All Gone Read Online Free Page B

to be and so he was absolutely exact about their height, age, looks, mannerisms and hair color and style and clothes. He also made detailed drawings of the men for the police, which I have copies of from the newspaper, and which so far haven’t done the police any good in finding them.
    What I’m really looking out for besides those descriptions are two young men who will try and pick up or seriously annoy or molest a teenage girl on the platform or do that to any reasonably young woman, including me. If I see them and I’m sure it’s them I’ll summon a transit policeman to arrest them and if there’s none around then I’ll follow the young men, though discreetly, till I see a policeman. And if they try and molest or terrorize me on the bench and no policeman’s around, I’ll scream at the top of my lungs till someone comes and steps in, and hopefully a policeman. But I just want those two young men caught, that’s all, and am willing to risk myself a little for it, and though there’s probably not much chance of it happening, I still want to give it a good try.
    I do this every Saturday morning for months. I see occasional violence on the platform, like a man slapping his woman friend in the face or a mother hitting her infant real hard, but nothing like two or even one man of any description close to those young men terrorizing or molesting a woman or girl or even trying to pick one up. I do see men, both old and young, and a few who look no more than nine years old or ten, leer at women plenty as if they’d like to pick them up or molest them. Some men, after staring at a woman from a distance, then walk near to her when the train comes just to follow her through the same door into the car. But that’s as far as it goes on the platform. Maybe when they both get in the car and especially when it’s crowded, something worse happens. I know that a few times a year when I ride the subway, a pull or poke from a man has happened to me.
    A few times a man has come over to the bench and once even a woman who looked manly and tried to talk to me, but I brushed them off with silence or a remark. Then one morning a man walks over when I’m alone on the bench and nobody else is around. I’m not worried, since he has a nice face and is decently dressed and I’ve seen him before here waiting for the train and all it seems he wants now is to sit down. He’s a big man, so I move over a few inches to the far end of the bench to give him more room.
    â€œNo,” he says, “I don’t want to sit—I’m just curious. I’ve seen you in this exact place almost every Saturday for the last couple of months and never once saw you get on the train. Would it be too rude—”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAll right. I won’t ask it. I’m sorry.”
    â€œNo, go on, ask it. What is it you want to know? Why I sit here? Well I’ve been here every Saturday for more than three months straight, if you’re so curious to know, and why you don’t see me get on the car is none of your business, okay?”
    â€œSure,” he says, not really offended or embarrassed. “I asked for and got it and should be satisfied. Excuse me,” and he walks away and stands near the edge of the platform, never turning around to me. When the local comes, he gets on it.
    Maybe I shouldn’t have been that sharp with him, but I don’t like to be spoken to by men I don’t know, especially in subways.
    Next Saturday around the same time he comes downstairs again and stops by my bench.
    â€œHello,” he says.
    I don’t say anything and look the other way. “Still none of my business why you sit here every Saturday like this?”
    I continue to look the other way.
    â€œI should take a hint, right?”
    â€œDo you think that’s funny?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what do you want me to do, call a