Red Truck Road Trip – EAST Coast Team

During our walk to Rockefeller Center, Dan is absorbing every moment to capture the essence of the city with his three specialized cameras and Bill is finding and framing the perfect shots. I am walking five to ten feet ahead of them trying to notice the buildings, a flavor of the populace, and all the nooks and crannies of this over-stimulating environment. As we dart in and out between people and construction, I imagine myself in the BIG APPLE, literally in an apple. I feel as if I am walking in the core and the sounds are alive and all around me. In this moment, I become conscious of how peculiar a large city can be. Hotel door men whistle for cabs, car horns blast and innocent birds chirp sweetly in a time where people collide and don’t even recognize. Pot holes pop up and down as SUVs, compact cars, and semi-trailer trucks zoom over them, and then, a bus slows and sounds like it is sniffing air through its nose and exhaling that deep breath at the doctor’s office when it halts. Construction bobcats scrap, scratch, and smash scattered debris into large metal bins. Bike chains and padlocks ring as a twenty-something homeless man counts his change and lets it clang as he drops it back into his white and yellow paper cup. People walk and you can’t hear their steps, you just walk at a speed quick enough to move and not make contact. Contact is a limited concept in this particular moment, there are many folks traveling together but silence is among the New Yorkers, only those on cell phones and those who appear to be tourists speak. Then, a large commanding voice in a raspy New York rumble says to Dan and his three cameras, “Thank you, Sir, hope you enjoy takin’ yo’ pictures.” After that comment, Dan, Bill, and I walk back into the sweetness of the fruit and begin talking again.