This was a nice human interest story from the Daily News:
Small acts of kindness go down the line
A bad day seemed to be getting better when Dawn Williams stepped aboard an uptown No. 3 train and saw two whole rows of empty seats. The 36-year-old hedge fund worker was poised to take the vacant seat to her immediate left when her fellow straphangers called out a warning that saved a lousy Friday from literally bottoming out.
“It’s wet!”
One of the warnings came from Italo Franklin, a 30-year-old sheet metal worker who also boarded car 1623 at Times Square around 3:30 p.m. He had immediately spotted the pools of clear liquid in the rows of empty seats. He also saw Williams’ reaction when she realized her day was not brightening after all.
“She wanted to sit down so bad,” Franklin later said. “She rushed to the seats. She looked so disappointed.”
Franklin reached into his pocket and produced a small wad of napkins he always carries in case his allergies act up. He proceeded to mop up the liquid from the seat that Williams had been about to take.
The napkins still had some absorbency and Franklin wiped dry the adjoining seat as well. A cynical reporter who observed the moment figured Franklin intended to settle beside the decidedly pretty beneficiary of his kindness.
Franklin instead deliberately stepped to the opposite end of the row. He was still close enough for Williams to say, “Thank you,” and for him to say, “You’re welcome.” But he was far enough away for her to know his gesture was not just an excuse to hit on her. She flashed a big, bright smile as the train rattled on uptown through the tunnel darkness.
“My day wasn’t that great,” she said later. “For him to come and do something with no ulterior agenda made it better.”
Franklin himself seemed the happiest of straphangers, having once again achieved a daily goal inspired by his grandmother’s adage that it is “better to be nice than be nasty.”
“I try to do a good deed at least once a day,” he told a reporter.
Most often, the deeds are in the subway. They are usually on the order of helping an elderly person carry something or giving a pregnant woman his seat.
When Franklin boarded car 1623 on Friday afternoon on his way home to the Bronx from a job in Queens, the row of empty seats to his right had already inspired two other straphangers to do good deeds.
The first was 38-year-old Siu Chin from Queens, who was enjoying the comfort of a dry seat when she saw a woman across from her prepared to settle onto one of the wet ones.
“It’s wet!” voices called out.
The woman was 26-year-old Rachel Arkins of Manhattan, and she was eager enough for a seat that she perched on just the outside edge. Chin produced some tissues from her handbag and handed them across the aisle.
“People say what goes around comes around,” Chin said later.
Arkins not only dried a seat for herself, but the one beside her for somebody else. She no doubt would have done the whole row had the tissues been able to sop up any more of the liquid.
“I hope that’s water,” another straphanger said.
“I hope so, too,” Arkins said.
At Times Square, Chin got off as Williams and Franklin got on. Arkins watched from her newly dry perch as Franklin wiped off a seat for Williams and then a second one for whoever might want it. Arkins understood that Franklin, too, would have kept on had he the means.
“If I had a whole pack, I’d give it to him,” Arkins said.
A group of five teenagers had also boarded, and on seeing the seats one shouted, “Somebody peed!” Franklin made everybody aboard feel better by announcing that his work with air conditioning ducts enabled him to identify the liquid still pooled in eight seats.
“Condensation,” he said.
Williams pointed to the overhead vents for the air conditioning that had been used due to Friday’s unseasonably warm temperatures. The almost balmy weather above had not saved Williams from having what she called “one of those days.”
But a selfless gesture from a stranger now had her smiling as if the sun were shining even brighter underground.
“It wasn’t the day I hoped it would be,” Williams said. “But it worked out okay.”
Williams thanked Franklin again as he stepped off at 145th St. She rode on homeward with that sunny day smile.
“I got a seat,” she said. “I’m happy.”
Originally published on November 12, 2006
Posted on November 12, 2006 by D. Bell