Messenger

I'll never know why I was chosen as their messenger: they never told me and I never asked. It's not like I wanted this gig: it's cold out here and my legs are tired and my voice is raw. The place is disgusting and air polluted and people yell and point and mock and even throw things, but I've been charged with this task and I will not let them down.

I was never a spiritual man, just a regular guy, and I still don't get it, but they must've had plans for me because on a Tuesday morning, I sat and smoked and sipped coffee as I planned February's Real Detective Magazine. Hunched over my desk, I sorted photos and police reports and manuscripts, all which illustrated humanity's worse, disgust seeping from my every pore, frustrated and sickened at my role in exploiting these horrors. I'd spent years reporting, a decade selling murder and mayhem and I neared the point of perching on the ledge and jumping when a surreal sensation arose. And I knew she had arrived.

Warmth spread throughout my body and a sense of joy and love enveloped me and I forgot about my work and unhappiness and my problems and sat at my computer taking dictation as events unfolded, writing it all down, recording it all for everyone, always, the words of our true God regarding the advent of Their daughter walking upon... Sorry, I tend to get emotional and jump ahead. So, let me just tell it.

In the beginning...

On the Upper West Side, a man dragged a young woman up six stories. 'Help me,' she screamed, though no one heeded, they'd heard cries and screams and sirens so frequently they no longer heard them at all. He dangled her over the building's side then pulled her back over the precipice and dropped her on the garbage-strewn roof. She cried and he opened a knife but as he grasped her shirt and studied her face he said, 'I'm sorry. Go, get out of here.'

After she'd run away he sat there smoking, confused, while up in the Bronx, a group of young men chased a lone man through the streets. Some carried bats, others had knives ready, and one hid a gun in his pocket.

They followed the lone man through a deserted lot and into an abandoned building, floor to floor, until they cornered him in an apartment, long abandoned and boarded-up: There was no escape.

He looked at his attackers with pleading but they laughed. 'Hey nigger,' one said, bat swinging, 'you know you ain't allowed on this block. This is Doomsday Boys territory.'

'I didn't know I was on your turf,' the man said, stammering, 'I swear to God I didn't know.'

'You don't have to swear to God, motherfucker, 'cause you about to meet him.' He drove the bat into the man's midsection, and the man dropped to his knees. The others descended with fists and boots and bats, the man bloodied, his eyes swollen shut and nose flattened, cowering on the filthy floor and fearing death.

One took out a gun, cocked and pointed it, finger on the trigger, but stopped: 'Come on, dudes, maybe he didn't know where he was walking.' Without discussion, they made their way back through the decrepit building, while in Brooklyn three young boys spied an old man limping down the empty block, his skinny frame leaning heavily on a wooden cane.

The street was deserted and rundown and the man knew the risk but there were no cabs here, and even if there were, they wouldn't stop and even if one did, he couldn't pay. As the man approached, the boys jumped out, blocking his way, demanding money. 'Please don't hurt me,' he said, ancient eyes cast down, 'I don't have any cash, I ain't got nothing.'

'You'd better have something, old man, or me and my friends are gonna hurt you.'

'But I don't have anything, please, I don't have anything.' He grasped his cane, legs wobbling and started away but a youth pushed him down, his glasses lost and dentures smashed into the pavement. 'Please,' he cried, the words slurred, his hands cut and mouth bleeding, 'I don't have anything.'