(The following is an excerpt from THE GREAT NORTH AMERICAN NOVEL, out July 10, 2019 on Amazon).
Alexander Cortez, a 12-year old boy with autism, made headlines this weekend when he was found in an NYC subway station - a full month after being reported missing.
The boy was finally recognized when a woman following the story happened to notice him. “I looked up from the paper I was reading about this kid, and I saw him!!! It was some real meant-to-be type shit, for sure,” the woman told reporters on the scene.
When asked how he was able to survive for so long, Cortez responded, “There’s lots of good places down here. You can get a Jamaican beef patty over there. A slice of pizza over there from the Chinese people. Or you can get chips and pop from the Indians. There’s lots of ways. Lots of ways.”
This is unfortunately not the first time a young person diagnosed with autism has been lost in one of the city’s subway stations. There have been at least 57 reported cases of this particular type of incident in the last 2 years alone. It has been suggested by medical professionals that the subway system is appealing to people with autism due to its rigid, scheduled structure. In addition, some people have cited the complexity of trains and maps as being incredibly fascinating for autistic children.
Bruce Lawrence, a subway conductor for the city for close to 32 years commented, “This is something we’re paying close attention to and monitoring very closely. This is a phenomenon we should be careful about in the future for sure. We will be taking significant steps to make sure this does not happen again.”
Reporters asked Cortez why he decided to stay in the station for so long. He commented, “I don’t know, I just like it here. I just felt like being here everyday for awhile. It’s nice.”
Fellow passengers onboard the train that day failed to recognize the boy or notice anything was off. When informed about the situation, one rider remarked, “Can’t believe that shit. I mean a whole month!? That’s someone’s son, bro.” This highlights the main problem with stories like this: after a certain period of time it’s almost impossible to tell who is a rider and who is lost.
“We’re going to be taking great measures to ensure this isn’t a regular thing,” another official for the city commented. “We’re working on....mandates.....initiatives...preventative stuff like that,” another worker remarked.
When Alexander Cortez was asked if there was anything he learned about his experience, he commented, “People care about themselves more than other people. Nobody cares about each other.”
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Susan Jackson is an award-winning writer with years of experience uncovering the truth. She won the Pulitzer prize in 1999 for her book “Pedophiles on the Pews,” a groundbreaking exposé about molestation in the Catholic church. She has been working on her long-awaited second work on Scientology, “That’s Not Science,” for 20 years. It comes out this fall.
