N.Y. Journal: Subway Samaritan

The subway car next to mine emptied and a car of shaken people poured into mine. A thug in the next subway car, they said, was beating a man for stepping on his foot.

The subway pulled into the station and a distinguished man in a navy blazer ran away, his bald head streaming blood---the first victim. The second was a man who had tried to stop the first beating. He was lying in a corner of the subway platform, too badly beaten to walk away and ringed so closely with people that I couldn't see what he looked like or how badly he was hurt.

The thug---the height of a basketball player---started bellowing in the subway car next to mine and we emptied the subway to wait on the platform. We ran back into the subway when he ran to the platform and watched through the subway windows when he dropped his backpack and made straight for the man he'd already bloodied to beat him again. Then he loped back down the platform, screaming.

The police showed up 20 minutes later. Word trickled back to us that a little old man with a cane had hurried after the thug and pointed him out. They found him sitting in the subway car and waiting for the train to leave, deranged enough to insist, despite a car full of witnesses and a bloody victim half his size, that he was acting in self-defense.

It's one of those moments, when you're craning your head out of the subway car to catch a glimpse of a man lying on a subway platform, when you realize you're a smaller person than you'd hoped. The thug was big, but not big enough to stand up to a full subway car of people had they stood up to him instead of running. But I'm not conceited enough to insist I would do differently. After all, standing up to him might mean being crushed like the Good Samaritan lying crushed on a subway platform in front of us.

I can guess how I would have acted because Jesus' Good Samaritan only suffered a pecuniary loss, but it's a loss I'm not always willing to suffer when I walk past beggars every day. Some of the good Christian advocates I've interviewed say to give a little money because Jesus said to give, but don't just give money to ease your conscience: Direct them to people who can offer more permanent hope. I know that giving money can do more harm than good, so I don't give money; but I also don't give help.

That's why I have a feeling I would have run into the next subway car, too. Becoming the kind of person who can suffer physical harm for a stranger starts with giving time and providing safety for defenseless strangers.