Jet Black New Year (4:49)

“When the crowd parted for the paramedics, we already knew it wasn’t necessary. The street was painted a purple-red with that boy’s blood. On impact, his body had folded on itself; he looked like he was praying to the mailbox. The air was turning the blood on the sidewalk rust brown, but in his hair it stayed a dark red. It seemed to get redder with every flash of the newspaperman’s camera. I took the train back to New Jersey where my girlfriend and I were going to a New Year’s Eve party.

“I’m having the worst day, what a way to end the year,” she shouted in my ear as the faces flashed by in the strobe light and the floorboards shook with music. “I lost my purse and someone spilled red wine all over me.” The sight of the wine in the dark made my mouth water and every pulse of the strobe was the eye of the photographer’s camera.

“At least I’ve got you,” she winked. I bit down on my lip and the afternoon flooded into my blood like an IV drip: the crowd’s bland faces; reporters searching for the parents; the steam drifting from the young boy’s broken mouth; the pair of sneakers tangled in the power lines hanging like a forgotten mistletoe.

“Hey, where are you?” She pleaded. But I was right there. The blood was soaking into my untied shoelace as we watched the ambulance pull up. I was right there: The calm voices of the paramedics made the temperature drop twenty degrees. I was right there: They zipped up the black bag and I couldn’t breathe.

“You better not be in another one of your moods. Not tonight.”