Story Hour

Running On Empty

From An Evening Of Live Storytelling About Unsung Heroes

This is a story about coming back from the brink and it’s about the moments when one sees a world differently, a world right next door.

One evening years ago, when I lived in New York City, I’m on my way home and enter the subway station at Broadway Lafayette. It’s after rush-hour and there’s a matronly woman in front of me who gives money to a strung out teenager by the turnstiles. I’d seen this kid before but had always walked right by him.

A few minutes later, this woman and I are the only ones standing on the platform waiting for the train and I turn to her and say, “If you don’t mind my asking, what compelled you to give money to that kid back there?”

And she said, “My son once ran away and I’d like to think that someone would’ve helped him back then.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said.

That’s what New Yorkers call a mitzvah, right? A good deed. An act of kindness.

I saw that kid off and on for a few weeks after that. I never gave him money. One day, he stopped coming around that station and I never saw him again.

. . . . . . . .