The Field Trip

Summer days pretending to be New Yorkers.

Illustration by Charles Forsman

From my hometown, New York City was a two-hour drive I never took. My first sight of the skyline came when I was sixteen, aboard a regular yellow school bus, in June heat, while friends and I imitated barnyard animals in lieu of an overhead movie. In the window seat beside me, Zach gave up trying to open the pinch-in/slide-down window and lowered forlornly. The rubber seats, slashed with initials, stuck to your skin. We complained, but we always complained. Up front, our chaperone tried on various faces of authority. We were going to the American Museum of Natural History. We had been given packets to complete.

Instructions were shouted, arms waved as we squealed into our designated parking zone; shuffling commenced through the aisle. As we approached 200 Central Park West in a parody of order, I remember being impressed by both the number and popularity of hot dog stands, the sheer touristic weight of the place. Central Park was verdant, the street humme…