It rained.

The rain,
the constant steady rain came down with the insistence of a high-school Vice Principal.
It hadn't rained, really rained, for weeks, and now this rain, which assaulted the asphalt with the fury of a middleweight's combination, threatened to wash the stink off the block.

No, that's wrong.
Nothing could wash off the accumulated grime, the gum spots as numerous as the stars in heaven, the filth--both human and animal, of the street. The surface might be scoured. But the filth, the grime, the tears, blood and sweat of a thousand broken dreams were permanent as the puke dried to a marble-hardness in the corner of the abandoned parking lot that dominated the landscape.