FIRST PERSON

take a closer look.

Crossing the footbridge again in the direction of Downtown, I came to the blanket on my side of the path. It hadn't been inadvertently dropped; it had been partially stuffed under the chain-link fence and become stuck.

There were, in fact, blood stains on the blanket, and a darker mass of some kind of tissue protruding from under one corner. I peered over the fence at the river below and both sides of the bank, expecting to see I don’t know what.

Not noticing anything, I resumed my jog to get back to work. Along the way, I thought about whether to report what I found for investigation. Fortunately, when I arrived at the corner of Long Street and Marconi Avenue, an officer was walking out of Columbus Police Headquarters.

“Officer, I just saw something really weird on the bike path,” I told him, proceeding to explain what I’d come across and where. When I reached the part about what looked like a calf’s liver under the edge of the blanket, he winced.

“Where was this again?” asked the officer, who seemed

unfamiliar with the bike path and bridge. Perhaps he worked in another precinct.

“The bridge on the bike path,” I said, pointing to where the Olentangy and Scioto rivers meet.

“You know who lives down around there, don’t you?” he said.

I knew who he was talking about. For years I’ve seen the makeshift tents of the homeless along both banks of the Scioto and smelled the smoke from their campfires. I’d seen the bedrolls and sleeping bags up in the crawlspaces under the overpasses. Sometimes I would see men sleeping at midday on the benches under the trellises on the west bank north of Broad Street.

“I’ll check it out,” he said.

I took that jog on a summer Thursday. On my Friday morning commute, as I crossed the Olentangy on Spring Street, I looked over to the footbridge some 50 yards away and saw the blanket, still there.

I’d told my wife about it, and on Saturday, when we came back Downtown for an event, I pointed it out to her.

On Monday morning, heading in to work, once more I glanced over at the footbridge. The blanket was gone.

In its place, leaning up against the fence, was a wreath of flowers.

Pink.