“Stop, Thief!”
As I sat in the lobby of New York’s Public Theater I noticed two people laughing. It was my good fortune to have been to the Public twice in one week, and I recalled that on my previous visit, then, too, people were laughing. And I thought, “The lobby of the Public Theater is a remarkably happy place.” It was so strong a feeling that I wanted to share it. I reached for my phone to call someone. But as I slipped my hand into my pocket a woman shrieked, and I was distracted.
I barely looked up, thinking it was another of so many “shriekers,” those women so eager for attention that they feel incumbent to pierce the eardrums of all within a two block radius. But my eye did catch a blur of a man racing for the door, and two others in pursuit. In a flash, a tangle of bodies came to a crash at the doors. Coffee went flying everywhere, and what had happened was now plain to see. The first man had snatched a woman’s purse, and two good citizens went after him.
They wrestled the would-be thief to the ground as a security team came over. Eventually the police even showed up, en masse, as they are wont to do. I wasn’t able to see the rest of this show as I had by now made my way upstairs to be tortured by avant-garde drivel, but I kept thinking about the incident in the lobby. (Anything to distract from what was happening on stage…)
One moment in particular jumped out at me. A man to my left had turned to his friend, after the robber had been subdued, and said, “I saw it happening, but I thought, ‘I’m not touching that.’”
I hadn’t “touched it” either. I was blocked by a glass partition which would have required me to leap over, action-hero style, and pray for a soft landing, and as the whole thing unfolded in seconds, there was no time to go around. But I wondered if I would have “touched it” had there been an opportunity.
I’d like to think the answer is yes, but I can’t say for certain. The two men who tackled the robber had long before made their decision about what they would do. They had decided that even as unhappiness creeps into the happiest of places, they would fight to preserve the sanctuary. I’ll never know what I would have done, but I’d like to think I can at least take something from the lesson.
For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.