Coats for all weather

I'm visiting my friend Megan in New York City and decide to take the afternoon to go downtown and buy a coat. I walk into an old store front, the kind of place where tradesmen and painters go to buy their Carharts and Dickies. It reminds me of a place in Webster Groves my Dad and I used to go when I was in elementary school. Erring on the side of caution (and fashion) I buy two huge marshmallow-style puffy jackets. There is a young black boy, probably 12 years old, who sits behind the wooden counter and rings up my bill. He wears th clothes of a much older man and speaks mellifluously, with excellent diction and a vocabulary beyond his years. His voice, however, remains that of a boy. He asks if I have a way to bring the coats home, since they are too big to fit on the bus (they suddenly are exceedingly bulky; I wonder if I can somehow deflate them). He suggests tying them to the bike rack on the front of the bus; I reconsider.

The bus pulls up and there is a Mexican standing on top of the bus tying down people's luggage and day bags. I pass up my coats and board. Now the bus is driving through the moonscape of Mexico's Central Valley. As we enter the frontier of the outer suburbs, the buildings start to slowly fade into the aisles of a supermarket. Looking out the window I think, Mexico City's aesthetic comes from its rampant advertisements.