“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I guess, I like taking care of people, and you know, the best way to do that is to fill their bellies.” He chuckled.
As I tossed and turned throughout the night, I had decided that I would give my next gift to Tony. I wanted him to realize the dream that was lost so many years ago. I wanted his kindness to reach beyond the confines of the park and out into the vastness of the world. I would help Tony get off the streets. I would get him housing. I would help him enroll again in school. And I would be his friend, for life.
“Tony,” I asked as the sun rose over Pittsburgh. “Can I give you a ride in Kindness One?”
“Yeah, that’ll be cool,” he agreed innocently.
“Where would you like to go?” I asked. “I want you to take me to somewhere that’s symbolic for you.”
He asked to be taken to his old school where he felt most comfortable growing up. “They believed in me there.”
We drove through the early morning streets of Pittsburgh to the school building, where I told him my little secret.
“You know how I told you that I’ve been relying on the kindness of strangers to travel around the world? Well that was only half the truth. . . . Do you want to hear the rest?”
“Okay,” he replied a little suspiciously.
“People who help me a tremendous amount and offer me kindness, well, I try and repay them.”
Tony was still confused as I continued.
“I’ll set up a home for you.”
And then his mouth dropped.
“I’ll set you up in a certificate program so you can learn to cook.”
And tears filled his eyes.
“And I will be there whenever you need me.”
For a moment neither of us said anything. I could hear a mother and her young son chatting away on their morning stroll, the rush of traffic in the distance, and finally Tony’s voice cracking as he said, “Thank you . . . this is monumental . . . to go to school again . . . thank you.”
And then as it really hit him, he began to laugh, “You are something else, Leon—you are crazy! You know, I’m 49 years old now, so I don’t need a big house. I can survive like this if I have to.”
I reached for his hand and looked deep into his eyes, “No Tony. You don’t have to anymore.” I wanted him to understand that his life was about to change. In a “whoa, did that just happen?” kind of way.
He nodded at me knowingly. I could feel his pain, the regret that came from years of accepting a life that was unacceptable. He had become comfortable with pain, reducing his own expectations and dreams to fit the hard realities of his life. Tony had so much to give, and he had never been given a chance. I wanted to see him fulfill his dream. And I wanted him to finally have a permanent place that he could call home. For all the material things I once thought were important, I saw in Tony what really was important: not clamoring for success or seeking what we don’t have, but loving the things and the people we do.
Somehow in that moment, I was connected back to the man sitting at that cold desk in the London office. Maybe we weren’t so different after all. Maybe we were really just two good people trying to find joy the best way we knew how. The only difference was that now I had much better teachers.
I hugged my new friend goodbye, the joy bouncing off him like sunlight.
As I guided Kindness One out of Pittsburgh and toward New York, I felt like a part of me was still back there with Tony. I had the clothes he had given me now in my bag. But more than that, I had been reminded again why I was doing this—to connect in ways with people that I otherwise never would. I had reached out to a stranger only to find him reaching right back out to me, and I knew that the connection I had made with Tony had just begun. I had just made a friend for life.
* * *
As I rode into New York City, I could feel the vibrations of Kindness One in every muscle and tendon and joint in my body. I had been riding for over a day, taking a rather long detour to see the famous city of Gettysburg before heading to the most famous city in the world: New York, New York. If I could make it there, I could make it anywhere, right? Though my thighs were shaking and my head throbbing, the cacophony of car horns and the hum of eight million people chattering around me encouraged me through to my final destination. I like dramatic entries, which is why I had naively decided that I must drive through Times Square, the epicenter of the city, and quite possibly the world.
Unfortunately, whatever adrenaline I had leaving Pittsburgh had deserted me by the time I crossed the border out of Pennsylvania. I had stopped to find a place to sleep, and by my sixth rejection, I began to question whether I should go on. Now, I know what you’re thinking? You just had that amazing experience, and it made you want to quit? Well, to be honest, yes it did. Because though my experience in Pittsburgh had forced off my mask, it had also broken my heart.
Loving strangers is hard. Tony had reflected back to me all those deep fears of where I could end up, lost to an adventure I couldn’t quite break free from, and disconnected entirely from the family I once held dear. The fear of being tether-less overwhelmed me. If ever there was a point where I could turn back and go home without too many questions or regrets, that time was now. I borrowed a kind stranger’s phone to call Lina, telling her I was unsure if I could make it any farther than New York.
“It’s already been such an experience,” I tried to convince her. “Maybe all I really needed to do was cross America.”
“Don’t tell me you made us go through all that just to go to New York?” I could hear her holding back her annoyance, trying to disguise it as a joke.
“But maybe that’s all I needed.”
Once again, I felt like I was back in that infamous therapist’s office, except this time it was Lina sitting beside me.
“I don’t think so, Leon. I wish it was, but . . .” I could hear her breathe in before she replied, “I don’t know, do you really want to give up before you’ve even started?”
I hung up the phone with that question echoing in my ears. Do you really want to give up before you’ve even started? And those were the words that pushed me through that beautiful sunny morning in New York. The trees of Central Park were in full bloom. Even the air smelled clean, despite the teeming traffic around me.
I doubt it will surprise anyone at this point, but finding a free room in New York City is harder than it looks. Looking back on it, Times Square might have made sense for dramatic purposes, but not necessarily for logistical ones. I kept meeting tourists staying in tiny, overpriced hotels, who might have felt for my journey but weren’t necessarily willing to let me sleep next to them.
My closest chance came with a family from Torino, Italy. It was a mother and her two sons. They were visiting the Big Apple for a few days, but unfortunately, didn’t have enough room in their hotel room for another family member. They did, however, give me their number and offer me a place to stay should I make it to Torino.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Because I’ll come to Torino then and take you up on your offer!”
“We will be happy to have you,” the mother replied.
I began to walk down Park Avenue, far away from the mayhem of Times Square. And that’s when I saw him. Now, I know most people probably wouldn’t have zoned in on Taso as a likely prospect. He was a young lawyer in his mid-thirties, wearing a button-down shirt and a formal tie. But there was something about him that said, “I am more than the cubicle I work in.”
After I explained my situation, Taso paused, clearly weighing his options before finally replying, “Well, the kindness-of-strangers part really speaks to me.”
Taso thought about it for a moment, and said the one word I had been waiting to hear all day, “Sure.”
I thought back to the park in Pittsburgh, to Gus, who had said, “Never give up, Leon. So
metimes in life, no matter what happens, we have to just keep going.”
I waited for Taso to get off work, and then we went to his apartment in Midtown Manhattan. His wife was out of town on business, and after clearing it with her, he gave me a few minutes to relax before we headed out to what he called my “Farewell to America” dinner.
As we sat at a Greek restaurant, we started talking about New York. Taso grew up in Massachusetts but had moved to the city in 2001.
“Wow, that was a tough year to come to New York,” I told him. “Were you here for 9/11?”
“I was,” he hesitantly replied, his eyes growing darker. “I had just moved here a month before. It was my first year of law school. I was standing literally two blocks away and saw both planes hit.”
He stopped, sucking in his breath, trying to find the words to continue.
“You saw both planes hit the towers?” I asked, shuddering at the thought.
“I did,” his voice grew quieter as he looked out onto the street. “I was standing so close that when plane two hit, when the fireball came out, it actually burned the hairs on our arms—that’s how close we were.”
I wasn’t sure how to reply. Of course, I knew all the horrible details, had watched enough hours of CNN in the aftermath and every anniversary since to hear what people directly affected by the tragedy had experienced, but I had never actually met one of them. Watching the drama unfold on CNN is far removed from having your own skin singed by the blast of a terrorist’s plane slamming into nearly a mile of steel. And yet like all humans, I could still feel that fear in my bones, that knowledge that in one instant, the world as we know it can be forever altered with little warning and no explanation.
“How did that affect you?” I asked. “How did it change you?”
Taso looked back at me, holding my gaze, “It changed everything because it was the first time you saw a city like this actually injured.”
He thought about it before continuing, his eyes brightening at another memory, perhaps just as painful, but also filled with hope. “But what you also saw was a kindness that you never saw before. I walked all the way from the World Trade Center to Queens that day and was given water and food the whole way. The city really came together, and that was a pretty awesome thing.”
I thought back to Tony, how in even the harshest conditions—maybe because they are the harshest conditions—we are forced to share. Maybe it’s the luxuries of life that make us forget the necessities. I know I forget them time and time again. I get so caught up in the things I want that I forget to honor the things I have.
Taso smiled at me across the table, “I think people can still be that kind.”
I think so too, Taso. I think so too.
Chapter Three
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
—William Shakespeare
The loud horn blasted above me on the ship as I stood along its railing, the sea spray already covering my face. It was time to say, “Adios, America!” because I was heading to Tarragona, Spain, only sixty miles south of beautiful Barcelona. The journey would take ten days. My heart was racing with excitement. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am in love with adventure. The thrill of the unknown, the boyish dream to sail the world and greet a thousand cultures, the freedom that comes with not knowing where you’re going or how you’re going to get there. And now I was about to cross the vast Atlantic Ocean on a container ship with no itinerary in front of me other than to one day (sooner rather than later, I hoped) make it back to Los Angeles.
As the ship headed out of port I saw the Statue of Liberty, reminding me of all the people who had come to America before me. As the son of two Greek immigrants, I had seen the fear and confusion of stepping foot on a foreign shore, having to learn a new culture, a new language, a new life. My transition from London to Los Angeles had really only involved driving on the other side of the road and exchanging my raincoat for a pair of sunglasses.
After following my dream to America, running from the home I had long fantasized of escaping, I was now doing that journey in reverse, returning to the world beyond—to the Europe where I was raised, to the Middle East where so many myths and legends and tales were born, to India and Asia and wherever else this journey might take me. I would be leaving my language, my culture, my identity, and I would be relying completely on the gentle kindness of strangers.
The boat passed downtown, where the new Freedom Tower loomed large. Like Miss Liberty, it also spoke a thousand stories with one shiny spire, a reminder of the two towers that had once stood there, and the rebirth that had finally begun. It was a new New York perhaps, one that was scarred in unimaginable ways, but also one that never, ever gave up.
I went inside my cabin as the ship moved away from New York and into the darkening night. And then I went to sleep. For the next three days, I passed the time sleeping and eating and reading. Though I desperately needed the sleep, if there is one thing I have learned in life, it’s that an idle mind is the devil’s playground. I decided I had spent enough days isolated in my cabin. It was time to get to know the crew.
I went to the captain and asked him how I could help.
“You will work,” was his reply.
I spent the rest of my week helping in the engine room and on deck. Scrubbing. Painting. Toiling. But at least I felt like I was being of service. I had a purpose on that ship, and through that, I also began to make friends. The men on board were from all over the world—Israelis, Jamaicans, Ukrainians, and Russians, a smorgasbord of nationalities. They had left behind families and wives and mothers to work fifteen-hour days with no land or love in sight. And through that isolation, they created deep and powerful bonds, becoming not just colleagues, but confidants and friends. They became family, and they kindly invited me into theirs.
Every day, I would join Pasqual in the engine room of the ship. Pasqual was from Israel and had a wife and three beautiful girls, who waited patiently for him to come home to Tel Aviv. Many days, we worked in silence, forming a quiet respect for one another.
At the end of each day, I would go up to the bow of the ship and watch as the bright red sun sank behind the world’s end. White puffs of clouds were scattered throughout the sky, and the endless blue water stretched across the horizon, slipping over its edge. I would breathe in the fresh ocean air, spotting other ships filled with other men passing in the distance, and I asked myself could I ever give this up? Many of the men I was with had children and wives back home, but I also knew that they were seamen; it was part of who they were. Was I any different?
As we chugged along to the second continent of my journey, the captain informed me that the crew wanted to have a barbecue in my honor.
I was humbled. Why in my honor? What had I done? The barbecue should have been in honor of the people at the shipping company who had opened up their corporate hearts and let me on the ship for free. It should have been for the sailors who had taken time out of their day to teach me about their work. It should have been for the captain who was leading us all safely to shore. But I had seen Mutiny on the Bounty—there was no way I was arguing with a ship of hardened sailors.
We set up the tables on one of the upper decks of the ship, where we could see the wide expanse of sea around us. After eating, I stood up on my wobbly chair and gave a little speech: “I want to thank you all, especially the captain, for allowing me on board this ship.”
The sun set behind me as the sailors relaxed into another beautiful night. “I know that I spent the first few days sleeping.” I began, “But, when you put me to work, you made me feel like a real seaman. So I say, thank you to the crew!”
Everyone cheered me back. And I knew that this was what they were looking for on the ship—not just the escape from home, but the creation of a new one. The kind of home that didn’t ask for commitment or demands, just hard work and rowdy laughter at the
end of the night.
The next day, I woke up ready to place my two feet firmly on land. First, I just had to find out if the captain agreed. I headed up to the bridge. It felt like the closer we got to shore, the more anxious I was to get there.
“So are we close to getting to Europe?” I asked the captain, standing a bit too close to the imposing man, trying to get a look at his mapping system as though I would have been able to read the computerized blinking dots that kept us on course.
“Yes,” the captain answered patiently.
“Are we going to see land?” I asked again, feeling my pulse quicken at the mere idea of the shore. After nearly ten days at sea, I didn’t know if I could make it another hour. Suddenly, the last few days of endless horizons and hard work and sea legs were catching up with me.
“You can see land right now,” he mentioned nonchalantly.
I looked out but could see nothing, and then I noticed that one of the first mates had a pair of binoculars. I nearly ripped them from his hands, feeling desperate for that long-missed view of terra firma. And there it was. . . .
“I can see land,” I shouted, “Oh my God!! Land!”
I went wild. I had seen the tip of Africa. The endless horizon had come to an end.
Europe, here I come.
* * *
Sometimes life is hard. There are days when everything goes wrong, people are mean, your mind attacks you, and you cannot—and I mean, cannot—find a clean public restroom anywhere in the city of Barcelona. I knew my trip would entail days like this, but somehow I thought my arrival in Europe, my own bloody continent, would be far more—how shall I put it?—kind.
Sadly, after hours of hearing the word “no” from locals and tourists alike, I sat down on a park bench and accepted the fact that Europe was not being very nice.
The only “maybe” I had received all day was from a pregnant woman who told me that she would have to go home and ask her husband if I could stay with them. After waiting for hours, day turning into night, I began debating whether I should just sleep on the park bench I was sitting on.
The Kindness Diaries: One Man's Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World Page 5