Precious Blood

  “I’ll know when I get there.” Lucy sped on down the increasingly slickened Henry Street, drunkenly weaving around potholes like a bat out of hell, oblivious until now to the urgent weather alert blaring every eleven minutes from the talk radio station. According to the warning, this storm was going to be biblical.

  A massive nor’easter, which has already been named the Three Days of Darkness, is brewing along the North Carolina coast and bearing down on the entire tristate area. A severe storm warning is in effect for the next seventy-two hours. Expect dangerous periods of gale-force winds, torrential rain, hail, dangerous lightning, and street flooding. A tornado warning is also in effect for portions of Brooklyn and Queens through late Saturday night. NYPD is imposing a midnight curfew with widespread power outages from wind and water damage expected. Subway and bus service has been canceled. Coastal evacuations and widespread road closings are possible. Check flashlight batteries, charge all electrical devices, stock bottled water, and wherever you are, plan on staying for at least three days. Travel will be treacherous.

  “What day is it?” Lucy asked.

  “Thursday night,” he answered, then quickly corrected himself after checking his watch. “It’s Friday now, actually.”

  “Three days. There goes my weekend.”

  “A lot can happen in three days.”

  “It better.”

  Police, fire, and emergency services have been reassigned from regular duties. Expect 911 response time to be delayed. Stay tuned to this station for updates. . . .

  “Storm of the Century. Three Days of Darkness. Blah, blah . . . ,” Lucy whined. “That’s not a weather report, it’s a prophecy.”

  She reached blindly for the power button on the car radio and pressed it, silencing for the moment the panic merchants that passed for journalists.

  “This shit doesn’t happen in Brooklyn,” Lucy said. “So inconvenient.”

  The driver was aghast at her self-centeredness. “I’m not sure who you call for an apology, miss.”

  “Why do storms always ‘brew’ anyway?” Lucy ranted, more for her own benefit than the jittery cab driver’s. “Can’t they just say, “It’s going to rain. Stay inside’? It all has to be so mysterious . . . so goddamn witchy.”

  “Ratings,” the cabbie said in a thick eastern European accent that made his Hollywood Insider analysis both funny and sad all at once. “Storms sell.”

  “Uck,” Lucy groaned, disgusted how far showbiz trickled down into the culture, right into the seat next to her, in fact. Trickled like warm pee down the side of a building. Just like drizzle.

  Lucy hit the gas, suddenly in an imagined race with not just the storm but her life. It was fair, she felt, since neither she nor the weather announcers on the radio seemed to know exactly where they were going. For just a second, she imagined herself one of those desperate Midwestern tornado jockeys who risked their lives chasing storms, and for what? A few seconds of cable coverage on some weather channel. She could gin up twice the attention just by flashing a bra strap at the deli.

  “Suckas.” She laughed, pursing her lips tightly to keep the condescension inside.

  The sudden pickup of the windshield wipers, together with the wind and rain, wiped the smile quickly from her face, along with whatever expression the cabbie was wearing. She strained to look up through the glass. It was dark and getting darker, deep grays, purples, and blackish greens swirling above, looking to Lucy almost exactly like El Greco’s View of Toledo, the city lights obscured by clouds. It was as if she were staring directly into the eye of the gathering storm. The air was suddenly charged, electric. They could feel the clouds filling and the tension from their heavy breathing found an inconvenient home on the inside of the windshield, fogging them in, no matter how much she wiped at it with her couture coat sleeve. It was eerie, to say the least, and the cab driver was becoming more and more anxious.

  “Enough. You’re drunk. Pull over or I’m calling the police,” the cabbie insisted, keeping his eyes warily on the road now and not on her, nervously clenching the handle above him.

  “Save your minutes,” Lucy replied, dodging the hurriedly parked cars poking too far into the street and the few pedestrians that were still out and about, and gradually slowing down enough to notice the empty streets. “Where is everybody? I mean, it’s just a little bad weather. It’s not like the world is coming to an end or anything.”

  The streets in Brooklyn Heights leading to Cobble Hill were deserted. It was as if the whole borough had sought shelter and gone into hiding. Strollers and French planters were pulled into the yuppie-owned brownstones while weathered religious statues, parked in the patches of grass and cemented over courtyards in front of old Italian ladies’ homes, were covered in plastic and prayers. It was more than unsettling.

  “Most people heed desperate warnings,” the cabbie said impatiently.

  The stress of the evening—the fight, Jesse, all of it—began to tire her. Whether it was the alcohol, the ineffective windshield defogger, the liquid dash air freshener, or the persistent rainfall that had made her bleary-eyed, she didn’t know.

  Until suddenly she did.

  A massive Gothic-styled building of blue-gray stone in the early stages of renovation, the length of scaffolding and steel trusses running up all sides of it almost giving the appearance of being on crutches, caught her full and undivided attention. The shredded protective black netting encasing almost the entire structure, from ground-floor entrances to the single soaring spire, snapped loudly in the wind, like loose bandages. There seemed to be an incredible amount of sculptural detail on the church exterior hidden behind all the metal and wood that was almost impossible to discern under the circumstances. Angels and gargoyles sprouted from the shrouded architecture, beckoning her, warning her.

  Then she saw it.

  Or it saw her.

  Two eyes carved into the masonry, peeking out through the torn mesh.

  Her two eyes.

  Her charm. The one dangling off the bracelet around her wrist.

  Staring back at her.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “The Church of the Precious Blood,” he said. “Used to be, anyway. Condos soon.”

  She jammed her heel on the brake and skidded on the rain-soaked road to a screeching halt. The cabbie went headfirst into the dashboard, and Lucy slammed her forehead into her hands on the steering wheel, specifically the charm on her bracelet, which opened a small cut at her hairline, beneath her widow’s peak. Somewhat in shock, unsure if what just happened had really happened, she scanned for injuries through blurry eyes and turned her fractured attention back to the insignia on the church facade.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her before he even knew if he was okay himself.

  “I don’t know,” she said. Unable to focus on her physical problems, preoccupied by what might be her mental ones.

  She took off her prized Pucci scarf. The vintage one she would never let her friends borrow, the one that became her staple in the rags.

  “Here, take this and apply pressure.”

  “I couldn’t,” he said, refusing politely to wipe his blood on such an obviously luxurious and expensive accessory.

  She pulled the scarf back.

  The driver reached again for his brow.

  “Well, you’re not taking it.” She wrapped it around her two fingers, leaned over toward him, and began blotting his wound gently with it. He looked at her, surprised at her compassion. “I’m giving it to you. Your blood is already on it.”

  He accepted her generous gift reluctantly but shot back a look of concern rather than gratitude. Blood had begun to pool at her hairline and run down toward her eye socket.

  “You’re injured too,” he said. “Let me call an ambulance.”

  “No.” All the questions she’d be asked, the explaining she’d have to do, the excuses she’d need to make were not worth the attention she’d surely receive. Not tonight. “Let it bleed. We learn
to live with a little pain, you know?”

  “I can’t let you out here,” he said, the sky looking as if it were about to close in on them.

  “I’ll be okay,” she assured him. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

  Lucy got out, threw all the money she had in her wallet into the backseat, hoping it would compensate for any damage. It felt good to get rid of it anyway, the only thing that she worried about as much as her public profile. The cabbie slid back over into the driver’s seat and the car rolled away silently, except for the sound of hard rain suddenly pelting the cab like a never-ending spray of bullets. She watched his red taillights disappear down into the night like two evil eyes in the dark. He didn’t bother to switch the fare light on his roof back on. She was his last for the evening. Anybody else looking for a ride from him was out of luck.

  She expertly leaped in her heels over pools of water and bolted for the aluminum- and plywood-covered walkway across the street.

  The covered walkway extended around almost the entire church and offered little protection from the elements raging around her. It was a whole block long on all sides, obscuring her view of everything but the black iron fencing along the perimeter of the church grounds. She followed the fence about halfway down the side street until she came upon a flight of steps with an ornate wrought-iron railing on either side, riding up to huge wooden double doors, closed shut. The tall windows on either side were boarded up and affixed with NO TRESPASSING stickers.

  The doorway was too high and too dark. She lifted her wrist and tried to catch whatever beam of streetlight might find its way through to her, but it was useless. The storm was becoming increasingly more violent. Branches were being tossed like twigs, and windows, under assault from the wind and dropping barometric pressure, were beginning to crack into shards like hardtack candy. The thunder began to rumble and the first flashes of lightning strobed the sky. She felt like prey being stalked by it. Targeted. Hiding under the walkway covered by metal around a building surrounded by steel in an electrical storm was a death wish, Lucy thought.

  She needed to get inside.

  If a storm like this had ever blown through Brooklyn, she couldn’t remember it. The streets of Cobble Hill were by now completely barren, and lights inside and out were beginning to blink spastically on their way to going out. The power grid was clearly overmatched by the weather gods. Some of her favorite haunts, patisseries, and boutiques were already starting to suffer some damage with cracked windows and signage, like the ALWAYS DIGNIFIED funeral home advert, flying recklessly down the street.

  She turned with her back to the doors and looked down from the makeshift portico at the deluge running along the sidewalk. Where were all those paparazzi tailing you when you really needed them? she wondered. She was drenched and cold, but her heart was racing and her palms were sweating. She should have listened to the cabbie. Getting home would not just be a problem; it would be impossible.

  Fortunately, Lucy had her weekender bag with a spare outfit in case a pretender aiming at her pedestal attempted a sartorial sneak attack and copied her look. “Shoot first” was her motto, and it had served her well. She had never been the loser in a “Who Wore It Better” spread, and she was determined never to be. Fashion emergencies were rife in her world and she always planned ahead, right down to the just-add-water miniature bath towel from her local dollar store.

  She stepped back carefully and looked over at the windows once again, this time noticing a faint glimmer sneaking through the gap between the granite-blocked wall and the plywood. Intrigued and intimidated, she pulled harder on the handle, to no avail. Thunderclaps, louder than before, louder than she’d ever heard, rocked her almost out of her shoes, and a sudden gust of wind threw her against the doors with enough force to jar them open and let her slip her head in.

  The tiny glow was extinguished.

  “Hello?” she asked, her shoulder now throbbing along with her head. “Is there anybody in here?”

  It was nearly pitch-black inside, and each movement she made was almost deafening. Like a blind person, she edged forward into the unfamiliar territory, arms outstretched, feeling ahead for something inside to bump into, to guide her. Through a darkened vestibule and second entrance into the church proper, she stopped. It felt like an opening to a cave. No sense of how high or how deep it went. It was cool, dry, and quiet, like she’d hit the mute button on the tempest growing outside. The space was oddly fragrant with the vaguest hint of decomposing fruity floral scents hanging in the air, like a wine tasting at a funeral home.

  The sudden pall of silence was heavy and uncomfortable, just as her clothing had become. The lightning continued to flash, each burst exposing bits and pieces of the abandoned interior. She found herself in the midst of more scaffolding and other remnants of construction that’d been abruptly halted. Not just hammers and nails and tarps, however.

  She saw things in slices. Like a slide show of random horror.

  First bolt: a distressed statue of a cloaked woman stepping on the head of a serpent.

  Second bolt: a splintered crucifix.

  Third bolt: an elaborate fresco painted across the vaulted ceiling—angels crying, blood, bludgeoning. Supernatural suffering.

  Everything felt out of place.

  She was disoriented, looking up, feeling like she was part of the otherworldly mural, surrounded by empty pews and boarded-up stained glass windows. It was the feeling she got as a little girl going to church surrounded by gruesome statues spearing demons and angel wings flapping in stone—all ingredients for her lifelong nightmares.

  Lucy was shaken and reached desperately for a metal holy water font beside her for support. It was empty, long since dried out, and only now refilled by the runoff from her designer dress. She grabbed on to it. Trying to keep her footing, but her soles were slick and gave way, sliding out from under her. The plaster split under her weight and the bowl came right off the wall, dropping along with her to the marble floor.

  Lucy fell.

  She hit the ground hard, forehead first, and lay there for a while—how long she couldn’t be absolutely sure. She was dizzy and moaning quietly but present enough to wiggle her fingers and toes.

  She reached for her head to make sure it was still in one piece and felt something wet above her brow and realized instantly it wasn’t from her rain-soaked hair. She put her fingers in her mouth and licked, sitting up slowly. The trickle of blood from the steering wheel had turned to a tiny river running straight into her eye.

  “Blood alcohol level?” she slurred. “Shitfaced.”

  She couldn’t see a thing. For a second she wished she had her scarf back, but she knew there was no point crying over spilt Bloody Marys. Which sparked another childhood fear. She tried not to repeat “Bloody Mary” three times in her head, because that childhood game of looking in a mirror and doing so and having an image of the Virgin Mary appear in blood seemed like a real possibility now.

  “Why did I quit smoking?” she groaned regretfully, fumbling in the pitch-black church through her pockets and her purse for her flint lighter—the one that led her through numerous dark VIP rooms. She’d almost given up hope when there it was, at the bottom of her handbag. Lucy popped the spring-latch cover and flicked. The thumbwheel sparked against the flint and the wick burst aflame.

  “A miracle.” Lucy laughed to herself.

  She blotted the gash and cleared her eye as best she could with her coat sleeve. She remained still for a while in the dark to get her bearings. The storm outside was deepening, reaching through the walls now, even into this fortified and forsaken space, goosing her back into reality. Her first thought was that this must be some vendetta for past sins; after all she hadn’t set foot in a church for years, and she was drunk at that. She got to her knees and then slowly to her feet.

  “Okay, we’re even,” she said, looking upward. Her dulled senses adjusted gradually. There was just enough light to see a few feet in front of her. Raising the light
er, Lucy managed to discern the first few of a long row of pews, and to her left a large, freestanding wooden structure that looked like the most ornate cabinet she’d ever seen. And then it dawned on her—it was a confessional.

  Using the long bench for both support and navigation, she shimmied toward it and rushed inside it like a child pulling up her bedsheet, looking for cover and comfort.

  She placed the lighter down on a carved ridge shelf and slammed the door shut, looked around at the dark wood etchings, meticulously done, and took a seat on the crushed red velvet cushion. It was a place out of time.

  The only nod to modern life was a dusty sign that read: PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES, SMARTPHONES, AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. She laughed nervously. It made a weird kind of ironic sense to have a sort of preflight instruction affixed to a booth where an otherworldly conversation was about to take place. Preparing yourself to be skyrocketed to forgiveness.

  “I need to change.” She wrung out the blue fox fur sleeves on her dress and kicked off her soaking-wet blue suede stilettos, desperately trying to stay in the moment.

  She opened her satchel and started pulling out dry clothes—a fitted beige trench coat, a pair of deep garnet crushed-velvet peep-toe platform pumps and a garnet fedora to match. She began to undress, peeling the damp outfit from her body until she stood only in her pure white silk slip. Free from her couture armor, she was quickly overtaken by the fact that she was entirely alone, the paps, wannabes, and haters that trailed her, all gone. Left only with her innermost feelings.

  A girl in a box.

  Her head and her life, both spinning. Weighing on her. Hurting her. Drowning her in a deluge of misery.

  The flame from the lighter, which had been slowly fading, petered out completely to a puff of smoke.