The Doorman

Back in the late 1970's I lived in New York City. My apartment was just two blocks off of Broadway which was a busy street, so at night I only had two blocks to walk in an area that wasn't very safe.

There was a doorman to an apartment complex on one of those blocks. Everytime I would pass him late in the night he would always wave at me and I would wave back.

I remember one night he wasn't there. I remember looking at my watch as I walked by and it was exactly midnight. The next day the New York television stations all reported about a doorman that was shot and killed around midnight the night before. They mentioned the address, so I went down the street to see if it was the address where the doorman worked. It was.

I often wonder what would have have happened if I had walked by that apartment just a few minutes earlier.