The Cleanup

His name is Billy Rowe. Yesterday he was just another tragically talented loser the city had chewed up and spat back down on the streets. Billy came to New York with dreams of stardom, and found only a nightmare of obscurity. Frustrated and downtrodden, disgusted with his own failure, Billy spends his days living in Bowery squalor, his ambition skittering away like the cockroaches running up his tenement walls. His roommate can’t cover the overdue rent. His girlfriend has no more patience for his self-pity. It seems that things can’t get any worse. Until the night Billy witnesses a murder in the street below his a young woman, knifed again and again and left to die, her blood gleaming under streetlight’s glare. The killer flees into the shadows. And Billy watches, paralyzed with fear, until it’s too late to do anything but scream. When the police come, their contempt is palpable. And when they leave, Billy is ashamed. In a fit of despair, Billy prays for help, for guidance…for a sign. And like a miracle it comes, as the mysterious stranger named Christopher. Christopher has come with a of the power that Billy has, if he will but lay claim to it. Billy thinks Christopher is crazy…until he realizes that suddenly he feels no pain. Billy can heal the sick, or clean up the mess of his life. Or the mess of the city’s savage streets. Yesterday Billy Rowe was just another nobody. Now he has the Power. Now the city has nothing to fear. Nothing but Billy Rowe…