Last night I made a house call to one of my student’s apartment.  I had to travel there by subway around 8:00 in the evening.  While sitting in the subway in a car about one third full, I noticed a Spanish gentleman literally falling down drunk standing in the doorway holding on to the pole with both hands, but trying mightily to remain erect.

He then began to talk to two African-American women sitting beneath him – one a pretty and sweet looking woman in her 30s sitting with probably her mother.  Because he was so drunk he began falling all over them.  They were obviously bothered by this and were leaning the other way so as to not be touched by this man.

One learns to pretty much to mind one’s own business in the NY subways – the dangers being obvious, but this continued intermittently for several minutes.  People were watching, but nobody was moving to help.

I stood up and walked down the car to the doorway where the man was now bothering the ladies again and heard the drunk blubber, “Aw c’mon Shweetie, I thought you was my frien’?”  The younger one and closest to him responded, “OK, we’re friends, Mister, but you have to stay at arm’s length.”

At that she held out her arm and held him gently away as he staggered and tried to keep from falling across their laps.

I watched his hands.  I just wanted to make sure he was not carrying any kind of weapon.

He moved to them again, leaning far across both their laps, barely still standing.  “Aw please, I thought we was friends.”

I took a deep breath, stepped forward, and grabbed on to the same pole he was holding onto and placed my right hand gently on his shoulder.  He straightened up groggily, surprised, and looked at me menacingly with bloodshot eyes and breath that could fill the bottle right back up.

I said calmly, “Hey buddy, you’re my friend.  Don’t you remember?  She’s my friend too and I think you’re a little confused.  You and me are the ones who are friends.”

In his drunken stupor he was now, in fact, very confused.  He looked at me questioningly and asked, “Do I know you?”  I answered, “Yeah, remember we got on the subway together.”  He groggily tried to recollect.

I then asked him, “What’s your name again?”  He mumbled, “Pedro.”  I laughed and smiled at him, “Yeah, I’m Pedro too … remember?  Let’s move over here and finish our conversation.”

At that I steered him to the pole on the other side of the door away from the two grateful ladies, their eyes flashing relieved ‘thank yous.’  On the other side of the door sat a large African-American man in his late 30s who had been watching the encounter along with most of the people at our end of the car.  Pedro’s attention was now completely off the ladies as he tried mightily to recall our long-lasting friendship.

Suddenly the train came into the station and to a stop.  I looked out and it was my stop.  I had to go.  I said quickly as the doors opened, “Hey Pedro, here’s another friend” (indicating the African-American man).  Now Pedro was really confused, but the African-American man stood up.  He was about 6’5” tall and loomed over both of us.  He said, “I got it from here, Mister.  Thanks.”

I got off the train and moved on, leaving all my newfound friends behind.

I climbed the subway station stairs and moved out onto the street where it was cold, rainy and now beginning to get icy.  I thought back on the experience and breathed a sigh of relief at how smooth it had all gone.  Handling the situation lovingly had totally disarmed the threat and confused the negative intentions.

I got my bearings and began to walk to my student’s apartment.  I had only walked half a block and was moving down the sidewalk past a Christmas tree stand when, lost in thought, my feet became suddenly tangled in some wire mesh from the unwrapped Christmas trees that had blown out onto the sidewalk.

Suddenly I was falling forward.  All in the same moment I knew that I was in real trouble.  My feet were hopelessly tangled, the sidewalk was slick and I was going down flat on my face onto the concrete.  My hands went out to break the fall, but I knew my reaction was not in time.  My head was going to hit first and the rest of my body was flat out in the air.  Here it comes!

An arm suddenly flashed under my chest, catching me, holding me.  A Spanish man, standing by the newsstand on the left with his family had watched me fall and in that instant reached out and caught me at the last second.  We both went down to the sidewalk in a heap, but he had broken my fall.  Neither of us was hurt.  He had saved me.

I jumped up and helped him up saying, “Thank you, oh thank you!”  His wife came forward to support him.  I thanked her, I thanked the kids, I thanked him again profusely and walked on thanking God.

This all happened about two minutes after I had left the subway.

It’s a New York Melting Pot story if there ever was one …

What goes around comes around.