from unexpected people in unlikely places

The Daily Prompt today:

Describe a moment of kindness, between you and someone else — loved one or complete stranger.

Alright.

So years ago I went to a concert with a friend. His name is Scott. This concert we went to was a band I had never heard or heard of before – MXPX, they were (are) called. Scott was really into them at the time, and he invited me along, so I went.

MXPX is (was?) a ska band. As in ska music. Don’t ask me to define ska music for you, I don’t really know. (Though I guess you could click the link if you’re curious.) This was back in the mid to late 90’s when it seemed every band had its own unique description for what style of music they played.

It was good though. Kinda punkish, kinda rockish, a little funky. I had a good time. The band not only sounded good, but they were nice people too. I even got the lead singer to autograph my ticket. See? I still have it.

But that happened after the show, and as cool as the band members were, they’re not main characters in this story.

During the show, there were several people crowd surfing, and Scott wanted to try it.

“You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”

He asked for a leg up, so I made a step out of my hands, and hoisted him up into the air.

Now, I’ve never crowd-surfed, so I don’t know how people get started, and apparently Scott didn’t know either. Whatever was going wrong, he just never got up above the crowd in a way that caused the crowd to carry him away.

The third time he tried it (third time’s the charm, right? Nope.) Scott fell flat on the floor. Boom.

Before I could even move some guy swoops down on my friend.

Some punk with his hair cut into odd-shaped patches and dyed bright green, earrings and eyebrow piercings and tattoos and some punk clothes all added up to some guy your average respectable individual wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, or anywhere at all really.

And can you guess what he did? He helped Scott up off the floor, brushed him off, and asked him if he was alright.

And it wasn’t a snarky, “Ha Ha, you fell down and I’m laughing at you!” kind of “Are you okay?” this guy was genuinely concerned and wanted to be sure that Scott was fine.

Scott and I didn’t know this guy, and he didn’t know us. We didn’t get a chance to actually talk to him other than a quick thank you, so I don’t know his name, or where he was from, or anything about him.

Except that he looked like a punk, and was more civilized, kind, and polite than most respectable looking people I’ve met over the years.

Whenever I hear the phrase “random act of kindness” this is the moment I think of.

Another phrase – don’t judge a book by the cover, or people by the way they look. You never know who might be kind to you.

Related articles

• #5 Crowd surfing (100thingsonmybucket.wordpress.com)
• Moment of Kindness: A Poem (khanasweb.com)
• Compersion – Ahhhhh! (rarasaur.wordpress.com)
• How are you doing? (ponderingspawned.com)