▸ Column · Mid-century Metropolis — Union Station, the last train home
SUPERMAN replies.
Replied to by Superman, with a rebuttal from Lex Luthor.
The letter
Last week I was half-running through Union Station with two heavy grips, trying to make the last train home after my father's hip operation. A woman I'd never seen before — sixties, traveling coat, kind face — took one of my bags right out of my hand without a word, kept pace with me the whole length of the platform, set it down at my car, and was gone before I could so much as ask her name. I caught the train with a minute to spare and cried most of the way home over a paper cup of coffee, thinking about how she didn't pause for even a second. I keep wanting to do something with that feeling. "Pass it along" sounds right but also thin. Is there a real way to honor a thing like that, or am I making too much of it?
Superman replies
Friend, you're not overthinking it. You felt the whole weight of being a stranger somebody chose to help, and that's a thing worth crying over. I'd know. I came to this country in a rocket — landed in a Kansas field, and a farmer and his wife who had no reason in the world to take me in did it anyway, before they knew the first thing about me. Jonathan and Martha Kent never once called it charity. They'd have called it Tuesday.
Here's what I've learned from them: the woman in the coat didn't honor anything. She just acted faster than her own second thoughts. That's the secret. Honoring it isn't a ceremony, pal, and it sure isn't a feeling you keep polishing. It's the next platform. It's the next person hauling too much, looking lost, and you not waiting to be asked — you just take the bag. Do it badly, do it shy, do it anyway. You won't get their name either. That's how you'll know you did it right. Up you go.
— Superman
Lex Luthor weighs in
Oh, sweetheart. No. The woman spent fifteen seconds on you and got on with her life — which is precisely why it worked. You've spent a week building her a cathedral out of pretzels and tears. (Notice the man of steel approves; sentiment is his entire business model.) She didn't want to be honored, darling. She wanted you to make your train, which you did. So: today, carry one stranger's bag, say nothing, leave. Then stop auditing your own goodness. The crying isn't gratitude. It's a toll you keep paying to feel like the kind of person who'd do what she did — instead of simply, quietly, doing it.
— Lex Luthor
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