Your Own Man

Washington Square Park (Matthew Jesuele / Wikimedia Commons)

"In New York you felt you were no different from anybody else; you were your own man; you were free. At any given minute you could decide to navigate your way up Fifth Avenue to regard shiny luxury watches in shop windows, eat a kosher hot dog on Central Park South, or read Intro to Sociology at an outdoor café off Christopher. And sure, independence had its dark dimensions, its lonely frequented loci, like a scarred green bench in the northwest corner of Washington Square where nobody sought you out."

H.M. Naqvi, Home Boy