In 1995 Harvey Keitel and William Hurt starred in a movie called “Smoke.” Harvey Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a tobacco store, the Brooklyn Tobacco Co. which sits on the comer of third and seventh streets in Brooklyn. One of Auggie’s closest friends is a writer by the name of Paul Benjamin, played by William Hurt. At the end of the movie Paul Benjamin the writer, tells Auggie that he’s been asked to write a Christmas story for the New York Times, but he’s stumped. What’s he going to write about? Auggie says, “I’ve got lots of Christmas stories. In fact I’ve got a great Christmas story. Buy me lunch and I’ll tell it to you.”
Paul buys Auggie lunch and Auggie tells his story. “It’s about me” says Auggie. “One day, I’m in my shop” – the Brooklyn Tobacco Co. on the corner of third and seventh – “when I notice a kid in the act of stealing a girly magazine from the shelf up the back of the store. I call out and the kid bolts for the door and starts running away. So I chase him.” While he’s running something falls out of the thief’s pocket onto the sidewalk. It’s his wallet. Auggie stops running and picks it up. It’s got the thief’s drivers license inside. Now Auggie’s got his name and address. The only other thing the wallet contains is three photographs. One of them is the thief as a young boy with his mother. It softens Auggie’s attitude. This is just a kid who lives in a poor part of the town, who’s struggled all his life to get by. So Auggie decides not to go to the police. Instead he takes the wallet home and puts it on the shelf. And there it sits.
A couple of years later it’s Christmas day. Auggie’s got no friends or family to celebrate with, so he’s sitting at home and his eyes fall on that young thief’s wallet sitting on the shelf. “What the heck” he thinks. “I’m gonna go round to that kid’s place and give him his wallet back.” So he heads downtown, ‘til he comes to the address on the driver’s license. He walks up to a rundown building, rings the doorbell and waits. After a few moments he hears some shuffling, then an old woman’s voice, “Yes, who’s there.”
“I’m looking for Robert” says Auggie.
“Robert” replies the woman. “Is that you Robert? I knew you wouldn’t forget your Granny Joe on Christmas day.”
She flings the door open and Auggie can see she’s an old woman who’s almost completely blind. She opens her arms wide, and next thing Auggie knows she’s hugging him.
“I knew you’d come Robert. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint your old gran.”
Well, what’s he supposed to do? “What the heck” thinks Auggie, “I’ve got nothing better to do today. I’ll play along.”
“Yes gran, it’s me, Robert.”
He can tell by the look on her face that she knows it’s not her grandson Robert, but she’s living all alone and seems to need some company. So she decides to play along too. She welcomes Auggie in, and for the rest of the afternoon Auggie pretends to be her grandson Robert. He tells her how he’s got a good job now, that he owns his own store, that he’s met a lovely girl and they’re going to be married. All this brings a smile to her face and she replies “That’s fine Robert, that’s fine.”
Auggie decides to make lunch for the two of them, but when he goes to the cupboard he finds Granny Joe has no food. So he goes down the road and buys a chicken and breadrolls and salads, and brings it back for them to have lunch together. They open a bottle of wine Granny Joe has lying about and spend a wonderful afternoon together, Auggie still pretending to be her grandson Robert, and she pretending to believe he really is her grandson.
Later in the afternoon Auggie needs to go to the toilet. He walks down the hallway til he finds the bathroom. He goes in, and as he’s relieving himself he notices a stack of six polaroid cameras by the window. Brand new, still the box. Six of them. He thinks to himself, “I’ve never had a camera before, but I’d love to have one.” In a moment of decision he decides to take one of the cameras. After all, the old woman won’t know. She’s blind, she’s got no use for them. So he picks up one of the cameras and heads back to the lounge room. When he gets there Granny Joe has fallen asleep. He decides to let her sleep. He washes the dishes, cleans up the kitchen, picks up his coat and the camera, and walks out the door.
From that day on he starts taking photos of his shop, the Brooklyn Tobacco Co, on the corner of third and seventh. Every morning at exactly 8.00am, whatever the weather, he walks across the road and takes his photo. Over 14 years he documents life in his little comer of the world. It becomes his hobby, his life’s work.
A few years after that Christmas he stole the camera, Auggie decides to go and see Granny Joe again, to apologise for stealing the camera. But she’s no longer living there. He guesses she’s died, but his guilt pangs have not died with her. Fourteen years later as Auggie Wren tells his story to his friend Paul Benjamin the writer, he still feels guilty and ashamed for stealing that camera.
The story says something about all of us, not just Auggie Wren. It captures the human dilemma. On the one hand we’re capable of extraordinary acts of love and generosity, like Auggie’s gift of his presence to an old woman on a cold Christmas day. But on the other hand we’re capable, in exactly the same moment, of extraordinary selfishness, like Auggie when he steals a camera from the house of a lonely old blind woman. In Auggie we see ourselves, in all our glory and all our shame.