said he would need a witness to follow him through the dead guys apartment to make sure he didn't steal anything as he took an inventory of valuables. I think he was fucking with us but... Since I missed the fire escape challenge, I got picked to go into the dead guys apartment.

I won't get into the details, suffice to say that on top of the overwhelming DEAD smell, the guy was a pack rat and never took out his garbage. It wasn't pretty... It was obvious that the guy just collapsed and there was no foul play involved so they loaded him up on the gurney to take him down stairs.

I don't know what they were thinking. This was SF and two flights of narrow stairs for a gurney with a body on it was going to be a tad awkward. They soon figured this out and took him off (in the body bag) and carefully walked him down to the landing. It was a little unceremonious but that's death sometimes.

We went back in, poured another round and toasted Dead Guy in 2C... May he rest in peace.