Freedom in the Heart of the City

Rene Magritte — ‘Man in a Bowler Hat,’ 1964

I must’ve been five or six, hand clasped in the palm of my father, when we meandered through the colossal intestines of New York City. We heard the drums before we saw them, rhythmic percussion that diffused itself through the stupendous zing of train brakes, liberating itself between the fricative crunch of metal on metal, accompanied by a whooshing wind which alleviated, for a brief moment, the unforgivable summer heat.