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By Root 1175 0

at least a modicum of peace and tranquillity. So I arrive early for my shift and change the radio station. From now on there will be no more smooth jazz, no more adult contemporary, and no more crunk; no more Creed, Mystikal, Chingy, O-Town or Parade of the Most Annoying Songs Ever Recorded. Tonight we are going to listen to public radio until the voices of Robert Siegel and Linda Wertheimer make people’s ears bleed, and in the meantime, until All Things Considered comes on, we’re listening to one of New York’s classical stations. Ah, music that doesn’t make me want to jump under a train. It’s as if my brain has exited a twelve-lane freeway and is now driving down a sun-dappled country lane, past farmhouses, through covered bridges and next to burbling streams. I feel peaceful and centered, instead of like a character under attack by robots and aliens in a video game.

Then Dwayne explodes through the door.

“Yo, B, what you listenin’ to classical music for?” he says. “It ain’t dinnertime.” This is followed by a burst of static as he jerks the dial from the classical station to Power 105.1, WWPR (“R&B, Hip-Hop and Back in the Day Joints”) and doubles the volume.

“Dwayne!” I shout (more to my own surprise than his) and immediately switch back to the Mozart, but it’s futile. All night, every time I get distracted, one of the regulars creeps over and retunes the station. Finally I bark at Super Mario, “Who keeps changing the station?”

Super Mario, a goateed Dominican building superintendent from an apartment complex over on State Street, looks at me innocently.

“You mean on the radio?” he says. “I think one of the customers.”

“The customers?” I shout, surprised again at the increasing shrillness of my voice. “What are you talking about, ‘the customers’? You’re a customer. Or do you work here and I am not aware of it?”

Super Mario whistles through his teeth and shrugs. I suppose that once you’ve seen enough overflowing toilets, it takes a lot to get flustered. But over in the pet food section, an older female customer frowns at my tone.

“I have an idea,” says Mr. Chow, a kindly parking lot attendant. “Why don’t we turn off the radio and watch TV instead?” Mr. Chow is the Mystery Man of Guangdong, a sphinxlike presence who drinks himself into a stupor every night and grins lugubriously even when passed out in the stockroom. He’s mysterious in many ways, one of which is that I can never find his empties, even though he drinks four or five bottles of Guinness a night.

“Say, isn’t it time for the news?” says Barry, while massaging an apple he hasn’t paid for and will soon put back on the shelf. Like many of the regulars, Barry, a nearly blind cab driver, could be in the store during a famine and he would still never spend a dime.

“Yes, it is,” I say, grabbing the remote control and turning on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. “Let’s see what’s going on in the world.”

At the sight of dour, makeup-less Jim Lehrer talking to a panel of guests about foreign policy, the regulars look puzzled.

“Is this American TV?” one of them asks.

“Is he gonna read the lottery numbers at some point?” says another.

I turn up the TV so loud you can hear it through the walls. This will be the first time in New York history that a noise complaint is filed because someone was blasting The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Nevertheless, despite my efforts to control the environment, by eight-thirty a half-dozen men are hanging out in the store, lounging against the merchandise, holding open the door so they can spit on the sidewalk (and letting in drafts of frigid air) and in general making me paranoid, as there is too much going on for me to notice anything improper. Occasionally a paying customer walks in and does a double take upon seeing so many bodies, wondering if they’ve stumbled upon some kind of gathering at which they’re unwelcome (or maybe too welcome). Someone lights a cigarette directly under a NO SMOKING sign. Bottle caps drop on the floor. More bodies attracts more bodies, including people I’ve never seen during the three weeks we’ve owned