Thirty two years ago I was walking on a street in midtown Manhattan with a friend of mine when I noticed a man, in a tuxedo, laying face down on the sidewalk. People, in both directions, nicely dressed, were walking by him. No one stopped. As I got closer, I could see that this man was Japanese, in a tuxedo, and bleeding from the forehead. As I bent to get a better look, I could smell the alcohol on his breath. Lots of it. Had he been mugged? I didn't know. But clearly, this bleeding man in a tuxedo was very drunk, in shock, and now beginning to moan.

"Call 911!", I yelled to my friend, trying my best to keep him calm, not wanting his bleeding to get any worse. The only thing I could think of, maybe from a movie I had seen years ago, was to keep him calm. So, I put my right hand on his shoulder, gently squeezed, and started telling him over and over again that "everything was going to be alright and help was on the way."

Nothing I did or said made a difference -- either because he was drunk, in shock, or didn't understand a single word of English. The more I spoke, the more he tried to wiggle away from me to the building just a few feet to our right -- trying, it seemed, to get the support he needed to stand. This, I knew, was a terrible idea as it would only quicken his bleeding. And so I kept on telling him, again and again, that everything was going to be alright and help was on its way.

But no matter what I said or how I said it, he kept making his way across the sidewalk to the marble facade on the building just a few feet away. And then, having moved beyond all my attempts to keep him still, he leaned against the wall and, wobbling, did his best to stand.

When this Japanese man in a tuxedo with a gash on his forehead stood to his full height, he immediately began to fall forward. That's when I reached out, in Good Samaritan mode, spread both of my arms wide and attempted to break his fall. And that's when he punched me in the face. I never saw it coming. BAM! A classic roundhouse. A sucker punch. My glasses went flying, both of my lenses popping out, me now bleeding from the bridge of my nose -- as the ambulance, sirens screaming, came screeching up to the curb, three paramedics jumping out and wrestling him to the ground, putting him in a straight jacket, then onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance, sirens screaming again as it drove away.

Crawling on my hands and knees, squinting and bleeding, I found both of my lenses and my frames, now very bent. Then I stood slowly, took the hand of my friend, and both of us, in silence, continued on our way.

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Photo: Dominik Leiner, Unsplash

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at September 8, 2021 12:39 PM

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