Blood Relatives

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She came running through the rain shoeless, neon signs and traffic signals splintering in liquid reflection beneath her flying feet. She fled like misjoined Siamese twins, feet touching mirrored feet on the slick black asphalt, puddles of red and green, orange and blue splashing up tintlessly to stain her legs with the gutter filth of the city.

She was bleeding.

She was bleeding from a gash on her right cheek, and she was bleeding from cuts on the palms and fingers of both hands. The front of her dress had been ripped, and she tried to hold the torn sides of the V closed over her brassiere as she ran through the rain. It had been raining since 10:00. The rain was neither cruel nor driving now; it had changed to a gentle drizzle that sent mist drifting up from the pavement. In the distance, the green globes of the 87th Precinct shone through the rain and through the mist.

The girl slipped, her feet skidded out from under her. There was a bone-jarring wrench as her hip collided with the pavement. She expelled her breath in pain, and then sat quite still on the sidewalk, her head bent, the rain gently pattering around her. There was blood on her slip, and on her brassiere, smears of blood on her nylon pantyhose. Blood seeped from the open wound on her cheek, blood flamed in the horizontal slashes that crossed her palms and fingers. A traffic light turned to red, suffusing her with color so intense that — for a moment only — it seemed the steady ooze of blood had entirely engulfed the girl. The light clicked into the emptiness of the street. The girl’s face, her dress, the cones of her brassiere, the rain-spattered pantyhose, the seething cuts on her hands, the gash on her cheek, all turned green. She struggled to her feet and began running toward the station house.

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