Traffic eased, and we shot through behind Nathan, across Fifth Avenue and into Central Park at Ninety-seventh Street. High stone walls ran alongside us, and above them the dark overhang of branches; nature in Manhattan means human nature, except here in Central Park, where tortured grass prevails along with a few thousand trees, in whose gray and dusty arbors hide lovers, Audubon members, and delinquent gangs. Along the fractured concrete paths countless millions of New Yorkers tramp, decade in and out, extracting the essence from their oasis. I myself wander there on weekends, perception distorted by drink, drugs, or jogger's endorphins, depending on which discipline or lack of it I happen to be following at the moment. In the very center of the park there are pockets where one may mediate in relative safety on the life of the park squirrel who knows only these grimy woods surrounded by enormities of sound, gigantic shudderings and hangings of which it can have only the dimmest comprehension. It eats leftover bits of pastrami, french fries, and whatever else appears, a kind of flowering in its meadows, continuous but unpredictable as to location. One hops along and hopes for the best.
- William Kotzwinkle, The Midnight Examiner, p.156-7
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