Freezing People is (Not) Easy Read Online Free Page B

bought fares on the rapid transit system.
    Each night I boarded the elevated trains into New York City, where I had free access to the subway and could catnap two hours in one direction then return the opposite way, night after night, back and forth like some giant pendulum. The subway cars were mostly deserted during the night, carrying only swing-shift workers, drunks, and other sleeping teenage runaways. There was one danger with this nightly trek—too many aggressive perverts hit on me for sex. I worried about the cops too. I knew some were dirty and searching for me as a favor to Big John, who had me labeled as a runaway juvenile delinquent.
    One night during my subway catnap, a teenager staggered aboard with his right eye ripped open. Blood gushed out of his nose and mouth, streamed down his chin, and pooled on his shirt. I ran over and helped him sit down next to me. He collapsed onto my shoulder, slipping in and out of consciousness. I held him in my arms, not knowing what the hell to do with him and trying to ignore that his blood was splattered across my only shirt.
    I no longer felt like a kid forced into adult situations; I was now a man. For the first time in my life I recognized this strong compulsion to help endangered human beings, even strangers. Then I realized I was alone; I scanned the other faces in the subway car, and no one bothered to look at this poor soul.
    The kid awoke twenty minutes later and began talking in a foreign language I couldn’t understand. He looked Puerto Rican, and after several minutes of frenetic but groggy gesturing, I realized he wanted me to help him get home. The boy grimaced from the rocking motion and moaned every time the car stopped at a station. After two hours of switching subways and soliciting a translator, we got off. He needed a doctor but directed me to his home instead of to a hospital.
    Blocks upon blocks, I carried him through a frightening part of New York City, past a huge dead dog getting devoured by rats and bums loaded on cheap booze and God knew what else. Countless dark buildings looked menacing in their bombed-out appearance. My patient gave me the sign language not to look anyone in the face. He then passed his hand in a cutting motion across his throat.
    Oh my God. What the hell kind of combat zone have I gotten myself into now?
    When we arrived at his building, I attempted to say good-bye, but he clung to my neck and began screaming. I didn’t want to attract attention, so I leaned him on my shoulder, breathed deeply, and looked at the stairs. I was exhausted and doubted I possessed the strength to climb them alone, never mind lugging this boy with me. He needed me though, so I shrugged and began climbing five flights. We passed a five-year-old girl sleeping with a teddy bear on the third floor landing, and I tried to ignore the vile sewer stench that grew stronger as we climbed. When we got to his door, he gave it three giant kicks.
    What the hell kind of knock is this? When the door opened, my heart fell into the ugly depths. Towering over me were four of the baddest, meanest, tattooed motherfuckers I had ever seen.
    Before the door swung fully open, they knocked me to the floor and snatched my patient from my grasp. The fattest one had his foot poised over my face when the boy started screaming again. Whatever he said worked. At once they pulled me to my feet and hugged me. Once inside, the fat one got on the phone and called a brother who could speak English.
    â€œ Gracias, señor, ” said the accented, slightly tipsy brother through the telephone. “You help my brother, you’re my brother. If you need help offing someone or ass-kicking, just call us, hermano, ok?”
    Relieved that I wouldn’t be leaving the apartment looking worse than the boy I had carried upstairs, I said I needed to go. He replied it was not safe for me in this part of town alone, so the four brothers walked with me to the subway station and