29Everyone lost himself in Manhattan. Whether he was lost in a celebrity apartment tour or in the winding rambles of Central Park. Whether he lost himself among the cookie-cutter Ferragamo scarves on Fifth Avenue or the commercial molds of skyscrapers.
New York City was bigger than itself. It was a brand, not accounting for the fact that fresh air in Manhattan smelled like body odor and stale garbage. Not accounting for the shop on Thirty-Fourth and Second Avenue that made ice cream designed to look like poop. Not accounting for the homeless man at the Sixty-Eighth Street station who wore Mickey Mouse ears and sang “Black Skinhead” a cappella.
Cecil never saw stars in the black Manhattan sky, only a bright moon called the light at the top of the Empire State Building. And a sun called th
