When Angels Bleed

“Can you spare some change mister?”

He extends his hand feebly toward me, his eyes staring self-consciously at the ground, his hair hanging in greasy strings around his jaundiced face.

“I haven’t eaten in two days.” His clothes stink of vomit.

He has already worked everyone else waiting at the bus stop without success, his posture and dejected gaze suggesting that he is already too far gone to really care. Most just turned away in disgust, the rest shaking their heads without even looking up from their phones. But after approaching me something causes him to pause, his extended hand trembling as he dares for a moment to look me in the eyes.

How many times have I seen that same look – first the surprise and then the terror of full recognition? For a few moments I think he might fall in a quivering heap at my feet, but somewhere within him there remains a small reserve of dignity. Nervously licking his lips, he withdraws his extended hand and shuffles slowly away, his pockets as empty as when he first approached the bus stop only a few minutes before. I briefly consider following him, but what is the fun in that? He will be back soon enough, once the thirst gets the better of him.

As the bus finally approaches and the passengers begin to form in a loose-knit group, a face dares a glance my way from its midst, but before I can move forward to get a better look she disappears in the melee of the boarding. I watch through the bus’s grimy windows to see if she will look my way a second time – they almost always do – but as the bus begins to pull away I still have not spotted her.

“Looking for someone, brother?”

“Someone recognized me. You know the rules.”

“Are you going to follow?” Her lips curl upward mirthlessly, her facial musculature incapable of truly smiling, her pale eyes gazing dispassionately into mine.

But I don’t need to follow. They always return. Always. Never patrol when you can ambush. Waiting takes more patience but it is infinitely more effective. “Maybe later,” I finally answer.

“So much for rules.”

I shrug. “And what of you – sister – are you looking for someone?”

“Waiting.”

My curiosity piqued; I ask, “Mind if I join you?”

She shrugs in return. “Do as you like.”

People come and go, three separate buses arriving and then departing again as we wait. But she stands impassively as if merely marking time. We do not exchange a single word till the mid-town bus arrives and discharges a priest in a plain black robe. As my sister gazes attentively at him I half-expect the priest to return her gaze, but he passes by without a glance, the form and substance of her body no more than a trick of the light.

Stepping forward to follow the priest she turns my way and asks, “Are you coming brother?”

After catching up I carelessly remark – “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. You’d think that would be a requirement for a priest.” But she does not respond, continuing to walk behind the priest as he smiles and nods at everyone he passes, even though many fail to acknowledge or even look at him in return.

As we move further uptown, buildings disgorge workers rushing out for a quick bite to eat, the nervous stress keeping them in motion animated by fear that few acknowledge or even have the capacity to comprehend. Although a few wear masks of civility, most simply glower at the ground or stare numbly at their phones, each of them driven by unconscious forces outside their power to control. Tomorrow they will suffer the same unacknowledged fears and do it all again, never seriously examining the loss of weeks, months, and years of their lives for so small a reward.

Raising my arms dramatically I loudly chasten the surrounding multitude, “Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your lifespan?” But they flow around me with their anxious faces glued to their phones, as unaware of my words as if I had never spoken at all. Before long the sidewalks are so crowded that even the happy priest cannot greet them all, their collective angst palpable, as if every moment spent away from their desks may cost them something that they will never recover.

Misery is a cancer, waiting in ambush for the unwary. When what little hope that still remains slips away and their faces grow gray and haggard, their breathing shallow, they will finally encounter a face that they have never seen before but will immediately recognize.

I glance my sister’s way in expectation of a comment or to see if she might brush all the unhappy emotion away, but she continues to focus solely on the priest walking before us as if deaf to the whispered prayers and quiet despair surrounding us.

Crossing to the next block the priest pauses to push open the door at the precinct morgue, the quiet stillness of death greeting us as we follow him something of a surprise after the crush of anxiety emanating from the living only moments before. I allow myself a smile and an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction, but my sister continues to ignore me. The priest walks to the counter and speaks briefly with the attendant before she sends him in to see the coroner.

The coroner looks up from her desk as the priest enters her office and pushes her red bangs away from her eyes before rising to greet him. Firmly grasping his hand, she gestures to a nearby chair, her masculine carriage and manner belied by the lustrous green glow in her eyes. The priest feels an immediate attraction, his body radiating with desire even as his mind tries to regain control. Momentarily hypnotized by her disarming gaze, he briefly loses the capacity for speech.

But the coroner is unconscious of the effect her appearance has on her visitor, her body language communicating her irritation when he fails to promptly explain the purpose of his visit. She finally asks him in exasperation -- “Can I be of assistance, Father?” as his face grows hot with embarrassment.

Nervously clearing his throat, he mutters – “I would like to ask a few questions about Tamara David,” his voice trailing nervously off.

“Tamara David?” Her mouth opens slightly, the surprise at hearing the name evident in her expression. In her profession a few names are hard to forget, and fewer still impossible. “What does she have to do with the church?” she finally asks. “She died several years ago.”

The priest prides himself in engaging people with a direct and confident gaze when he speaks but finds himself looking down in embarrassment, the openness of her gaze impossible to meet if he is to do anything other than stare. Fumbling with the folder he carried into her office he tells her that requests to nominate Tamara for sainthood have found their way to the Diocese and he would be infinitely appreciative if she could share her notes of the examination of Tamara’s body after her death. When he finally screws up his courage and returns her gaze he drops the bomb. “I have sworn testimony that she carried the marks of Christ in her flesh shortly before her death – the stigmata.” His voice cracking, he asks – “Did you note any such markings when you examined her body?”

The coroner, speechless with surprise, leans back in her seat. “The stigmata,” she repeats once she regains some of her composure.

“The marks of Christ’s crucifixion on her hands and feet,” he explains.

“I know what they are,” she answers with annoyance. “Who told you she had the stigmata?”

“Two of her former neighbors testified to having observed them during my interview at her old apartment building. It is standard practice to verify a miracle with medical proof whenever possible.”

Standing, the coroner walks to a nearby filing cabinet and rifles through one of the drawers before pulling out a manila folder. “Even though all of the morgue’s records are digitized I still like to keep physical records for some of the … ah … more extra-ordinary cases.” Sitting again, she opens the file and extracts two photographs. “Is this what they described?” she asks, passing them to the priest.

His face lights up, his body trembling a little with excitement. “Did you examine the marks?” He asks breathlessly.

A lone tear runs down her face. “Yes,” she answers, her voice strained by repressed emotion. “Did her neighbors happen to mention how she died?”

It is the tone in her voice that finally snaps him out of his reverie. He sees the second tear chase the first down her cheek, briefly struck by the depth of emotion in her glistening eyes. “No, no,” he stutters, “they didn’t say. Is it germane?”

She slips a pair of x-rays from the file and passes them to the priest. As he gazes at each in turn, even he recognizes the torn ligature within both of her hands and what had really happened to Tamara finally registers. “She was crucified,” he exclaims hoarsely.

“Yes … she was crucified. Then she was raped. And then she was tossed off the roof of her apartment building like a bag of rubbish. The wounds were fresh. If her neighbors saw her with these marks,” she said gesturing at the photos, “they may have seen the person responsible for them as well.”

It’s the priest’s turn to lean back in horror.

“You see,” she continues softly, “the crucifixion was never reported to the press. Not even her family knows that she was tortured before she died. The only person other than myself and the homicide detectives assigned to the case who should have known what happened before she was killed was the perp.”

As she speaks the priest slowly realizes he has lost himself a second time in her striking gaze. But this time it reminds him of a memory that he has no wish to remember – his grandmother’s eyes burning with similar intensity as she called out loudly in an alien tongue. Because he was just a boy, the experience of seeing his grandmother crying out as her body violently trembled had scared him to the bone. His youthful terror returning in the moment, he unconsciously finds himself looking at the objects on the coroner’s desk as if expecting to see evidence of saint worship but sees nothing other than a few family photos.

She on the other hand, misreads the emotion in his face as compassion for Tamara’s suffering. Maybe now, she thinks, the police will finally make a real effort to catch her killer. She asks him if she could make copies of his interviews from Tamara’s neighbors to give to the police, but in the discombobulation of his fear and desire he does not hear her.

“I’m sorry,” he finally answers huskily, “what did you say?”

Wiping the tears from her face she asks – “Can I make copies of your interview sheets? I think the police should see them, don’t you?”

“Whatever for?” he replies with genuine surprise.

“If her neighbors saw her wounds, they may have seen her killer!”

“The killer wasn’t caught?”

“The police initially believed it was murder suicide. Their prime suspect died at the scene.”

He looks at her coldly for the first time. “Then what’s the problem? The killer’s dead … that’s a good thing, right?” He shakes his head angrily, as much at himself for his unexpected bout of weakness as at her. “Why would you second guess the police anyway? If they already identified the killer, why are you sowing unnecessary doubt? You’re not qualified to call them to account.”

The coroner sighs and shakes her head in frustration. “The skin and dried blood underneath her fingernails was not a match for the suspect.

“Obviously there was more to this case than DNA evidence. Were you privy to the police files on the case?”

“Beyond the evidence that I provided them? Of course not. But I can tell from the evidence that I processed that they chose to sweep the case under the rug.”

The priest has stopped looking her in the eyes and is on the verge of letting his misogynistic impulses get the better of him. He has a natural antipathy for women who think they are better and smarter than others and has already begun considering just the right quote to put her in her place.

“If the police are satisfied, I am. If you were wise you would come to the same conclusion.”

The coroner stiffens, her face flushing with anger. “I am a forensic pathologist. I’m the person the police turn too when there are no witnesses in cases like these. I’m the one that collected skin and dried blood from underneath her fingernails and sent it to a lab for DNA matching. I also prepared a rape kit which the police did not bother to process. The police were derelict in their duty when they chose to pin the murder on the dead man at the scene and closed the case against my advice.”

This pushes the priest over the edge, and he suddenly erupts, “Defective and misbegotten woman!” He has a particular weakness for Aquinas. “Who made you ruler or judge over anyone?” But daring to look again in her eyes, he sees they are even more beautiful as they gleam with fury. Trembling with desire and horror, he prays in silent desperation, Protect my eyes, protect the windows of my soul from anything that might dim the luster of my heart. But his prayer goes unanswered.

Drawing herself up she replies coldly, “The detective in charge of Tamara’s case was fired three months ago for falsifying evidence. I wouldn’t put much stock in any of his work. More importantly, Tamara’s case was reopened a month ago after they finally processed the rape kit. It wasn’t a match for the dead man at the scene either,” she continues dryly. “The statements you took from the neighbors are police business. I recommend making copies of them and taking them to the homicide division of the precinct. You can use our copier.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” he snorts as he stands to leave. Over his shoulder he barks “These statements are the property of the Church,” while striding angrily to the door.

“Suit yourself,” she mutters as she picks up the phone to dial homicide, thinking to herself, This isn’t over yet, Tammy.

But when my sister does not immediately follow the priest, I raise my eyebrow in inquiry. She simply asks me, “Were you present when Tamara died?”

“You know I was. Have you forgotten my job description?”

“Please take me there.”

Stepping outside we begin to thread our way through shoppers and the late lunch crowd, the returning cacophony assaulting my nerves even if somewhat lower in decibels than what we had experienced earlier.

We ride the same mid-town bus that had transported the priest on its return trip and depart it a couple of blocks from Tamara’s old apartment.

“I’ve never understood all this fuss about sainthood. It’s not like the church really gets to decide who is a saint and who is not. Who do they think they are?”

“Try not to be tiresome, brother,” she replies without a hint of irritation. Turning to me with a piercing gaze, she continues –“The coroner’s file … you know what’s in it,” a statement not a question.

“Of course.”

“Did the coroner leave something out?”

“Oh yes.”

Where to begin? I try to imagine the priest’s response if the coroner had shown him the photograph she had taken with trembling hands of Tamara’s left breast. He would have called the Archbishop from the coroner’s phone and exclaimed Sacratissimum Cor Jesu! And the coroner knew it too, or why else keep from him the one photo that might have sewn up her sainthood? She must have held it back in hopes that the priest’s interest in Tammy’s case would help the police to finally identify her killer.

When we arrive at the apartment a police car is parked out front and a woman detective with notebook in hand talks to a couple women on the stoop.

“I always said that girl would come to a bad end, didn’t I Martha?” The other woman just shakes her head in acknowledgement.

“Did either of you see bloody marks on her hands?”

“Oh yes. Didn’t we Martha?” She nods again.

“Did you see anyone with her … when you last saw the marks?”

“Oh yes … that asshole of a brother.”

“And, and …” Martha stuttered.

“That’s right Martha … and the killer, that homeless fella.”

We pass them on the stoop and enter the apartment building. Climbing the stairs, we stop at the second floor and slip into her old apartment.

“Her mother and brother still live here.” I point at the kitchen table, saying, “He crucified her here. You can still see the holes in the wood. Her brother cleaned the top as best he could but there’s still blood stains deep inside that he could not reach.”

“Her brother killed her?”

“No. But he did rape her. He would have killed her too, but she didn’t give him the chance.”

“Had he raped her before?”

“He had threatened too. But this was the first and only time.”

“Why this time?”

“She humiliated him in front of his gang during an initiation rite.”

“Which was?”

“The price of admission is Murder. Doesn’t matter who. The gang cornered a homeless man. Turns out he was a combat veteran, people called him Crazy Carl. But Carl was lethally dangerous. I was there to witness the attack because it was Carl’s time. He had already put two and two together as the gang approached him, but when he recognized me, the realization that they had come to kill him struck him like a thunderclap. It freed him to defend himself without holding anything back. They gave him the excuse to do the only thing he knew how to do well.

“He bloodied every one of them and broke a couple of arms. He flipped one kid on his head so violently, it nearly broke his neck. But there were eight of them and only one of him. Tamara’s brother finally knocked him out with an aluminum baseball bat and then doused him with gasoline. Carl revived in time to see him holding the lighter as the other gang members egged him on.”

“That’s when Tamara showed up?” she asked.

I grinned. “That’s right. She grabbed her brother’s lighter and kicked him in the balls. The gang thought it was hilarious. They were too busy laughing to stop her. She helped crazy Carl up and took him to the emergency room at Washington General.”

“But when she came home her brother was waiting for her and this happened,” I said gesturing to the table.

“Tamara fought back?”

“Like a demon.”

“And?”

“And, he still had his bat.”

“What did their mother do in all this commotion?”

“He had locked her in her room while he waited for Tamara to come home. He told her that if she caused a fuss that she would be next.

“Thanks to your priest’s visit to the coroner her brother will final get a long overdue date with me. A divine coincidence?”

But instead of answering, she asked “Mind if I join you for that meeting?”

“You don’t usually like to watch me work.”

A sharp knock at the door interrupts us but no one inside the apartment stirs. The second knock, louder this time, draws the brother into the kitchen. He does not see either of us. “Who is it?” he yells angrily through the door as he pulls a 38 from his waistband.

“The police.”

“What do you want?”

“To ask a few questions about Tamara David’s murder.”

“That was five years ago, everyone knows who killed her and he’s dead.”

“The case was reopened.”

The brother’s face turns ashen as he stares in terror at the kitchen table. When his mother enters the room, he hisses “Get back to your room, you ungrateful bitch,” and returns the pistol to his pants.

“No,” she answers coldly.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll do as you’re told.”

“Please let me in, sir,” the cop says, her voice rising in pitch.

His mother begins to walk toward the door, but he meets her halfway and grabs her arm at the wrist so violently that she cries out in pain.

“Open the door!” the cop orders.

His mother screams and her son reflexively grabs her by the throat.

The door frame wood is old and termite infested and bursts open with a single kick, the cop entering with her sidearm drawn. The brother releases his mother before grabbing the 38 from his pants.

The cop shoots him center of mass just like she was taught, his mother shrieking as he thrashes on the floor like a freshly caught fish.

“You better get to work,” my sister laconically remarks.

“Not yet,” I answer with a broad smile. “He still has miles to go before he sleeps.”

“Time enough to show me where Tamara died?”

“Time enough to show you how she died.”

We climb the stairs to the apartment roof and walk to a small table with two chairs. Gesturing at the seats, I invite her to sit before describing the scene. “Imagine a dark night, the sky filled with heavy clouds, the smell of rain in the air.” Pointing, I say, “Tamara stood atop the brick wall at the roof’s edge in her white slip, her brother ten paces away with his pistol drawn. She was only seventeen, but she looked older that night. Can you see it?”

She nods slowly, her eyes so concentrated on the scene that Tamara appears atop the wall as if made real again, the afternoon sun disappearing as the sky turns dark and threatening. Crazy Carl stands ghostlike a couple feet away, his hand reaching for Tamara’s to steady her, but she brushes him away. Her brother points his 38 and pulls the hammer back with his thumb. His finger slowly tightens on the trigger as he thinks, Two for the price of one.

Time grinds almost to halt as only God can slow it, Tamara’s eyes staring defiantly into mine as it begins to rain. Her brother defensively closes his eyes, the heavy drops striking his face momentarily blinding him. Lowering his gun he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, but the now driving rain makes it impossible for him to see. The sky suddenly lighting up, the heart shaped birthmark on Tamara’s breast appears through the soaked fabric of her slip, the stigmata appearing in each open palm. She leans backward at the edge precariously for a moment only, her face radiant with life. As Carl climbs up on the wall, I am overcome by a like desire to save her, but we are both too late. Gravity finally tugging her over, he helplessly follows, his hands clawing at the empty air.

The heavens roar with crashing thunder, the rain falling in torrents, her brother appearing with each lightening flash covering his head in terror. When sirens begin to sound, he hides the pistol in his pants and runs to the rooftop exit and disappears.

My sister sits quietly as the darkness and rain slowly dissipate. But the emotion generated by the reembodied memory remains and neither of us speak for many minutes.

“When will the brother die?” she asks suddenly.

“In a couple hours.”

“I would like to participate. Is that a problem?”

“You and I have very different roles. You give life and I take it. I plan to take his life twice – body and soul.”

“Do you mind if I join you to make an appeal for redemption?”

I turn and look at her in surprise. “Care to make a wager on the outcome?”

“I’ll see you tonight, brother,” she answers, giving me another mirthless smile.

I wonder again at the coincidence of her following the priest to the coroner’s office. On the night when Tamara tumbled off the wall, her death had a disquieting effect on me that I still don’t fully understand. I’m not supposed to be in the business of caring about those whose time on earth has come to an end. But she was special, a true saint whatever the church eventually decides.

Three floors beneath us paramedics have initiated life savings measures on the brother and will shortly evacuate him to the hospital. The detective has already discovered the holes in the table and has requested a search warrant for proximate cause.

But with two hours still remaining between now and my date with Tamara’s brother, others will need to see a face they do not wish to see and hear a voice they do not want to hear. For every birth a death is owed. For every life there waits punishment or reward. And some are so contemptible that they will die twice.

Do not fear those who can destroy the body but He that can destroy both body and soul in Hell.

When my sister and I enter the hospital room, the priest we had followed earlier in the afternoon attends the doomed brother to give last rites. But Tamara’s brother does not yet recognize me even though his time is near.

“The floor is yours, sister.”

The priest asks the brother to confess and repent his sins, but the brother does not hear him, his gaze fixed on the white apparition suddenly appearing at the foot of his bed. My sister opens her arms wide, the deep marks on her hands inflamed and wet with blood.

Narrowing his eyes in surprise, his initial awe turns to confusion and then rage when he recognizes the apparition as his sister’s ghost. Standing defiantly once more atop the wall, Tamara's voice gently speaks from the dead, “It’s not too late, brother, too seek absolution. Confess thy sins and make penance to save your immortal soul.”

“Confess my sins? How have I sinned? Who took our father’s beatings? Not you. I protected both you and mother, you ungrateful whore.”

“I was pure before thou defiled me.”

Lifting his head and leaning forward in the bed, he weakly spits on the floor, before whispering, “I have nothing to confess, I am blameless.”

The sacred heart of Jesus glows on Tamara’s breast as if lit from within, the blood from her pierced hands dripping onto the hospital floor in sacrifice for her brother. But he is unmoved.

But now my sister appears in Tamara’s stead, a golden crown upon her head, her eyes shining like the ancient of days. In one hand she holds a book with the record of his deeds and in the other the book of life. “I saw the dead,” she tells him gently, “standing before the throne, and books were opened; and the dead were judged from the things written in the books.” She lifts the record of his deeds solemnly. “Thy deeds are recorded in this book. Is this how we shall judge thee?”

But his eyes staring with hatred and incomprehension, he does not answer.

Lowering it, she lifts the second book, her voice now filled with pity – “If anyone’s name was not found in the book of life, they were thrown into the lake of fire.”

She hands me the record of his deeds. We both know his name is not written in the book of life.

My turn.

Opening the book, I show him his deeds from his earliest youth to the present moment, much as one who lays dying sees their life pass before them. His eyes flinch as his younger self is beaten by his drunken father. You see, he thinks, I protected my mother and sister, I stood up to him.

But when I test it with fire it burns to ash. The jobs that he worked to provide for his mother and sister after his father abandoned them burned as well, one deed after another destroyed in the flames as his soul shrinks and his eyes stare hollowly in bewildered rage.

“Thy deeds are judged,” I tell him, gesturing to the ash.

But he only whispers piteously, “Why?”

“Your father protected his siblings from his abusive father just like you protected your mother and sister from him. How would you judge him?”

He stares weakly at me but does not answer.

“You are your father.”

He does not speak again. Strictly speaking, aside from his flesh, nothing else remains, his soul reduced to a pitiful pile of ashes that a janitor will toss in the rubbish once the hospital orderlies move his body to the morgue.

Wiping my brow, I turn to my sister to gloat, but she has disappeared. The priest beginning to weep, I look at him in surprise, his gaze fixed on the place where my sister stood only a moment before. Of course, he had seen her. He probably had seen her entire performance, Tamara atop the brick wall, the golden crown, the record of deeds, the book of life.

I slap my thigh in frustration. How did I miss it? He believes she appeared for him alone.

Back at the apartment building my sister said, “Do you mind if I join you to make an appeal for redemption?” She had not come to save the brother, but the priest.

Tamara’s first miracle was the blood that dripped from her hands onto the hospital floor. Before leaving the room, the priest wiped up it up with a handkerchief and later had a DNA test for it. He brought the results to the coroner, and she compared it with Tamara’s DNA. They were a match.

But even with DNA proof, the Archbishop chose not to forward Tamara’s name for sainthood. As I told my sister, the church does not get a vote in the business of saints and martyrs. Those decisions are made a significantly higher level. In fact, other than the apostles, they rarely get it right at all.

Michael David's body died at 5:32 pm, a nanosecond or two after his soul whimpered and expired on the floor of his hospital room. For the next twenty-four hours, no one else in the hospital died. That was Tamara’s second miracle. Perhaps if the priest had told the Archbishop that, he would have forwarded Tamara’s name to the Vatican. But the priest did not know.

The coroner anonymously leaked the story about the blood to the Daily News and the story was published in the Sunday paper on the community page under the title The Blood of Angels? That is how Tamara became an unofficial saint. In the weeks following, many homilies in the city’s catholic churches denounced her sainthood as a hoax, but that did little to dampen the enthusiasm of her followers.

I witnessed Tamara’s third miracle at the bus stop when I returned to collect the bum I had let escape from his initial date with judgement. But as I approached him, a woman stepped between us and stared at me as defiantly as Tamara had atop the brick wall five years before. Then she turned, and gently led the old bum to the bus.

Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but I thought I saw the stigmata on her hand as it reached for the railing inside the bus and she walked up the steps to board. For a brief moment, I thought it might be Tamara. But more likely it was my sister, snatching my prize away as a jab at my pride since I failed to collect his soul when I had the chance.

But that’s alright. I’ll get the best of her next time.