Kicking a Dead Man

Jean and I drive past the corner of Bayshore Boulevard and Gandy Boulevard in Tampa every couple of months on our way to the base commissary. And I can’t pass that particular intersection without thinking about what was, and what has ceased to be.

At the time I was a proud member of the United States Air Force, and my first wife and I lived in a large two story wooden house which sat on that site. “Sally” and I lived upstairs, and just outside stood a couple of massive oak trees. Underneath the shade of those trees, I parked my car. 

That old house is gone now, and in its place is a modern apartment complex. 

Interestingly enough, at least to me, those old trees are still there.

Back in the early ‘70’s I drove to the base on a daily basis, and sat behind an electric typewriter; where I punched out multiple military discharge, retirement and reenlistment documents. After a few weeks on the job, I could have “done it in the dark.”

Bayshore Boulevard runs along Tampa Bay and connects the City of Tampa and MacDill Air Force Base; a distance of perhaps 7 miles. Sometimes in the late afternoon, or early evening I would walk or jog along the seawall, and for the most part, things remained very much the same. After walking a couple of miles, I would pass a Jewish synagogue. Another half mile and I would pass a multi-story apartment building. Another mile and I walked past an older part of the city referred to as Hyde Park. And a few hundred yards later, I reached the outskirts of the business district of Tampa.

But this evening was far from mundane, and altogether different than all the rest.

For you see, as I approached the skyscrapers of downtown Tampa, I looked over the rail of the seawall, and witnessed something I’d never before seen.

A corpse lay at the bottom of the seawall; wrapped in clear neoprene plastic!

My thoughts flowed quickly and freely. What to do? What to do?

I stopped, and stepped down a set of stairs; a duplicate of other stairways installed every hundred yards along the length of the seawall. There, on a small landing, at the bottom of the short flight of steps, lay the body. It was positioned in such a way that now and then the small waves of the bay lapped up against it.

I steeled myself, stepped a little closer, and lightly kicked the plastic covered body with my right foot. 

It was then that the corpse

… moved!

And sat up, and proceeded to pull the neoprene from around its face.

And then the “dead man” spoke.

“Uh, wah, what are you do, doing? What do you want?”

Of course, to say I was shocked would be a gross understatement. When one happens to be under the false assumption that something is dead, and then that something sits up and speaks; well now, perhaps you can imagine.

About then, I recall making some kind of excuse that sounded something like,

“Sorry mister. I thought you were,… well, dead.”

And without any further adieu, I took my leave.

As I retraced my journey home that evening I surmised that the “corpse” was, no doubt, a homeless man of perhaps 50 or 60. Why he was wrapped up in that fashion, (for as I recall it was anything but cold outside) and why he had placed himself where the ocean waves cascaded upon him, I have no earthly idea.

Funny, I have thought about this episode several times in the past couple of weeks. 

I can only wonder if that poor fella, whom I believed at the time was a corpse,

… has after all these years assumed that rather permanent status.


By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 19, Copyright pending

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