Story: Antonio and the Three Grandmas

Morningside Park, NYC: Biking in Manhattan

The first week of November in New York City had brought the beginnings of a harsh winter. Whereas the week before, natives wore light sweaters, now the strong wind demanded heavy coats to walk a couple of blocks. Antonio was making his daily rounds on the subway. He would get a free swipe and ride the train all day, collect some cash from a few people, and go back to the Morningside Park where he would distribute his earnings among his family. His family happened to be three old ladies he called "grandma", an old man who didn't like to admit that they were friends, and a teenager who was relatively new to the homeless world after realizing the cruel world didn't care about her dreams to be a musician. Every day, Antonio woke up, bought coffees for the old ladies so they could stay inside for a couple of hours, and then him and the teen would go to the subway station together. While the teen sat in the subway station playing violin, he would do his daily rounds on the train. They happened to be saving up for coats, since the supply at the local shelter had run out weeks ago.

On this day, it was particularly cold. Even the train was cold, so he couldn't imagine how cold his grandmas would be right now, outside in that park. At the end of the day, he met the teen at their stop and walked back to the ladies. From a distance, he saw one extra figure among his family. Who was this strange dark figure?

As he got closer, Antonio realized it was the cops. He began to run. The cops had noticed.

"Sir, please calm down." They didn't seem comfortable with anyone running towards them.

"They have done nothing wrong." he tried to explain to the cops.

"I'm sorry, but a new city ordinance requires that all transients be required to leave after 5 PM. It is currently 8 PM, and these women are here illegally now."

"Please, it won't happen again. Please let them go." The cops looked at each other and nodded.

"Just this once." They left and Antonio helped the ladies up so that they could all find a place to stay that night. He walked them twenty blocks to the nearest homeless shelter where he put their names on the list for a bed. After three hours waiting, they were given some soup and a place to stay. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow all six of them to stay, so Antonio agreed to sleep outside.

It grew colder and colder until he was unable to stop shivering. The shelter owners recognized him as the caretaker to the old ladies and remembered how kind he was to them. They couldn't bear to see such a kind person die from cold outside, so they carried him into the shelter. It seemed that he had been saved just in time. After that day, his grandmas and teenager always had a place on the list because the shelter directors were so moved by his generosity.

A/N

This story was based on one from the book "Twenty Jataka Tales." In the story, a king called Brahmadatta ruled over a land that had an adjoining forest. A troupe of monkeys lived in some trees in that forest, and were always careful to keep their presence secret. One day, fruit made its way over to the town and the monkeys were discovered. The king came with his subjects to get the fruit and kill the monkeys by trapping them on a tree. To save his troupe, the chief of monkeys made a bridge with a branch, but it was too short to reach, so he had to make his back part of the bridge. His back was broken by saving the monkeys, but the king felt so bad for the chief of monkeys that he gave him a nice last day of his life.

I tried to create a similar troupe of people living in the streets of New York trying to lay low in the park. The police finding the homeless family is supposed to parallel the king's subjects finding the monkeys. The chief of monkeys died helping his family, so I wanted to have Antonio sacrifice himself to keep his family safe too. The only difference is that I didn't have the nerve to allow Antonio to die, so instead, he just suffers one bad night in the cold until the shelter workers find him.


Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. Link to reading guide.