“A Babe in New York City”

“In this urban maelstrom called New York, Skylar felt naked, like a defenseless babe among wolves, but simultaneously elated. Vulpine shopkeepers, framed by garish SALE! signs hustling cheap cameras, radios, and jewelry, leered out of their squeezed storefronts; muscled loungers in t-shirts and jeans with cigarettes in their mouths and spares behind their ears leaned against the windows of “world-famous” bakeries and “highest quality” Chinese restaurants ogling the passing girls; off-duty cab drivers with hairy arms and bulging bellies argued with one another using gesticulation so excessive that words seemed superfluous; two middle-aged female tourists in pastel pants suits clutched one another like lifebuoys, their heads constantly turning left, right, up, and back out of a mixture of curiosity and fear; a burly deliveryman, standing in the back of a filthy and dented truck, handed boxes down to his wiry partner, exchanging insults as well as containers; a cocky man in a lapis leisure suit, out of the middle and top of whose coat flashed, like a tropical bird in mating plumage, a starred scarlet shirt, strutted down the sidewalk, passing two insurance men wearing high-waisted suit coats, narrow ties, and flaccid-collared polyester shirts.”