True story about
random encounters with strangers.
It was about 11:30, late on
Tuesday night a few weeks ago.
I was coming home from yet another 3 hours of unintelligible
stochastic calculus.
The
Fulton Street 4,5,6 train station was quiet this late,
allowing the rumble of
distant trains, and the warm summer
night rain pouring through the
grates overhead. That morning, on my way to work, it had been clear-- so I hadn't anticipated
walking 10 blocks home in the rain.
I have stopped being
wary of walking in deserted streets in
Manhattan at night, sometime between when men insisted on walking me
home when it was past 10:00 and when I started refusing and
walking
on my own.
(with the pleasant delusion of safety with the attitude that I am dangerous
in stilettos and a knee-length skirt so do not, I tell you, do not
fuck with me especially coming home from mind-numbingly-difficult
sub-martingale night at Courant)
But the rain. It didn't look like it was stopping so I started to walk.
You know how the
financial district is like at night-- narrow empty winding
streets through
canyons of illuminated skyscrapers. I was walking slowly
with the rain
dripping down my back and I didn't mind
(dry clean only is
usually a lie anyway) when a
random stranger asks me,
"Would you like my
umbrella?"
I analyze him for
sketchiness- He's of average height, soccer-player build. Wearing
the business-casual uniform of blue
oxford french cuffed shirt and khaki
pants,
expensive belt. Hair that I first assume to
be dark blond, from his darker complexion, but later realize it to be an
auburn tone of red.
He can't be more than 25 years old, and I notice a
J.P. Morgan ID tag hanging out of his
bag.
Passes the
sketch test (
ignoring slight physical resemblance to Christian Bale in American Psycho), I accept the umbrella. He holds it over me, receiving
the
edge-of-umbrella-drip on his
right shoulder, then over his
laptop bag. He introduces himself. I ask
which direction he's going to-- John Street and
Gold.
From his
southern accent, I start the typical meeting-a-stranger small talk
You're not
from New York, are you? Then:
where did you go to school, I go to Stern,
he went to Darden, works in M&A, he's from Texas, he did undergrad at Harvard, I used to row against Harvard,
he used to play rugby, I went to Choate, his little brother is starting there in the fall.
We reach Gold street and I start to turn away to walk towards
Water and he pauses and tells me,
"
My mother would be disappointed in me if she knew I let you walk 3 blocks in the rain."
I have always had confidence in the
kindness of strangers.