I live in the financial district. It’s a strange place to live for anyone, but it’s especially strange for me – because I don’t work in finance or insurance or anything like that. I just love the energy here, the restaurants, the coffee shops, the people walking back and forth each day with so much purpose. The lack of community here (which is the reason so many others hate it) is a benefit for me; I don’t have to deal with any of that bullshit, and especially not kids. What kind of person would raise kids in a financial district?
It turns out there are people who do – but that’s not what this story is about. A kid does play a role, though, right at the beginning: he was walking down the street just in front of my building, wearing an orange pumpkin hat. It was last Halloween – the pre-pandemic one when life wasn’t such a clusterfuck. My dislike of kids doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a funny child every once in a while, and this guy was actually really good, a comic master at age 4.