1937, New York

A man died on 42nd street.

The soggy newspaper pages stuck together making it difficult for the man to flip through them. Dark ink smeared its way down the page, causing the words to run together like black tree roots. 

Middle-aged male. Bullet to the head. Died instantly.

Standing, the man pulled his worn coat tightly around himself. No matter how tightly he seemed to pull it the blasted wind still found a way in. Twice a week Maria would tell him he to buy a new coat. They would smile at that statement and get on with their lives. Coats cost money. 

He stuffed the damp newspaper in his pocket; fuel for the fire. Ironically he’d have to first dry it out by the fire before it could be burned. Depression was full of irony. War was full of irony. Life was full of irony. You had to deceive people to make them lie; destroy people so they would destroy others; feed people to make them starve; end lives to save lives.    

The man’s feet echoed eerily on the empty street. Empty streets, empty wallets, empty stomachs. It was this emptiness that drew the man with the old coat onto the streets. Desperation and emptiness seemed to be the driving force behind everyone these days. The only thing not empty were the soup kitchens. They were bloated with empty humans.  

Hidden puddles along the cracked cobblestones seeped through the weak, black holes in the man’s shoes, making his already damp socks, damper. The wind shoved its way down the street. A sign creaked overhead. The man glanced at it. 42nd street

A man died on 42nd street.

Weren’t people dying every day?
The thin-coated man pushed on. He was too busy to deal with death. Maybe later.
A crooked 38 hung on the dilapidated door. Maria had told him to fix it a million times. It had been tilted for as long as the man could remember. There was something familiar and normal in the way the numbers hung. The 8 just below the 3. He didn’t want to fix it. It would feel wrong somehow.
Pushing through the door he left the empty street and entered the apartment. This world was slightly different. The main difference was that it was not empty.
“Daddy!” A small body with the speed of a bullet slammed into him. Thin arms wrapped around his legs and a shallow face smiled up at him.
“Rachel” He breathed her name while running his white fingers through her tangled red hair. He lifted her in his arms and plastered a smile on his face. She nuzzled her pointed chin into his bony shoulder. “You smell like smoke.”
“And you smell like you need a bath.”
She giggled as he set her down and made his way to the cramped kitchen.
There was his wife, back to him, face to the stove. She turned, a smile stretched on her tired face. The light behind her eyes was dying. Hunger was slowly killing it. Hunger was a horrid hand that closed a little tighter each day, squeezing the air out of their lungs.
“Sit down. Here’s some soup.” Maria set a worn bowl of watered-down soup in front of him. “You look horrible.”
“If I ever looked wonderful I’d shock both of us into next year.” Maria produced another stretched smile with dead eyes. The man didn’t bother to return it. “Rachel!”
Hearing her father’s voice, Rachel ran into the kitchen. Hunger had not yet killed the light in her eyes. But they were beginning to flicker.
“Can you eat this for daddy?” The man handed her the soup bowl. Rachel smiled and nodded in excitement. Watching her only child eat the soup, Maria sighed. She never protested, but she wished her husband would eat.
“I brought something for you.”
The man handed Maria a wad of faded bills. “You finally got a job.” She breathed. It was not a question.
“Yes”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I guess.”
“Who hired you?”
“The name’s not important.”
Maria held the money close, the shadow of what looked like joy sparked behind her dead eyes.
The evening wore on and as the sky turned from grey to black, the man and his wife talked.
“Did you hear about that man who was murdered on 42nd street yesterday?” Maria sipped her weak coffee, looking expectantly at the man.
“Yes. I read about it in the paper.”
“You need to be careful when you walk past that street. The last thing I want is for you to take a bullet to the head.” Maria placed a hand on her husband’s arm, loving concern in her voice. “Do they know who the killer is?”     
“No.” The man traced a finger around the rim of his mug. “I’m sure they’ll catch him soon.”
“Sooner rather than later.” Maria finished the rest of her coffee. “You should get to bed. I’ll come up later. I can’t sleep yet. The kitchen’s dirty.”
The man stood, kissing his wife robotically. “Night”
“Goodnight”
The stairwell was pitch black. The man started up the dark stairs, they were invisible supports in the darkness. The second story of the apartment had two rooms. One was his and Maria’s bedroom the other was Rachel’s room that doubled as the ‘storage’ room. He never liked the fact that Rachel had to sleep in the same room as their junk.
The man paused to look at his sleeping daughter. With her red curls, green eyes, a sweet smile, she could have been a Scottish princess. She deserved to be a princess. But how could she be one if she was starving? Simply put, she couldn’t.
The man moved on.
The darkness of his own bedroom embraced him. It flooded his senses flowing through his eyes, nose, and mouth, seeping into his brain, thoughts, and memories. It seemed to whisper to him.
A man died on 42nd street.
They all whispered to him.
The newspaper wadded in his pocket.
A man died on 42nd street.
The stolen money in his wife’s hands.
A man died on 42nd street.
The hidden revolver under his bed.
A man died on 42nd street.
He shook his head. Black tears dripped down his cheeks. They were wrong, all of them wrong. The newspapers, his wife, they didn’t know the whole story. But he knew the truth. A man had not died on 42nd street.
Two men died on 42nd street.
Two men died, one outside, one inside.
Two men died so that a loving wife and a red-haired girl could live.