The gawkers

I passed a car accident walking home from work last night. A cable television van and a SUV appeared to have collided head-on a block from my apartment building. Judging from the damage, it looked as though the drivers from either vehicle could have been seriously injured. By the time I passed, the police had already blocked off the street and the injured had been taken to the hospital or were being treated inside the ambulance still on the scene. Of course this didn't discourage the gawkers from gathering in groups on the corner to share what they had seen or heard. Even more gawkers could be seen up the street, their morbid curiosity urging them into action (a regular drunk I recognized from a restaurant I frequent appeared to have been dispatched as a scout to gather information and report back to his drunken cohorts). One woman appeared to have been in such a rush to get to the scene that she hadn't bothered to change out of her pajamas. I didn't stop to ask what happened. I knew that whatever happened, it wasn't good and that knowing the details wasn't going to change that. There was nothing in the newspaper about it today, but I'm not surprised. They need space for more important news like the recent story about a guy who got caught trying to shoplift 48 packs of gum from a Rite Aid.