StoryCorps

If you listen to NPR at all, you might have heard stories from the StoryCorps project. This project seeks to document moments in ordinary people's lives as a sort of live library of memories to pass on to future generations. I am sometimes moved to tears with some of the stories. This story in particular was very touching.

Aired on Morning Edition, March 28, 2008 ·

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends
his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat
at
his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the
No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected
turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and
pulled
out a knife.
"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and
told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz
told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be
robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep
you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's
going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'" Diaz
replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess
you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if
you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.
"You know, I
just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says. Diaz says he and the teen went
into the diner and sat in a booth.
"The manager comes by, the dishwashers
come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know
everybody here. Do you own this place?'"
"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz
says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the
dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice
to everybody?""Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way,"
the teen said.Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost
a sad face," Diaz says. The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want
to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going
to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for
this.
So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."The teen
"didn't
even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him
$20 ... I
figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."
Diaz says he asked
for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the
type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your
watch."
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope
that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

"It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world"