Title: Theater of War on the Radio: Cash and Carry

Brian Lehrer: Hey, listeners. We usually use this podcast feed to deliver all the conversations we have on my live radio show, but today we're sending you a little something extra. WNYC Studios partnered with Theater of War to do what Theater of War usually does on a stage on the radio instead. What do they do? They take pieces of important journalism and present them by having top-tier actors perform readings from the articles and then hold discussions about the reporting, sometimes including the reporter or their subjects, sometimes including the actors, and always including questions and comments from listeners like you.

WNYC and Theater of War are partnering on four specials along those lines, including the one you're about to hear. Follow WNYC and Theater of War on social media to learn more about past and upcoming programs. Without further ado, here's Theater of War on the Radio.

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Kai Wright: From WNYC in New York, this is Theater of War on the Radio. I'm Kai Wright, and it's good to be here. This is the second of four live specials we're doing, and I'm joined in the studio by Bryan Doerries, who is artistic director of Theater of War, which he co-founded in 2009. Bryan, explain what we're going to do together with our listeners tonight in this special series.

Bryan Doerries: Thanks, Kai. Theatre of War, we work with some of the best actors on the planet. We have over 200 actors in our company who, when they get the call from us, they jump to come read texts like we're going to read tonight, poetry, plays, historic texts, journalism, to start a framework for a conversation with listeners, with audiences, and that's what we're going to do tonight on the radio.

Kai Wright: For tonight's conversation, for tonight's version of that, we're going to focus on a story published in the New Yorker that takes place right here on the streets of New York City. It's written by David Sedaris, who is, of course, a longtime public radio voice, author, satirist. We're going to hear a reading of the story performed by an extraordinary group of actors who are live in the studio with us right here.

Bryan Doerries: Yes. I'm so excited tonight. We have three of my favorite New York actors, Jesse Eisenberg, Rosie Perez, and David Patrick Kelly. Hey, guys, thank you so much for being with us tonight.

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, what a pleasure.

Rosie Perez: Hi.

David Patrick Kelly: Hey.

Jesse Eisenberg: Hello.

Bryan Doerries: They're going to be reading a recent piece by David Sedaris, as Kai mentioned, that was recently published in the New Yorker. When Marjolaine Goldsmith, who's on my staff and a colleague, brought the piece, and it was published in the March 2nd edition, just about 10 days ago, I read it, and I thought, "This is a piece that's going to get people thinking and listening and talking about themselves. For me, it's about community. It's about what it means to be neighbors.

It's about the serendipity and luck that's possible in New York. It's about the unique possibility of connection and also disconnection in New York City. I'm really excited for listeners to hear it and to hear what listeners have to say about it tonight.

Kai Wright: You all have heard this phrase, probably, New York City isn't nice, but it's kind. Personally, I think that's quite accurate, but we want to hear what you think. Here's what we're going to do. After our actors perform the story, we're going to take your calls, and we want to hear your reactions to the version of New York that David Sedaris describes in this story. That'll be his version of life on our streets. What's yours? Write down this number, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

You don't have to actually write it down. I'll tell you again later, but after we all listen to this, you're going to give us a call. Bryan, what do you want our listeners to think about as they're taking in this reading and getting ready to snatch up their phones and talk to us?

Bryan Doerries: As you listen to tonight's story, I want you to think about moments of connection and disconnection you've had in the city, missed connections, moments you've tried to connect but haven't found the way to connect, or maybe times you felt isolated, and you wish you'd connected with people. We want to hear New York stories that define your experiences here in this city. Stories that are foundational to you as New Yorkers that resonate with David Sedaris's story that we're going to be reading here tonight.

Kai Wright: I know we, as New Yorkers, love to talk about being New Yorkers. This is your opportunity. This is a good moment to text that friend you're constantly swapping stories with, tell them to tune in to. Then all of y'all join the conversation and argue about it with us. Bryan, set up the reading.

Bryan Doerries: Great. The reading is about 15 minutes long, give or take. Jesse's a very fast reader, so it might be shorter. Grab a cup of tea or whatever you need to stay comfortable and join me, Kai, and everyone, hopefully in New York City, who's tuning in tonight and listening to this story. Jesse Eisenberg is going to start things off.

Jesse Eisenberg: Thanks, Bryan. The fitness center I go to in New York is 30 blocks from my apartment, and I was walking home from it one autumn afternoon when I came upon a woman who was attempting to carry a cabinet. It was waist-high and maybe five feet long, a metal frame with eight canvas drawers. I watched as she lifted it, took a few steps, and then set it back down with an expression that read as both, "How badly do I really need this?" and "Why can't we temporarily shrink things when getting them from place to place? The woman had silver hair that was cut short. She was lean and had no makeup on.

"Hello," I said. "Can I help you with that?" I guessed correctly that she'd found this cabinet on the curb, just as I'd found my current desk, chair, and countless pieces of furniture in the past. I got my kitchen table in Chicago the same way. When I moved to London, my first table was used as well, but that one wasn't found on the street. Rather, it came from an Indian restaurant I had gone to with a friend who was visiting from Arizona. "Anything else?" Our waiter had asked at the end of the meal. "Yes," I'd said. "Can I have this table? It's the perfect size for my kitchen."

The man asked if we could wait for a moment. Then he made a phone call and returned, saying he could let it go for £20. "Sold," I said. "Now what about our napkins and the metal bowl my saag paneer was served in?" With my friend's help, the table, the napkins, and the bowl weren't difficult to get home, unlike the cabinet. The thing wasn't heavy so much as cumbersome. I thought it'd be easy for me to carry on my own, but the woman would not hear of it.

"Ugh, you're too old," she said. "I can't let you hurt yourself on account of me." "You want to talk old?" I thought, looking at her age-spotted hands and the slight waddle beneath her chin. "You've got a good eight months on me." It was her find, though, so we did it her way, me on one side and her on the other, the two of us facing each other and separated by a distance of 18 inches, the bottom of the cabinet bashing our shins with every step. "Can we just stop and rest for a minute?"

She panted in the middle and at the end of every block. I was in a hurry to get home because I had a show that night. I needed to take a bath and iron my clothes. I also needed to figure out my program, what I would read, and in what order. "Are you coming from work?" I asked the woman, suspecting that she was retired but wanting to hear it from her own mouth. "Oh, I stopped all of that a few years ago," she said. "I'm on my way home from pickleball. Do you play?"

I'd heard of this game, but I tend to tune out when the topic turns to sports, thus I had no idea what it actually was. Tennis with pickles would have been my first guess, but if that were the case, I'd likely have smelled vinegar on the woman's clothing. "It's a great way to meet people," she continued. "I had colleagues at work, but they weren't exactly friends, if you know what I mean." She told me that she was born in San Juan but moved to New York as a child. "This city is nothing like it used to be," she said, frowning at a high-rise apartment building that had recently gone up.

"My neighbors now, they'll see someone bleeding on the street and walk right by. That would never happen where I'm from. In Puerto Rico, if someone's hungry, you feed them. End of story." I thought of all the people who'd passed this woman as she tried to carry the cabinet by herself. Some undoubtedly were elderly or had children with them, but what of the others? I know my brother Paul would have stopped to help, and my father friend Mark, but would Amy? I wondered. Would Hugh?

"New York is just for the rich now," the woman complained. "They run the show. It's all about them." I wanted to ask what she meant by rich, because, of course, it's subjective. Would I have qualified, or was she talking about people with billions? In the paper earlier that week, I'd learned that Elon Musk was on track to become the world's first trillionaire. I think that if you have that much money, you should at least be forced to sit down and count it all.

From what I read online a few hours later, dressed for my show and riding the elevator from my apartment to my building's lobby, if Musk recited a number every second, it would take him more than 31,000 years to reach a trillion. A regular lifetime wouldn't put a dent in a figure like his. One of his children would have to take over when he died, followed by one of their children, and on and on for a thousand generations. By that time, a trillion might get you a chicken wing and a bucket of house paint. A nonillionaire is what you'll want to be in the future. That's one followed by 30 zeros.

I looked up how long it would take to count that high and was presented with a math equation. Counting my money, by contrast, would take 500 days. After a week, though, would I say, "That's enough. I'll forfeit the rest. My freedom is more important than sitting in this chair," or would I picture something I really wanted to buy, a gorilla on five acres of land, maybe, and keep going? At what point, if any, would I decide that I'd had enough?

This question was on my mind as I waved goodnight to my doorman and started walking downtown in the direction of my first apartment in New York, which was in the West Village. It wasn't mine technically. Rather, I was the roommate of a guy named Rusty, who'd had the lease for 13 years. We both smoked a lot, but he liked to keep the windows shut, which left the place smelling sad and stale. When the outside temperature dipped below 70, he'd turn up the heat as high as it would go, the way they do in nursing homes and in tanks where bearded dragons live.

My half of the stabilized rent was $350, an astronomical sum to me in 1990. The first time I was late giving Rusty his money, he said firmly, but not unkindly, "This can never happen again. Do you understand?" Back then it would have taken me all of two minutes to count my money. That's normal for a seven-year-old, but I was 34 and by most measures a failure. No job, no prospects, a single pair of shoes. I'd go to the ATM and curse it for not dispensing singles. A broken payphone near my apartment spat $6 in change at me one afternoon, and scooping it up with both hands, I tasted what it felt like to be rich.

In those days I could either buy a newspaper or a cup of coffee, so I would dig the Times or the Village Voice out of a trash can and go to Chock full o’Nuts to read the Help Wanted ads. Looking at the available positions, I'd kick myself for never developing a real skill. Yes, I was writing every day, but only with one finger, and it was hardly the sort of writing that would have landed me any of the jobs I saw advertised. The one, for instance, at Little Golden Books. They were looking for someone to produce short educational manuscripts about outer space and were willing to pay $5,000, a fortune.

After reading the ad, I got a library card and started doing research. Little Golden Books were for children, and that I thought would make it easier. "Can you imagine life without gravity?" I wrote on my first page. "Whoopee." This was followed sometime later by, "How does a weightless astronaut use the toilet? Let's find out." I wrote about Ms. Baker, a squirrel monkey who was one of the first two American animals to launch into space and return safely. Her fellow passenger, also a monkey, but a rhesus named Ms. Abel, died four days after their rocket was recovered in the Atlantic Ocean.

Ms. Baker, though, lived to be 27 and died of kidney failure. "Why were the first two astronaut monkeys unmarried?" I wrote, "Do you think husbands would have distracted them from the duties at hand?" It was, I thought, something a kid might wonder about. When my sample chapters were rejected, I was devastated. All that work, all that research for nothing. To make it worse, in my head I'd already spent the $5,000. First, I'd figure I'd find an apartment of my own. They were hard to come by, so maybe Rusty could die in a quick, painless way, and the landlord would decide that since I had already settled in, he could just turn the lease over to me.

I'd get a nice desk, a bed rather than a futon. I would paint the nicotine-stained walls and then buy a second pair of shoes. The day I learned I would not be writing for the Little Golden Book of Space, I was forced to consider what I had been pushing out of my mind since arriving in New York. It was the worst thing imaginable, moving back to Chicago. I had a nice life there and lots of good friends. I could get my old job back just by asking, but I'd seen what that looked like.

The person who returns with his tail between his legs. The one overheard at parties saying, "The thing is that New York is completely overrated. I was paying a fortune for a shoebox there, a prison cell. While here, I've got five rooms and can practically see Lake Michigan from my roof." That was evading the point, though. Unlike Chicago or Raleigh or any of the other cities I spent time in, New York was about everyone who'd ever lived there, or at least everyone in the arts. People who'd arrived just as I had, audaciously, and with nothing. It was a test. It was your final exam, but what you needed to pass on top of any talent you might possess was luck.

It was the sort of thing that might come anyone's way, yet it couldn't be arranged, nor could it be bought, and that put everyone on the same playing field. The person with a graduate degree from Yale and the one who'd taken five writing classes, one of them at the Y. Luck could be waiting for you at the public library, but it was just as likely at the grocery store or on a traffic island. It wasn't that someone might tap you on the shoulder and say, "I'm with Little, Brown and Company. Do you by any chance have a manuscript we can publish?"

You might see something or hear something you could write about, something that would knock an idea loose or strike a chord. Even being robbed or hit by a car could prove fruitful. What are you doing, reading a magazine in your bedroom? A towel under the door to blot out the sound of your roommate's TV? Get out there where Luck can find you. The Puerto Rican woman and I carried the cabinet for a good six blocks and had just reached her street when a stout man in coveralls walked up to a van that was parked on the corner.

"Hey," she called him before breaking into rapid Spanish.

I understood the words help, apartment, and stairs along with the phrase "I'll pay you." An exact sum was not proposed, but still the man agreed. When he offered to carry the cabin on his own, the woman didn't argue. Rather, she gave him an address in the center of the block. "So what's your name?" She asked me as the guy took some gloves out of his pocket and fitted his plump, paint-spattered hands into them. "David," I told her, and she said, "Oh, just like my son."

We waved goodbye and then parted, saying we'd maybe see each other in the neighborhood. As I hurried downtown, a man sitting on the ground outside a liquor store held out an empty cup. "Help the homeless." It irritates me when by "the homeless" people mean themselves. It should be help one of the homeless, I wanted to tell him. Otherwise, it sounds like you're going to take whatever you collect and distribute it to the other people in need.

The man saw all of this playing out on my face and barked, quite unfairly, in my opinion, "I hope you burn in hell," which, of course, is another reason to live in New York. Every day delivers a kick, and always in a different spot. There are times when being condemned to hell really gets under my skin. "Am I a terrible person?" I'll ask myself, "Am I crueler than most? Am I thoughtless?" If I'm cursed by a mentally ill person, I'll really dig in and claw at myself. I've always seen them as prophets and hold my breath as I pass, afraid of the truth they might reveal.

Early in my time in New York, not long after the Little Golden Book episode, a woman dressed in rags in the Staten Island ferry terminal looked at me in the eye and told me I was going to die before I reached 50. Thousands of people moving about like ants, yet I was the one she singled out. Her voice was clear and authoritative, like an oracle's. Our brief encounter really lit a fire under me. "I've only got 16 years to make a splash," I thought, knowing that time would pass a lot faster than I'd want it to.

When I didn't die at age 50, when I woke up in Paris, as alive as I'd been the day before, I was shocked, but also greatly relieved, for my life was good by then and I didn't want it taken away from me. This time, though, I walked on by. "Burn in hell indeed," I thought. First off, the guy on the sidewalk outside the liquor store was a drunk, not an oracle. Second, I had just helped a stranger carry a cabinet down York Avenue for what felt to me, and probably to her too, like an eternity, and a person gets points for things like that.

Kai Wright: That was Cash and Carry, written by author David Sedaris. It was performed for us by Jesse Eisenberg, Rosie Perez, and David Patrick Kelly, and it was published in the March 2nd, 2026, print edition of the New Yorker magazine. Now we want to hear from you, dear listener. Do you have a New York story that feels something like the one you just heard? Call us up and tell us that story. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Maybe as you listened, you heard a particular moment that landed for you because it connected with your own story in some way. Maybe it was a time that the city showed you something about other people, or when it taught you something about yourself, or so many of us who call this city home are like David Sedaris, and we have migrated here from somewhere else. Maybe that's you. Maybe there was a point in this story that made you think about the moment you realized, "Yes, I'm a New Yorker. That's me. This is where I belong." Tell us about that. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

We want to hear about your encounters with your fellow New Yorkers that taught you anything, something about life in our great city. I'm Kai Wright. This is a live special Theater of War on the Radio, and we will take your calls after a break.

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Kai Wright: Welcome back. This is a live special, Theater of War on the Radio from WNYC. I'm Kai Wright. I host an upcoming show from the Guardian, but I'm also a former member of the WNYC family, and I am so pleased to be back with you all tonight. I'm joined by Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War. We want to hear from you. We want to hear your New York stories. Our number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

We just listened to a reading of a story written by David Sedaris, which was recently published in the New Yorker. The story is about what it means to live in this fair city and how we navigate each other all the time. 212-433-WNYC to hear your version. Bryan, remind us real quick what we want our listeners to be thinking about as they pick up their phones.

Bryan Doerries: As you've listened to the story, which is called Cash and Carry, were there lines that spoke to you that jumped out and resonated with experiences you've had in the streets and subways and grocery aisles, made you think about things you've experienced here in New York, people you've connected with, people you haven't and what happened when you did? Tell us what happened. Tell us your New York stories. We want to hear from you.

Kai Wright: 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Let's start taking your calls. John from Little Neck, New York, welcome to the show.

John: Thanks a lot. Can you guys hear me?

Kai Wright: We sure can. What's your story, John?

John: You guys, that was a great reading. It conjured up a story when I first moved into New York City, newly married, my wife from California, and we rented our first apartment in the Upper East Side on 77th Street between 1st and 2nd. We were driving in the city in one of these big U-Hauls, and I had a bunch of boxes in the back. We were moving it to a six-floor walk-up. No elevator, six floors. These U-Hauls usually take up half the block and cause traffic, and people are honking. It was a stressful situation, and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to need some help."

Then I saw this guy pushing a big fiberglass cow on wheels. I said, "Hey, buddy, can you give me a hand? I just got to get these boxes up, and my wife, she's pregnant."

Kai Wright: Would you figure, because he was pushing the cow, he had the strength.

John: Yes. I remember it was Brother Jimmy's barbecue cow, he used to push the cow around the neighborhood, and the guy, without hesitation, just started lifting boxes up to six flights, and he did three round trips. My wife, who's from California, was like, "Wow, they're pretty nice in New York, huh?"

Kai Wright: There you go.

Bryan Doerries: There it is. Beautiful. Thank you so much, John. I really appreciate you sharing that story. We'll never forget the story of the cow being wheeled down the street.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Rosie in Hoboken. Rosie, welcome to the show.

Rosie: Hey, thank you so much. That was a great story. As you were talking, it reminded me of just seeing people struggling and worrying that no one else is going to step in and help them, and feeling like if I don't do it, I don't know who else is going to. I was reminded of, very recently, during one of the big snowstorms, I was driving back into New York, and there was this elderly woman who was stranded in a snow bank on the side of the road, and she was trying to shovel her car out with one of those snow brushes that you use on your window.

Literally no one was helping her. She was standing in the middle of the road trying to do this by herself. I did a U-turn, drove back, pulled into the parking lot that she was at, and by the time I got there, three other people had already pulled in and were trying to help her, too. We formed this coalition, and these two women helped her get back into her car, helped her calm down. This guy said he was going to push her back into the road, and so I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to block traffic."

I stood in the middle of the road with my arms outstretched and waited and tried to hold off traffic while they got her back rolling. She merrily rolled along back onto the street and went on her way. I felt a little bit better about the world for a few minutes.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Rosie. A little bit better about the world for a few minutes. That's long enough. If the streets could give us a couple of minutes of joy, that's what we need. Let's go to Anna in Manhattan. Anna, welcome to the show.

Anna: Hey there. Thank you. Longtime listener. Way back, probably 15, 20 years ago, I was walking home, and I was behind a woman, a young gal who was clunking a Christmas tree, dragging it pretty much. She'd walk a few steps, stop, clunk, clunk, clunk, stop, clunk, clunk, clunk. I said, "Hey, do you want some help?" She said, "Sure." I said, "I'll help you as far as I'm going." We started walking together. I held one end, she held the other, and she said, "I live over here." It turned out she lived in my building two floors above me.

Kai Wright: Oh, wow.

Anna: We've been thick-as-thieves friends for 15, 20 years now.

Kai Wright: Oh. Do you remember this moment? Did you guys sit and talk about, "Remember when I was dragging that Christmas tree around, and that's how we became friends?"

Anna: I think we've talked about it over the years of how we met, but we never saw each other in the elevators. We didn't know we lived in the same building. You just have different schedules, so you don't see people who live in your building. It was bizarre because I thought, "Well, I have somewhere to go. I'll just take her as far as I can go," and she was going where I was going. It was great.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Anna.

Bryan Doerries: I love that so much. I feel like the basic condition of New York City is we're just 11 million people all schlepping things around the city. We're carrying things. Each time is an opportunity for connection, to build a friendship, even if it's for a fleeting moment or for a lifetime. I really appreciate your story. Thank you so much.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Ron in Edgemont. Ron, welcome to the show.

Ron: Hi. It was so nice to hear that War Radio play.

Kai Wright: Theater of War.

Ron: Theater of war. It reminded me of an experience I had once in Manhattan with my sister-in-law. We were walking, I think it was 3rd Avenue and 86th Street. There used to be a restaurant there, a takeout called Papaya King. There was a sign in the window, and I read it to my sister, and I said, "Look, Papaya King, home of the world's best hot dog." All of a sudden, somebody speaks out behind me and says, "World's best hot dog? Everybody knows the world's best hot dog is from Nathan's."

You already know the story. I turned around, and it was a homeless man who was camped out on the corner in a phone booth. Maybe he had never read the sign before, but when he heard me read it, he was incredulous. He couldn't believe somebody was saying that Papaya King has the world's best hot dog.

Kai Wright: A hotly debated subject. Did you get the hot dog? [crosstalk].

Ron: Pardon me?

Kai Wright: Did you get the hot dog from Papaya King?

Ron: I got the Papaya King, yes.

Kai Wright: Yes or no? Is it the world's best?

Ron: It was incredible. It was at least Manhattan's best hot dog.

Kai Wright: Good enough. Let's go to Theodore in Queens. Theodore, welcome to the show.

Theodore: Thank you so much for taking my call. I love this story so much. I also love Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland. I'm in seventh grade right now. Back when I was in preschool, whenever I went to recess, there was this female, unemployed stand-up comedian who just got out the window, and she would scream curse words at us. She would be, "Be quiet." [crosstalk].

Kai Wright: Wait, don't scream the curse words, Theodore.

Theodore: No, I'm not saying. They talked about it in the Gothamist. I remember one of the times she said that she was going to call Santa and tell him not to give us any presents.

Kai Wright: Oh, no.

Theodore: Now looking back, in hindsight, I know Santa ain't real.

Kai Wright: Theodore, are you yourself an aspiring stand-up comic?

Theodore: Yes, I hope to be one when I grow up.

Kai Wright: Oh, all right. You're getting some nods of approval from professional performers here.

Jesse Eisenberg: Yes, you have a good future, you do good voices.

David Patrick Kelly: Are you really in seventh grade?

Theodore: Yes, I am.

David Patrick Kelly: Excellent.

Jesse Eisenberg: You soak up the Gothamist and WNYC. How many papers do you read in the morning?

Theodore: That's my parents.

Jesse Eisenberg: What's that?

Rosie Perez: That's his parents.

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, got it.

Bryan Doerries: Precocious.

Jesse Eisenberg: Interesting.

Kai Wright: Thank you so much, Theodore. I cannot wait to buy a ticket to see you on stage. Let's go to Deborah in Sussex County, New Jersey. Deborah, welcome to the show.

Deborah: Hi. I'm really enjoying your presentation. I had lived in Manhattan when I was much younger, and I was also a struggling writer. I had a regular day job, but I also had won a place in a scholarship program sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. I felt like would I fit in, because I submitted a children's story, and that's how I got in. One night it was going to be my turn finally, to read one of my original pieces, and I was very excited.

Unfortunately, and I was standing, I think, in front of the Waldorf Astoria, for some reason, it started to rain. It was getting late. I wasn't sure I could even afford a cab, if I could have even found one in the rain. I was so stressed out by the thought of not making it to the class that night, I started to cry. I was standing there weeping, and I suddenly heard a lovely, friendly voice with a Southern accent. He said, "What's the matter, miss?" I said, "I can't get uptown." He said, "Well, I'll take you."

I looked around, and there was this wonderful African American older gentleman wearing a chauffeur's uniform standing beside a huge limousine. He said, "I'll take you." I said, "In that." He said, "Yes." I said, "I don't have any money." He said, "You don't need any money." Next thing I know, I'm riding uptown in a limousine to my class. I never forgot his kindness or the serendipity of the moment. I'm happy to say that I did become a published author. The first book I wrote is still in print, and it's been out for 37 years this year. New York is full of amazing, serendipitous moments.

I want to say one last thing. Another thing that happened. I went into New York after I had children and moved to New Jersey, but I wanted a weekend to myself. I was in New York on Labor Day weekend. It was almost empty, and I decided I was going to treat myself to an off-Broadway showing of The Vagina Monologues. I bought my ticket at Tickets on Broadway, and it started to rain, and I suddenly see people in front of a deli across the street with a marquee picking up their feet as if they were afraid of stepping on something. When I looked down, I saw what it was. It was a baby pigeon.

I had never seen a baby pigeon before. In fact, on the Helix, as you enter Manhattan, when the Ask Jeeves search engine was around, it had a trivia question. That very morning, as I came into the city, it said, "Why don't you ever see baby pigeons?" I said, "I don't think I ever have seen a baby pigeon," but there now one was. It had fallen out of the marquee. I love animals. A lot of people think, "Oh, they're just flying rats," but I couldn't bear to think this little guy was going to be hurt, so I stopped to pick him up.

As I stopped, the whole crowd on the street just stopped. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting. Everybody starts, "Get her a box. Do this." Everybody came out to help me. I put the pigeon in a box with a little paper, and I went to the show and had the nerve to ask the woman at the coat check, "Can I check my pigeon?" [crosstalk].

Kai Wright: Did she let you?

Deborah: She did. I took the pigeon back to New Jersey and went to a wildlife refuge. The woman looked in the box, and she said, "It's a pigeon." I said, "Yes." She taught me how to feed it. I had that pigeon for over 15 years.

Kai Wright: Wow.

Jesse Eisenberg: Oh, my God.

Bryan Doerries: Deborah.

Rosie Perez: Oh, my God.

Bryan Doerries: Unbelievable.

Deborah: He was a real New Yorker. He was a New York pigeon.

Kai Wright: A New York pigeon.

Bryan Doerries: Thank you so much, Deborah. Listening to you talk, I'm thinking, we are a city of-- David Sedaris is such a talented writer, but we're a city of writers. We're a city of storytellers. We have such eccentric experiences to share. In the state the world is in right now, in the things we have to face in the news, we wanted to just take a moment and really lean into serendipity, the luck, the connection, the joy of the stories that you shared and other people have been sharing tonight. It's been really inspiring.

Kai Wright: Indeed. Thank you for that. Let's go to Naomi in Boston. Naomi, welcome to the show.

Naomi: Thank you. I'm part of the New York diaspora, and I was back there once, and I was on the subway. My sense of how you get along in New York is you do something I call sotto voce kvetching. You turn to some random stranger, and you find something to complain about, and there's always going to be something. Then there's this instantaneous bond because you're kvetching about the same thing.

I'm on the subway, and it's very, very hot, and the air conditioning isn't working. Of course, there was something to kvetch about. I'm talking to this guy next to me, and he's from the Dominican Republic, and he's headed way uptown on the-- I think they call it 1, 2, 3 or something. For me, it's the Broadway 7th IRT. Anyway, he's heading way uptown. I'm going uptown, but not quite as far as he is. I had an unopened bottle of water in my bag because I'd gone into a bodega earlier because I needed to change a 20, and I hadn't drunk any of the water.

He needed it more than I did because he was going to be going a lot farther. I gave him the water, and then I came to my stop, and I was about to get off. He leaned over, and he kissed me on the cheek. I said, "This is like magic. Here I am, this complete, total stranger is kissing me on the subway. This is not harassment. This is serendipity. I love this thing."

Kai Wright: It's an important clarification.

Bryan Doerries: Consent. Yes, exactly.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Gregory in Harlem. Gregory, welcome to the show.

Gregory: Hey, guys. Hi.

Bryan Doerries: Hey.

Gregory: Hey, listen, I was a young, young 19-year-old looking for a job, and I went to a company called Young and Rubicam on 285 Madison Avenue. I went up, I filled out all the paperwork, and they said, "We'll get back to you." I got back on the elevator, and a guy whose name is Tony Isidore, a very famous writer and producer in the advertising industry, said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Yes, I'm kind of a writer, and I wanted to get a job." He said, "Oh, come with me."

We went all the way back down and then all the way back up to the 21st floor, and he said, "Hire this guy." I became a junior copywriter, and a couple of years later, I spent the next almost 40 years as a writer, producer, advertising maven in the industry. I was the guy who wrote for PSA the line under my boss at the time, whose name was Flores Long, I'm Black, by the way, for the United Negro College Fund, "The mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Kai Wright: Wait, you wrote that line, Gregory?

Gregory: Yes. I am sure you have used in your life.

Kai Wright: Yes, sir.

Bryan Doerries: Indeed.

Gregory: It was just an amazing-- I didn't even know what I was going to get into. I'm approaching my 80th year on this planet, and that story for him on that elevator, that guy said, "No, come with me," and it has just been an amazing thing for my whole life.

David Patrick Kelly: Magic. Bravo.

Rosie Perez: Yes, that's a mic drop moment right there.

Kai Wright: Yes, it is.

Bryan Doerries: Indeed.

Rosie Perez: Oh, my God.

Kai Wright: Speaking of serendipity, Gregory-- Gregory, A, thank you so much for calling. I have to say, one of the things I love about this job, I loved hosting call-in radio because the listeners of this station are so many people like you, Gregory, the people who call in that have done such remarkable things randomly just because we had the lines open. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Bryan Doerries: We're going to take things in a slightly different direction and have the actors revisit a moment in the story, the bottom of page four. The narrator and the Puerto Rican woman, the neighbor, are dragging this piece of furniture up the street, reflecting on how the city has changed, and they have this exchange.

Jesse Eisenberg: She told me that she was born in San Juan but moved to New York as a child. "The city is nothing like it used to be," she said, frowning at a high-rise apartment building that had recently gone up. "My neighbors now, they'll see someone bleeding on the street and walk right by. That would never happen back where I'm from. In Puerto Rico, if someone's hungry, you feed them, end of story."

Bryan Doerries: As people heard that incredibly, I don't know, astute line that speaks to this moment, there are a lot of people, if not bleeding on the street right now, there are a lot of people on the street, and there are a lot of opportunities to walk by people, and there are opportunities to help people. I'm wondering if we can hear from callers, what do you think of that line that she says, "In Puerto Rico, if someone's hungry, you feed them, end of story."

Does that line resonate with you? Does it speak to your experiences in New York now, or maybe the kindness we've been hearing tonight? The stories we've been hearing counter that statement, but what about that line, "You feed them, end of story." What did it say to you tonight?

Kai Wright: Think about that. If that's you, call us up 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We will continue to hear all of your stories about being a New Yorker. You're listening to Theater of War on the Radio, a special from WNYC. Again, we're taking your calls about navigating life in this great city, and we'll hear more of your stories after a break.

[music]

Kai Wright: This is Kai Wright, and you are listening to Theater of War on the Radio, a special from WNYC. We are talking about a story that David Sedaris wrote and published in the New Yorker recently. It's about living in the city and about the chance encounters we all have here all the time that shape our lives, shape ourselves, shape our understanding of where we live, and we want to hear from you. What kind of interactions have you had? What stories have made you think differently about what it means to be a New Yorker? In this particular line, we heard in the story about what it means to just help somebody.

There was a line in there where the woman said, "Where I'm from, if someone's hungry, you feed them." How does that line resonate with you? That's what we want to hear. 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692 with your reactions to that and your New York stories. Let's get right back to the phones. Nicole in Kew Gardens, Queens. Nicole, welcome to the show.

Nicole: Hey. I'm a little bit apart from what you guys are talking about now.

Kai Wright: That's okay.

Bryan Doerries: That's okay.

Nicole: I wanted to talk about something that made me feel-- Although people helped me, but something that made me feel like a real New Yorker. You would think it was like marrying an NYU professor, Julian Cornell, who teaches film, my love of my life, or it was giving birth to four kids in five years in New York City, or it was becoming an American Idol finalist. You would think all of these things would make me feel like a real New Yorker, but what really made me feel like a real New Yorker was when I gave birth to my third son, and the babysitter for our first and second son didn't show up. I had to take the train while in labor with my third son. His name is Truman. He's now 14. Truby, say hi.

Truman: Hi.

Bryan Doerries: Hey, Truman.

Kai Wright: It's true.

Nicole: He's 14 and a freshman now. He's a little recalcitrant to say hello. I had to take the train with him, super gravid state. It was a lot of work, but I made it to NYU Hospital and was able to give birth to this healthy baby boy. What's really cool is that this boy is obsessed with trains, and he wants to work for the MTA someday. He wants to be a civil engineer and revamp the entire MTA system. Not just drive trains, but completely revamp the MTA subway system. In fact, he's right now applying for the National Railway Historical Society Summer camp.

Kai Wright: Who knew there's such a thing?

Bryan Doerries: Oh, my goodness.

Nicole: Oh, yes, there is. We're hoping for a scholarship because we're a one-income family. This is something that's been I think, deep-rooted since, primordially speaking, when he was in my womb. We love NPR. We are members and sustaining members. We were just excited to see that this boy, who was born basically almost on a train, is so excited to still be part of the MTA and loves his city so much. That was the minute I really felt like a true New Yorker.

Kai Wright: Thank you for your support and your story. I got to say, if Truman does in fact become a civil engineer and fix the MTA for all us, he's going to be the most popular man in New York.

David Patrick Kelly: Go, Truman, go.

Kai Wright: Go, Truman, go.

Bryan Doerries: He has my vote.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Tito in the Lower East Side. Tito, welcome to the show.

Tito: Thank you. I grew up on the Lower East Side in a building with 30 apartment units. Out of the 30 apartment units, 13 of those units were different nationalities. 13 nationalities in one building, but 30 units. The Lower East Side was very mixed, very poor, and very working class. My mom used to always put some extra potatoes, some extra rice, and beans in the pot for the neighborhood kids, because even though we were poor, there were kids poorer than us.

Rosie Perez: That's right.

Tito: According to Rosie, this would never happen in Puerto Rico. This would never have happened in a poor working-class community like the Lower East Side. I think that New York has changed quite a bit. I think that New York has lost its heart, its compassion, and I just wish it wasn't that way. I've been an investigator for the fair housing of city of New York, and because of my experience as a young man, I really have a lot of passion for this work, and hoping to get some justice for people in this world because things are getting really bad.

I hate to get off on the negative, but the truth of the matter is it's just not the New York I grew up in. For instance, we used to have a stoop culture where everybody would sit on the stoops. Even though we didn't know each other's languages, we all understood that we were all poor. That kind of stuff, it's not happening anymore. There used to be bodegas in Manhattan. There might be one left. They're all gone. It's a shame that poor, working-class community have been pushed aside right now.

I don't want to make a big speech. Right now, they're going after public housing, trying to privatize public housing so that the developers can take it over, and it's just disgusting. Thank you for your time, and you have a wonderful show [crosstalk].

Kai Wright: Thank you so much, Tito. Rosie Perez, you wanted to respond to something.

Rosie Perez: I want to say something, Tito. That's how I grew up. We were very, very poor, and we were on public assistance, but my aunt always made a big fat pot of rice, and whoever needed food, we gave. I really appreciate your story, and I hope the listeners get inspired by that. There are some good people still left in the city that do that, and so I still have hope, but thank you for your story.

Bryan Doerries: Tito, this is Bryan. I just want to say it's so inspiring to hear you talk about the Lower East Side. I also live on the Lower East Side, and I'm nostalgic for a past that I didn't experience, but hearing you bring it into the room, I don't know, it fills me with a sense of wanting to find that kindness. While what you said is hard to reckon with, this idea that New York has changed and it's not the same, we don't have the compassion. I think by sharing your story, you're inspiring people to want to follow in your footsteps and find that compassion again. I really appreciate for bringing that onto the air and for sharing that tonight.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Angela in Queens, who I think wants to talk about something similar. Angela, welcome to the show.

Angela: Hi. Thank you so much. Hopefully, what I have to say will enlighten people on a positive note. Like Ms. Perez said, in Puerto Rico, that would be the case if somebody was hungry, you would definitely feed them. It just is a no-brainer. My island is St. Croix. We're cruising. I don't know if it's a Caribbean thing or just a humanitarian thing. I have a nonprofit. We deliver groceries free of charge first Friday of every month.

I am one of those people that if, let's say, there's somebody in the street that I see that's homeless that looks like they're in need, they may not even be homeless, but they may just be in need, I will be one of those people that will stop traffic. You can honk at me, whatever you want to do. I'm not moving because I'm going to take whatever grocery bags that we didn't give out from our non-profit delivery project. I'm going to take out the bag or from here to Soul Bakery, that gives us some free baked goods that's in the neighborhood, take out that and feed that person, and for sure respect that if they don't want it, I'm not going to put push it on them because I think that they need it.

For sure, I would definitely feed that person just because I can and because we should. Humanitarians are perhaps in short supply, but I think that we need to stand up and let other people who may need a little bit of incentive to do the right thing see us. If I can just say that I did not have any intentions of having a food delivery project. I have 99 jobs. I'm a speech therapist in the DOE, an EI, and all that. I don't really have a lot of time.

Somehow, in the neighborhood, there was a fire, and I just had a need, I don't know, a message that said to me, "How can you help these students who are going to be in this place?" When you enter someone else's family, you're now a new burden, another mouth to feed. Then people are not necessarily so welcoming. It's like they might have to take you in because of obligations. I decided, "Okay, let's at least feed the family so that they don't feel a way. They would be more inviting to the people that they're taking in, even if they're not failures, but they'll feel better.

We went from feeding seven families from this fire to now close to 500, thanks to the defunding of the EBT card. We do it first Friday of every month, and it's anonymous. You register for whatever respective public school that's in partnership with us, or shelter coordinators, they register, and we deliver the groceries, and you don't ever see us. We're actually called Give and Go. We put it on your doorstep, take a picture, and gone. You don't need to feel a way. You don't feel food shame, you don't feel anything. We rescue food and whatever.

I think more people, if they just listen to their inner voice that speaks to them, and to remember that maybe today it's you, but tomorrow it could be me. I need to do the right thing. Just be a good humanitarian.

Bryan Doerries: Thank you so much, Angela. Thank you for sharing that from Cash and Carrie, our story, to Give and Go, your nonprofit, the question of where the kindness is in New York, you're answering that with your work. Thanks for sharing that. Also, it's a perfect segue to a moment we're going to return to in the story that was read tonight at the very end of the story. It's a moment where the narrator is walking down the street, and he has an interaction with a person who's unhoused.

It causes him to reflect on himself, on the choices he's making, on the city itself. We're going to drop right into that right now with David Patrick Kelly and Jesse Eisenberg, reading this last section of the story.

Jesse Eisenberg: The man saw all this playing out on my face and barked quite unfairly, in my opinion, "I hope you burn in hell," which, of course, is another reason to live in New York. Every day delivers a kick, and always in a different spot. There are times when being condemned to hell really gets under my skin. "Am I a terrible person?" I'll ask myself. "Am I crueler than most? Am I thoughtless?" If I'm cursed by a mentally ill person, I'll really dig in and claw at myself. I've always seen them as prophets and hold my breath as I pass, afraid of the truth they might reveal.

Early in my time in New York, not long after the Little Golden Book episode, a woman dressed in rags in the Staten Island ferry terminal looked me in the eye and told me I was going to die before I reached 50. Thousands of people moving about like ants, yet I was the one she singled out. Her voice was clear and authoritative, like an oracle's. Our brief encounter really lit a fire under me. "I've only got 16 years to make a splash," I thought, knowing that time would pass a lot faster than I'd want it to.

When I didn't die at age 50, when I woke up in Paris, as alive as I'd been on the day before, I was shocked, but also greatly relieved, for my life was good by then and I didn't want it taken away from me. This time, though, I walked on by. "Burn in hell indeed," I thought. First off, the guy on the sidewalk outside the liquor store was a drunk, not an oracle. Second, I had just helped a stranger carry a cabinet down York Avenue for what felt to me, and probably to her too, like an eternity. A person gets points for things like that.

Bryan Doerries: Thank you so much. That section at the end of the story, I don't know, it zeroes in on a question I wanted to ask the audience tonight. It's absurd. It's hilarious. The narrator is having this interaction with someone who's unhoused, and he decides not to help him. The person who's experiencing homelessness shouts that he should go burn in hell. Something about that makes him grateful that he lives in New York, almost like he's thankful to be told to go burn in hell.

He says, "Every day delivers a kick and always in a different spot." I wonder what that said to listeners tonight as they were listening, what that exchange said to them about New York. Not everyone has a non-profit. Not everyone is delivering food on doors. There are all kinds of ways people help each other, but what about this moment of connection?

Kai Wright: That may be something we want you guys to sit with. That may be something for you to ponder after we get off the air here. We've got a few minutes left. We dropped a big one for you there at the end, but I want to get a last couple of calls in. Maybe you're going to respond to what Bryan just said. Maybe that's something for you to take with you after you listen, but let's go to Steve in West Orange.

Steve: Good evening. Thank you for taking this call.

Kai Wright: Steve, you've got a story about a piano, right?

Steve: Got a story. Terry Creech was a choreographer who lived on West Broadway when we moved in in 1981, about eight or nine blocks north of us. He had a piano for sale. It was a stand-up piano, and I'm trying to remember what you call that. In any event, he said it was available. We went to his loft, looked for it, and found out that we could roll it, but we had to step it up a foot to the next-door building in order to get to an elevator where we could bring it down. Brought it down on the elevator, put it on a couple of dollies, rolled it out into the street.

My partner at that time put our Volkswagen van behind us with the blinking lights on to keep traffic from running us over. This was a Sunday morning, so things were pretty quiet in Tribeca. We started rolling it down the street and down West Broadway, and people offered to help us. By the time we got three or four blocks, we had five or six people all pushing this piano down West Broadway. A guy comes by on a car, and he says, "Get a flute." We didn't.

Jesse Eisenberg: Get a flute. So funny.

Kai Wright: Well done, Steve. Well done. We have two piano stories. That was Steve. Thank you, Steve. Let's hear from Rosemary in Stuyvesant Town. Rosemary, welcome to the show.

Rosemary: Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Years ago, after I retired, I bought a red wooden upright piano in a thrift shop nearby. When I got it home, my daughter said, "That is ugly." I wanted people to come and play music in my apartment, and we'd sing and be happy. I realized it was an eyesore. I had to get rid of it. Outside were some men that were moving truck, and I said to them, "Would you move something for me and I'll give you a big tip?" They said yes.

They took my piano, and they brought it back to the thrift store. First, the thrift store said, "We don't take pianos." I said, "I just bought it from you." They took it back, and I lost a lot of money, but I have a better-looking living room now.

Kai Wright: There we go.

Bryan Doerries: Moral of the story.

Kai Wright: That has to be the end tonight. We wanted to leave you on a light note. Bryan, 20 seconds for the last thought.

Bryan Doerries: Oh, I'm just so bowled over by the responses we got from listeners tonight. I knew that we were a city full of writers and storytellers, but it's so great to hear about all these incredible connections that people made while schlepping things down the street and helping strangers. I'm grateful to be a New Yorker tonight, listening to all of you share your very personal stories with us on the air.

Kai Wright: Bryan Doerries is artistic director of Theater of War. Nice to sit with you again, Bryan.

Bryan Doerries: Such a pleasure.

Kai Wright: Thanks to the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust for supporting this program. Thanks to our incredible actors Rosie Perez, Jesse Eisenberg, and David Patrick Kelly, and thanks for all of you to listening to Theater of War live on the radio. You can read David Sedaris story, Cash and Carry, along with plenty more of his writing at newyorker.com. I'm Kai Wright from the Guardian. Thank you so much for spending this time with us.

 

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