Be nice to strangers lest they be angels in disguise, or run like hell the other way preferably to the nearest police station just in case they are clandestine psychopaths looking to put their sharps knives to some bad use. Can anyone be trusted anymore?
One time, sitting at a Parisian café in the early morning hours, I witnessed along with another 20 somewhat coffee drinkers, a homeless drunk man, pant-less, bent over and washing his backside with a bottle of water and his right hand. While I watched with a dropped jaw, I was also noticing how no one else really seemed to be paying much attention at all. Did the ‘so disturbing cant look away’ epidemic never reach these foreigners? How could they be so ignorant, I thought, when a homeless man is washing his ass right in front of their sun-kissed faces?
Overseas, I saw a lot of crazy people doing weird shit on the streets, but I failed to hear any tragic murder stories on the news. Was the media hiding them, or did they simply not exist?
Unfortunately, here in New York City there is lots of murder in the streets, and you hear about it even if you try to preserve your virgin ears.
Too much news intel in the past couple of days has led me to conclude that most freak events occur due to one emotion which humans cannot control. Fear. According to a confessional letter* (scroll down and read the news link if you're not in the loop and want to be before you read on), Levi Aron stated he had no initial intentions of harming Leiby Kletzky until he learned about the media’s concern over his disappearance. He began to panic. Trapped in an overwhelming ocean of fear he decided that the best solution for this temporarily inconvenient situation would be to suffocate the innocent 9 year-old and then proceed to cut his body into pieces. A head full of clear thoughts? Obviously not.
So what do you do when a seemingly kind stranger approaches you on the street, be you 9 or 25 or 43?
About a week ago, I was stuck on 48th street and 5th ave in the pouring rain trying desperately to catch a vacant taxi cab. If you are a New Yorker, you know that your chances of immaculate conception are probably higher than getting a cab in the rain. So I was haling hard for about 30 mintues and was completely soaked. Because I was carrying a lot of bags, some of which contained new books, I took cover under a construction overpass to keep them drier than me and also to give my frail arm a little rest. In the time it took me to wipe water from my eyelids, a pedi cab approached. For those who are not familiar with this mode of transportation – it is basically a bike with a two seater attached to the back.
“Where ya headin’?”
“Kinda far for a bike ride.”
“That’s alright, I can take ya, but it might cost ya!”
“How much?”
“50 bucks.”
“Nah, I think I'll try to catch a cab, thanks!”
... and he pedals away.
For as long as I've lived in this city, I have somehow avoided acknowledging that pedicabs even exist. I guess it's one of those things that city-dwellers have subconsciously conditioned themselves to totally tune-out, like ambulance sirens, car honks, tourist traps, and for some, even the sound of birds. Now that I was aware, I began to notice how many of them crawled the busy streets of New York. It seemed like the taxi cab/pedi cab ratio had evened out, and I guess if your distance isn’t too far and you have extra cash to dish out, the ride seems worth it when all the yellows are occupied.
I stood for another 15 minutes waling my arm around while filled cabs zoomed past me and I noticed another woman just down the block doing the same thing as me except she had walked about ¼ of the way into the street, and if she didn’t get run over, then her chances of getting the first available cab were far greater than mine. So I'm wet and exhausted and have somewhere to be. Incoming: another pedicab.
“Hey! Let me take you!”
“I'm not paying 50 bucks.”
“What? No, 25 for you.”
“Uhhhh..”
In the midst of just wanting to get going already, I began to weigh the decisions in my head. I look at the guy.
“Come on, you'll never get a cab in the rain. Let me take you.”
Why is he so pushy?
"Come on, it will only cost you 25 dollars. I'm a good biker”
“Uh, I don’t think so. I don’t have any cash anyway”
“Oh come on. You’re already soaked. You'll be waiting forever. We can stop at an ATM on the way. Any ATM of your choice.”
Seriously, why is he being so pushy? I'm sure he can go down the block and pick up anyone else who in addition will actually be willing to pay 50 dollars.
“Nah, I think I'll take my chances”
He gets off his bike.
“Look. I'm Christopher. What's your name?”
“Simona.”
We shake hands and do our ‘nice to meet you’s'.
“Where you from?”
“Uh, Brooklyn..”
“Cool, I'm from Queens. Astoria.”
“Okay..”
“How old are you?”
“22”
Am I already giving away too much information?
“Oh shit! 11/11! That's ma birthday!”
So here I am, perplexed. I need to get somewhere and the catching a cab business isn’t looking so good. This guy seems nice. I don’t know why he wants to take me so bad, and I also don’t know why he’s willing to shlep my 140lb self along with my three heavy bags all the way across town for a measly 25 dollars. Herein lies the risk factor.
I could A- take my chances and hope this dude gets me to my destination alive, without kidnapping me and then brutally murdering me and leaving my body to decompose somewhere in a trash can (very popular trend these days) or B- I could be really adamant about trying to find a cab, which probably won't happen, and so I will have to find the nearest train station which won't even have the train I need to go crosstown and end up riding the really hot subway for god knows how long after which I will still have to walk 5 avenues until I reach my destination, most likely very late.
“So whaddaya say?”
He streaches out his hand to help me into the shaky thing.
“Fine” and I get in.
First let me say, that this is not a comfortable ride. I am sitting in the chair attached to the back of his bike with a canapy to shield me from getting any wetter (which is not even possible at this point, but I still have books to save) and the potholes are not nice when there are no hydraulics.
My thoughts are raging. What if this was a bad idea? Now he can take me anywhere he wants. I am at his disposal and I am going to be the most current missing person on tonight’s local news. What did I get myself into? I anxiously watch the street numbers to make sure we are heading in the right direction. I watch his throbbing calves. Every correct turn makes me swallow my fear just a little.
“How you doin' back there?”
Gulp.
“So tell me about yourself...”
“Uh seriously?”
I just want to get there already.
“Ya know, this is not the only thing that I do. I also wrote a children's book.”
“No way!”
“Yeah! I'ma read it to you when we stop!”
Okay, so thankfully I wasn’t in the hands of a serial killer or even some psychopath ready to make me his next victim. Well maybe a little psychopath but with totally good intentions at the least. I got to my destination, still wet but in one piece, and while he was reading me his published children’s book, I wondered why it was so wrong to give strangers the upper hand sometimes and actually trust them. Because if you think about it, millions of people do so everyday by getting into taxicabs, airplanes, buses, and trains. We don’t know where the crazies lie within these streets but we have to take our chances so we can get by.
I spent the next hour raging to my mother about how there are some really nice people in the world, like this poor guy who pedaled for 15 minutes uphill and I only paid him 25 dollars (which is a lot compared to a cab ride, but given the circumstances, a pretty sweet deal). He even let me in on a little secret – an open-mic poetry reading held every Sunday on the lower east side, and had I not taken my chances with this stranger, I might have never known.
But back to where I began-
This week, a 9 year-old boy lost on his way home from day camp, also took a chance with a stranger, hoping that the man’s intentions were coming from a good healthy place. Unfortunately this little boy got the short end of the stick and now his family and the entire nation grieves at the tragic story flooding televisions everywhere.
Where did he go wrong, and where did I go right?
Leiby Kletzky’s death haunts me now. And had I been stuck in the rain today, I undoubtedly would have said no to friendly Christopher. Because it looks like you just never know these days.
"I've always relied on the kindness of strangers."
ReplyDelete- A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)
I really enjoyed this Simona.. read the whole thing. I agree, sometimes we go into the motions of our decisions rather blindly, and we have to cross our fingers in our heads and hope that we're going to be able to put our head on the pillow at night. Sometimes the most impacting "tiny" events or circumstances in our day become a continuing part of our lives in the days after. (i.e. meeting a film director after a last minute party invitation, leading to 2 films shot with him so far, and a 3rd just about to be conceived.)
In short, keep that inkling of faith in other people; just USE it when your risks are minimal, but not when they outweigh the chances for good. And also, maybe invest in an umbrella; preferably not one of the $5 top of the subway stairs models though. This downpour that left you soaked led to the rebirth of your new way of looking at people you have yet to meet; I think that's arguably kinda beautiful.