Commentary –

Thoughts On Kindness…

And Towed Cars

By Jeff White

BOSTON — Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about random acts of kindness.

Maybe that comes with living in a city. Every day, I am faced with opportunities for such acts, in the form of outstretched, grubby hands with mangled fingernails. They come at me just outside convenience stores; they sit hunkered down in subway stations, calling after me as I run to make a train; sometimes, they’re bold, walking alongside of me for a block until they reason it’s a lost cause.

But street beggars know you’re immune. They know you can’t hear them, or won’t, and probably don’t want to anyway. For your part, it doesn’t take long for your blinders to go up. Maybe a week. Maybe a bit longer. But in a relatively short period of time, you can walk by them, and their pleas for spare change blend right into the constant din of the city. You see them – their form, at least – but you look through them with thoughts like, “They’ll just drink the money away,” or “I can’t help them all, so why bother.”

A few years ago my friend told me a story of a man traveling down the Interstate 684. This man, a real Joe Everyman, happened upon a limousine in some distress near the side of the road. He pulled up, and the car’s driver informed him that he was struggling to get the car off the road.

Joe Everyman got out of his car and helped push the car safely off onto the side of the interstate. The driver thanked Joe profusely, and the limousine’s windows slid down. The man inside, obscured slightly, asked if there was anything he could do in gratitude.

“Times are tough,” Joe lamented. “Maybe you could send some roses to my wife.” He gave the man in the car his name and address, and said goodbye.

Of course, Joe didn’t think much of it, until a month later when his bank returned his most recent mortgage payment. When he called the bank to inquire about the problem, Joe, crestfallen, learned that someone had paid the mortgage on his house.

It turned out that the man inside the limousine was Donald Trump.

Sure, you might say, I’d help a guy out if he would buy off my home. But Joe didn’t know who he was helping. You can just imagine that he happened upon a situation, and seized on an opportunity to do good.

So these thoughts have been washing around inside my head for some time now, thoughts about what causes us to put on blinders to those in need, and what causes our eyes to open wide.

Maybe it’s a seized opportunity. For me, it was a seized car.

A few Saturdays ago, I met a friend of mine, Jack, at bar for a drink. I hadn’t seen him for almost two years, so we revisited a place we both knew well as Boston College students. The conversation was good, the atmosphere was rowdy, and when a fight broke out causing police to close the bar early, I was only too happy to call it a night.

Except my car had been towed out of an Osco Drug lot meant, apparently even at 1:00 am, “For Customer Only.” Jack’s car had met the same fate.

As anyone who has ever been towed in Boston can attest, the fact that your car is missing is the only concrete truth you can cling to in that situation; its whereabouts is anyone’s guess.

You’re left to enlist the help of a taxi to ply down dark side streets, underneath well-penned bridges, and up sketchy neighborhoods. When you do eventually find Fries Towing, you walk up into a dark booth that calls to mind where Fenway Park scalpers do business on their choicest tickets.

“Ninety-five dollars,” you’re told bluntly. “Cash only.”

“Cash only?” you repeat in earnest.

A steely glaze in reply.

I made my way to an ATM and withdrew $200 (Jack didn’t have a bank account, having just moved to Boston, nor any money to speak of for that matter) and headed back to scalper’s paradise.

As we waited in line to spring our cars, Jack found a wad of crumpled up bills almost stuffed into a jagged crack in the pavement. Forty dollars. Smiling, he assured me, “You only have to spot me $60.”

As we settled our accounts, a woman of about 25 stood off to the side, pleading to the face behind the window.

She was thin, with jet-black hair and matching pants, and she wore glasses in a way that helped keep her hair off her face. She said she was not from Boston or from anywhere close, and all she had was a credit card and $58. Could she just give what she had, leave her credit card, and come back tomorrow with the balance, she asked.

“You want us to show you how many credit cards we have from people who don’t come back?” the woman behind the counter shot back. “If you leave your car here and come back tomorrow morning, the price will still be $95. It goes up $20 every day after that.”

But she did not know anyone, she said, nor did she have any place to stay. Couldn’t she leave her whole wallet as collateral? A steely glaze in reply.

I started to follow Jack out to the parking lot. But I paused for a moment, and stepped back into the booth. I handed the woman $40. “Take it,” I said. “They’re not going to let you get out of here otherwise.”

“I’m going to pay you back,” she said, her eyes gleaming a little, not really sure what to make of my offer.

“Okay,” I replied.

She thumbed through her wallet and took out a tattered bank deposit slip. She took down my name, address, and phone number.

I asked for her name. “Dee,” she replied. I did not ask her for her address or phone number. I turned, said good luck, and went home.

Typing these words now, I am not sure why I gave her the $40. She was obviously in need, in a jam, maybe a little desperate. The funny thing was, I did not hesitate. The thought came to my mind, I turned around, and shoved the money into her hand. No debate.

One thing for certain, I did not do it thinking I would get that money back. The same dullness that has caused me to look past people with outstretched hands had also caused me to conclude that there would be no reason in the world for Dee to return that money.

And no, I’m not living any Donald Trump fantasies on this one. As of this writing, I’m still mortgage free –not even close to owning my first house. But maybe there is something in that story, in the fact that we can be seized by an opportunity to lend a helping hand, and that such kindness for kindness’ sake can open our otherwise shut eyes to more opportunities.

I don’t know. I sit here, and I wait for Dee to restore some luster to my city dullness. Maybe with a letter of thanks, with or without a check.

But I sit here with my eyes open, and I am beginning to hear their voices.

(Jeff White, a former reporter for The Bee, is a graduate student at Boston University.)