Wow, that's a lot of blood.

"Wow, that's a lot of blood."

The Upper East Side of Manhattan isn't home to a lot of the disaster reel type scenes like you get elsewhere in the city, but right now I was looking at a sight more hideous than I'd ever seen in a movie theater or on tv. Or maybe it just seemed that way because it was right in front if me. Either way, it didn't matter. I was looking at a guy lying in the street with a wound in his head so big, I couldn't believe the whole thing was still attached.

Once at a punk rock show I was walking into the bathroom when I saw a guy who'd obviously hit his head on something, probably something on the stage while thrashing a little too hard, that happens from time to time. His face was covered blood; there wasn't a single patch on face untainted that was bigger than a square inch , but when he put his hand down and I immediately zoomed in on the wound, I could see it was all of an inch long, if that. It was a little disappointing; I was expecting more of a Jason Vorhees powered gash. But still, The point is,  a wound that small at the base of the scalp releases enough blood to make this guy look like Carrie on prom night.

Even more disappointing was the dude at the concert ran off before I could get a better look. That most def wasn't a problem now; this guy clearly wasn't going anywhere, and the little scratch from the unfortunate mosher had nothing on the huge gash on the forehead of streetboy down there, so you can imagine how much of the red stuff I was looking at right then. It wasn't just his face, it was everywhere; there was a huge pool on the street and his shirt was so saturated that blood was dripping off the tip of his collar like an IV in a transfusion. I didn't know how I could see that, I tried to finagle my way through the crowd but the group of morbid onlookers got thick pretty quickly, so I was farther away than I ought to me to see such a minute detail. That sensory discrepancy was the furthest thing in my mind though, as I continued to focus on the entire death scene.

Oh yeah, he was dead. He was most definitely dead; I could see that right away. He was hit by a car, so hard his body was thrown nearly half a block; he was dead before he hit the ground. Still, when the paramedics got there, they tried to bring him back. It was pointless; all they did was throw more blood around. I wanted to tell them, it's like, hey, give it up. If there's a heaven, this dude's definitely in it right now. Or hell, maybe, I didn't know the guy, but through all the red, he seemed to have an honest face. In fact, he kind of looked like me, lanky with floppy hair, except his was a lot darker, or at least so it looked soaked in blood, and not quite as long, I have more of a semi-longish surfer skate-punk kind of look; not heavy metal but very indie-rock. I cut it as often as I can, but it grows really fast for some reason.

We also looked about the same age, which is to say he appeared about ten years younger than me. He looked around thirty or so, and I'd recently turned forty-one. I age pretty well. I'm often asked what my secret is, and I always say the same thing, "Sunscreen." Yes, everybody laughed at my SPF 100. Well who's laughing now?

Anyway, streetboy pretty much looked like the zombies had gotten to him, and most of the people who'd crept in to peek out of curiosity were pretty horrified. One even threw up. But I just couldn't look away. I'm sure even the guy who left a load of vomit on the road had to admit, the sight was kind of cool. In fact, I didn’t quite know why, maybe it was being in the presence of death, but somehow, I don’t think I’d ever felt more alive.