21

Thanksgiving thoughts bred scents of roasted turkey and baked cinnamon. The vibrations in the subway window soothed his aching head until subterranean darkness gave way to sun-soaked sprawl.

Outside on the platform, a trio of Yeshiva-tailored boys tossed coins onto the tracks, a dangerous folly carried out without the supervision of the station’s usual patrolman.

Andrew was four blocks down Brighton 12 when a feminine howl ripped through the air. Wailing sirens grew deafening on approach as police cruisers rushed past, their rubber treads screeching.

Opened doors hatched dozens of officers onto the pavement. Grouped tightly, the blue swarm crowded the stoop to Samil’s building. Andrew fled into the place’s foyer as gunshots popped across the street. Behind him came screams that drove him under the long table across from the mailboxes.

Gunfire heralded the entry door’s shattering, which sent crystalline flurries plinking across the rug and tiles. Radek crashed through the webbed glass, shards blanketing his arms with red rivets. Brown boots crunched over the glass behind him, and in them stood Cyril, handgun raised and firing.

A storm of bullets ripped into the drywall and clouded the lobby with dust. Cyril’s short legs jerked like a tormented puppet before his body folded. Radek screamed, his face colored with rage as ammo exploded from his pistol.

Bullets swarmed the room again, one striking Radek’s right arm, sending blood and skin across the wall behind him. Then, the tall thug vanished. Three policemen raced through the broken entry, one kicking Cyril for proof of death.

Lifeless eyes held Andrew through broken, twisted spectacles. Unable to stop himself, he reached out and pulled the eyeglasses away. After petting Cyril’s thinning hair, he gently pushed the old man’s lids down with two fingers. Their warmth was his goodbye.

Outside, the crowd dispersed—the inevitable didn’t warrant a second glance.

Andrew wandered around the loitering onlookers and caught sight of the paramedics. Strapped to their stretcher was Samil, his bloodied scalp missing patches of hair. Andrew got close enough to smell the blood, urine, and sweat. A bulbous contusion covered Samil’s lower face, and his jawbone lay shattered beneath a grotesquely swollen bugle.

“Sam-Sam,” Andrew sobbed.

“You’re his friend?” The paramedic’s braids moved with her as she helped hoist the stretcher into the ambulance bay. “Can you ride with him?”

Andrew climbed inside and took Samil’s hand. Every finger was broken and bent like a Picasso painting. Paramedics cut open his shirt, revealing boot marks on his fleshy stomach.

The shared space felt like a closet when its doors shut.

Samil’s bloodied pulp muttered in Polish.

“Did they arrest them, Andrej?”

Lying was all he could muster.

“They got them all, Sam-Sam.”

Lips spread in a grin, exposing his missing front teeth.

Samil wheezed, “They killed Konrad,”

“Honey,” the paramedic asked. “Are you his family?”

Andrew shook his head.

“They won’t let you into the hospital with him.” She touched his arm. “Go home and bring back one of your parents. They’ll let you check in on him then,”

“My mamka,” Andrew whispered.

The woman nodded. “You go get your mom now, okay.”

No, he couldn’t do that.

Things happen, Andrej.

The violence that brought him here was nothing compared to this, and if he told her about Samil and the others, she would learn how he ended up in their world.

I’ll always love you, Andrej.

I made you, so I know you’re a good man.

Mamka said those words the night he confessed to liking boys.

Nothing in this world will ever stop me from loving you.

Samil began choking, and the heart monitor started to hiccup. Both paramedics moved over him, sending Andrew back to the doors. Their hands worked faster than he could follow, doing everything they knew, but nothing mattered when his first friend in New York stopped breathing.