Kindness in the Crowd

LOS ANGELES—Times Square makes some think of a seedy part of town from days gone by. Others think of towering buildings and blinding lights. I think of a chance event that renewed my faith in the kindness of others.

Three weeks ago I embarked on a trip to New York and Boston. After leaving a Broadway matinee, I walked a few blocks through Times Square when I went to reach for my wallet—but came up empty handed.

I franticly checked all my pockets. Passers-by probably thought I was doing the Macarena as I patted every possible place I could have put it. I was in the middle of Manhattan, of all places, without any money, credit cards, or I.D. and with no way to board my plane home some days later. As this dawned on, me paranoia set in. I retraced my steps. Eventually I calmed down, cancelled my credit cards, filed a police report, found friends to loan me money, and got my parents to overnight my passport. I kept telling myself that things weren’t that bad. But not even Monty Python could cheer me up.

Just when everything seemed lost, I got a call. “We just got home and there was a message from a guy named Marty,” my Dad said. “He found your wallet.”

The next thing I knew, I was knocking on a door in suburban New Jersey. Out came a smiling man who glowed with warmth in the brisk night air. “You must be Adam!” he exclaimed as he squeezed my hand, “Come in!”

I felt like I was being invited into the house of an old friend. He led me to his living room and handed me the little leather square that contained my life. When I opened my wallet up I could hardly believe my eyes—every last bill was just as I had left it.

Marty explained that he had seen the wallet out of the corner of his eye on the ground in Times Square. Without thinking twice, he raced past others to grab it. There was no question in his mind what he should do. He raced home and somehow found my home phone number.

I didn’t know what to think. I had always thought that movies like “Pay It Forward” had a quaint premise but were hokey and fantastic almost to the point of absurdity. I had laughed with millions when Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer got arrested for violating the Good Samaritan law in the last episode of Seinfeld. After all, people always do what’s best for themselves, going their various ways without thinking twice about strangers, let alone going out of their way for one.

I figured I’d thank Marty by giving him a reward. “Go out to a nice dinner with your family” I told him as I held out a generous sum.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I figured you might do this. I won’t take anything.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Can I help you out in some way? Do something nice back to you? Give the money to a charity?” I was pleading with him.

He suggested a charity that meant something to him, but offered a corollary: “all I really want is for you to keep the vibe going, ya know?”

I didn’t know. But I began to understand by watching this extraordinary man’s magnanimous example. The notion of going slightly out of your way to touch a stranger wasn’t just the basis of a contrived tear-jerker movie, something that could only happen on the silver screen. No—it was something possible and real, something every human being could do with minimal effort. It was a humbling lesson that took some time to fully comprehend, a lesson I still haven’t managed to work into my daily life no matter how hard I’ve tried, a lesson in moral reasoning more profound than anything else I have learned in my two years at Harvard.

“I’m a journalist,” I told Marty as an idea shot through my head, “I’ll write about it.”

“Yeah...” he said slowly, a huge smile spreading across his face.



Adam M. Guren ’08, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is an economics concentrator in Eliot House. When he’s not checking pockets for his wallet, he is interning for The Los Angeles Times.