Dear Diary:
Twenty years ago, while walking to my apartment near Gramercy Park, I saw an act of bravery that’s been burned into my memory for the past two decades.
It was evening; there was still light out. I was on 22nd Street heading east in the Flatiron district toward Lexington Avenue. A routine walk, until some frenetic energy in the air caused me to pause. I looked north up Broadway. Then I saw what was happening.
A blind person, cane in hand, was crossing a crowded 23rd Street toward Madison Square Park at rush hour. The light was changing and he was barely halfway across. Then, from nowhere, a policeman ran out, grabbed him, lifted him up and tossed him over his shoulder, then continued on running with him across the street just moments before an onslaught of cars rushed by.
It was surreal. I continued home and told my girlfriend. And subsequently many people over the years. I chalked it up to one of those New York moments you get to talk about over dinner. Did I mention I told a lot of people?
O.K., I recently saw a rerun of “It Could Happen to You†â€" don’t ask â€" with Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda. And guess what? That’s right: Exact same scene, exact same corner, exact same time it would have been filmed. Only this time from a totally different angle, from the east, not from the south where I was. Nicolas Cage running out, grabbing the “blind†guy and heroically crossing the street.
I felt duped. I had recounted a fiction and passed it off as a reality dozens of times! Sheesh. Ah well, now I get to tell the same story, only it’s an updated 2.0 version. As previously stated, be careful out there; it could happen to you, too.
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