Since it was a “special day” or that’s what most people told him, he felt the need to actually look somewhat decent. He pulled himself into the only pair of black skinny jeans he would ever own, and pulled on a red sweatshirt over which he slipped the denim vest he’d bought in Chicago his first day, and subsequently filled with patches from his days in the circus. He surprisingly managed to shove his wallet and phone into his back pocket.
Once outside his cabin, he applauded his choice to wear a long sleeved shirt as the brisk mid-September air blew against his face. He descended his cabin steps two at a time and then proceeded to quietly make his way through the camp, keeping close to the quickly disappearing shadows in the hopes that he could hide if Chiron or Mr. D happened to show up in his general vicinity.
He ended up at the entrance to the camp with very little difficulty, only hiding behind a tree once because he thought he saw someone, it turned out to be a tabby cat that has been wondering around since he’d gotten there.
He felt bad about leaving Mitch, he really did, but he’d never actually planned on taking anyone with him. It was his birthday after all, and he’d learned early on that birthdays spent with other people are almost always horrible. Still, he’d probably make up some lie that would placate Mitch, maybe that he couldn’t get a car and instead swam the sound into Manhattan.
With that, he turned and crossed the threshold of camp. There were no intense monster noises, or sudden attacks, which he took as a good sign and continued down the uneven path. Granted, the Gray Sister’s taxi was a faster and easier trip than the hour trek to the train station and then the subsequent two-hour train ride, but Carter preferred to keep his internal organs inside his body thank you very much. A pair of hiking boots would have, however, been better than the old, worn out converse he was currently wearing.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, Carter finally arrived in the small college town that was only still in operating because of said college. Students were trickling through the town streets to their school buildings on the far side of town, which was barely a ten-minute walk from the other side of town. He popped into a local grocery store owned by a Mr. Andy Dhami that Carter had become friends with when he used to leave camp nearly every day when he first got there.
“Aye Andy.” He called to the middle aged Indian Immigrant, who was stocking candy bars near the cash register. The man waved back with the seven Mars bars he was holding with a smile. He began to make his way to the back of the store, but paused wearily by the ATM wondering if he should actually check his account balance before he left for his trip. In the end, he decided against it; he knew he had plenty of money, having barely touched anything he’d made in Chicago.
In the back of the store, he greeted Andy’s wife, Jess, who was four months pregnant with their third child. He grabbed a bottle of orange juice and what he would dare to call the best doughnuts in the tri-state area and proceeded to the check out. Their eldest child, twenty-one year old Samantha, was working the register looking extremely curmudgeon about the whole thing.
“Morning, Sam. You going to school this year?” He asked, setting his drink down for her to scan. She scanned the items and proceeded to tell him about her classes, and how she totally hated her Classic Cultures teacher because ‘he totally believed in ridiculous things like Greek gods.’ Carter chuckled, shook his head and replied, “How crazy of him.”
He paused half-way out the door and turned back to Sam, “Is your brother going to be around later?” He asked, an eyebrow quirked. “Yeah,” She nodded, leaning on the counter checking her phone, “He’ll be in around two, I think.” Carter gave her a wave of thanks and headed of the business.
He traversed the two blocks two the train station while eating his doughnut and attempting to consume the vitamin C he so desperately lacked at camp; at the rate he was going, he would probably get scurvy sometime in the future. A middle-aged man who looked worn out and weathered from years of blue-collar work manned the ticket window. “One way to New York City, please.” Carter slid his debit card through the slot in the front of the booth, and the man grumpily printed out the ticket and collected his money.
The train, which was usually full of students and professors going into the city, was nearly deserted this early in the morning. He spent the first part of the trip sat next to a clump of older women, all wearing red hats and gabbing about their day trip, who offered him butterscotch candy and compared him to their grandsons. They showed him pictures of their dogs and told him about their bridge games; he placated them for a while, but eventually excused himself and moves seats.
He ended up sat across from a grumpy looking child, no older than six, and his tired looking mother. He asked why they were going into the city, and she explained that her husband was in hospital and they were going to visit. Obviously, Carter couldn’t ask anything else without it being too personal and feeling like an invasion into her life. So he simply turned his attention to her son.
“Do you like magic?” He asked the little boy who was sitting there arms crossed, the boy didn’t respond to him. So Carter quirked an eyebrow and gave him a small, half smile before reaching behind his ear and producing a single quarter. “Maybe you’ll be able to hear me now. “ He smiled, and handed the now smiling boy the quarter.
After a few minutes of magic, and a thank you from the boy’s mother, Carter moved to a seat where he could enjoy the rest of the train ride on his own. They were nearly to Penn Station anyhow, and he didn’t particularly want to enter into a conversation with the only other person in their train car, a very grumpy looking teenage boy who was wearing sunglasses and not even sitting near a window.
Getting off the nearly empty into the packed terminals at Penn Station was shocking; he’d done it before, multiple times, but it always threw him off guard. He followed the flow of bodies up into the main entrance and out the front doors. Scaffolding littered the side of the building in front of him and people in business suits rushed around him, shouting into their phones or talking to one another about a new business venture.
The trip from Penn Station to the Met was easy, it was only one bus trip and a short block walk to the entrance of the museum. Actually entering the Met was not as easy. There was luckily, not an extremely large crowd, since school had officially started and parents were currently at their jobs; Mostly the people there consisted of nannies who were educating their over privileged children, college students who were obviously art majors and old men and women who spent their retirement exploring the city they never got to when they were young.
The admission to the museum was strange, they had ticket prices but didn’t actually require any money to enter the museum; it was all on a donation policy, which seemed more than a little backhanded to Carter. He still “donated” though, because if felt like the right thing to do. Also, the short blonde woman in her mid-twenties handed him an ‘I paid’ pin that he jokingly pinned to his shirt.
The grand hall at the museum was overwhelming to say the least. The soaring arches and domed vaults were enough to make anyone feel small and insignificant; that was part of the reason why he liked going to art museums, especially the Met, they put things into perspective for you.
He studied the map that had been handed to him at admissions, it had paths marked and each room labeled, but it was confusing and felt more like a subway map than a museum guide. He tossed it in the first trash bin he saw and proceeded to explore the place his way.
He spent an hour meandering through rooms; spending most of his time in the European paintings wing where he started sadly at Van Gogh paintings. The story of Van Gogh always made him feel upset, how a man who became one of the greatest painters ever known could have been so alone and sad in his life – maybe there was hope for Carter yet.
The American wing consisted of art that all felt like it was mimicking the paintings and sculptures he’d just seen; that was the thing about America is was always mimicking something.
When he stumbled upon the Andy Warhol works, there were only two nestled between Pollock and O’Keefe, it reminded him of Ellie and he chuckled fondly. Before he left, he stopped by the gift shop and made it a point to pick up an Andy Warhol shirt for Ellie as a sort of thank you for not being entirely pissed at him yesterday.
He also jokingly picked up a set of shot glasses for Mitch. He didn’t know if the boy actually took shots, but he saw him drinking enough that it would be at least kind of funny to give them to him. There were five in total, each with a different New York borough on it, and that was kind of like going to New York, right?
It was nearly half past ten when he finally left the museum, the streets were less packed than they were that morning; now consisting of more tourists and children than of the business men from earlier. He really didn’t want to head back to camp already, not with a full day ahead of him and not with all the tension that was happening back at camp between him and what felt like everyone.
He made his way down the steps of the museum and out of Central Park. He felt like such a tourist every time he entered the park, granted he was a tourist technically but he didn’t want to feel like it. It was a two-block walk to the subway stop that he’d decided to take.
He hated the decent into the subway; it always felt a little like how he imagined descending into the underworld would. The people were pushy and decidedly mean, but it was a vital transportation method. He was sure to be prepared for the inevitable hurry through the system, and pulled out his MetroCard before he even got to the gates.
Once on the actual subway, he felt more comfortable. It was slightly sticky and a bit crowded, but it reminded him of the L back in Chicago, which made New York feel a little bit more like home. He sighed thinking about home, he hadn’t spoken to his family or been home to Florida in over a year; he shook his head slightly, now was not the time to think about this.
The ride to Spring Street was maybe ten minutes; which beat the hour it would have taken to walk it or the thirty dollars it would have taken to get a taxi there. The climb up the stairs was easy, and put him out right in the middle of Little Italy. A carnival style set up had been placed there, and hundreds of people were packed into the streets to celebrate the annual festival.
Six cannoli and a very scary ride on a ferris wheel, with a girl who demanded that he ride it with her, later and he found himself stumbling out of Little Italy (well more running away from said girl) into Chinatown. The sudden decrease of people was a shock to the senses, and for the first time in an hour Carter felt like he could actually breath. The vendors were attracting tourists with cheap purses and strange knick-knacks. One had asked him if he wanted an authentic Louis Vitton coin purse for just twenty dollars – he’d considered for a moment buying it for Lo, but remembering he was mad at her and that she would probably immediately know that it was fake and probably laugh made him reconsider.
He did however stop at a small shop where an old Chinese woman was selling jewelry, there was a bracelet with a small trident suspended in the middle of a glow-in-the-dark stone. He smiled at the stupid bracelet and told her that he wanted it when another one caught his eye. A matching bracelet with a gold lightning bolt in the middle of it was sitting there and he sighed sadly; Jo would probably like that, and he was still friends with Jo, right? He sighed, probably not. He bought it anyway, he’d never give it to her, but that didn’t really matter to him.
It was nearing noon when he finally left Chinatown; he debated on heading out to see the Statue of Liberty, but deciding that he would rather not have to stumble his way back through the forest in the dark, be hopped on a bus to head back to Penn Station.
The train ride back was far less eventful than the train ride there, full of college students who were finally making their way back after their long weekend partying in the city and people getting off their first shift factory jobs. He was quiet, staring at his phone wondering if his family would call him this year.
