My Korean Deli_ Risking It All for a Convenience Store - Ben Ryder Howe [90]
“Ain’t walked this far in twenty-five years, still got ten more miles to go. I’m going to pick up some groceries now and carry them home, because I don’t think there’s going to be anything left in all of Brooklyn by the time I get there.”
It’s an intimate interaction: you and this stranger whose face you will never see walking hand in hand to the canned vegetable aisle, and ultimately it’s the sort of moment that this blackout will be remembered for, for that night the city does not erupt into lawlessness. On the contrary, it breaks out in rooftop parties, impromptu midnight parades, civilians taking on the role of traffic cops, and other abnormal acts of neighborliness. At the store, we empty our shelves and refrigerators by ten o’clock, then drive back to Staten Island, where the lights blink on at three A.M.
The next day (and for years afterward) I refuse to believe that I really saw what I saw between Dwayne and the police officer, but one day I ask him and with a laugh he confirms it was real. “Hell yeah,” he says. “Hell yeah.”
THE GOOD DWAYNE—a courageous, loyal and street-smart watch-keeper—is almost always followed by an appearance of the scary Dwayne, however.
On another hot night around the time of the blackout, a man walks into the store while Dwayne and I are on duty and starts taking off his clothes. It’s always sort of surprising how popular the practice of shedding one’s garments in convenience stores is. This is our second naked customer of the evening. However, unlike the previous one, this person is ripped with eerily twitching muscles, has a look on his face that suggests he just finished chewing on a high-voltage wire, and refuses to get dressed or leave until we provide him with a bottle of Heineken.
“Friend, you better get out of here before you get in trouble you can’t get out of,” Dwayne growls. To which the man only laughs in response—a ghoulish, soul-chilling cackle. Then he lifts up a dirty bandage wrapped around his shoulder and shows off a gaping, blood-encrusted bullet hole above his heart that could not be more than a few hours old.
“My friend, can’t you see?” he says with some kind of Slavic accent. “I come from trouble.”
At which point Dwayne bolts for the stockroom, where he keeps the mysteriously heavy backpack.
“Please leave,” I beg the naked man while he’s gone. “Just get out of here.”
“I want beer,” the man states firmly, holding his ground.
A few seconds later Dwayne returns holding not a gun but an aluminum bat known around the store as “the Thunder Rod.” He’s about to take a swing when I jump in front of him.
“Wait!”
Dwayne looks at me as if I’m crazy.
“It’s not worth it,” I say. If they start fighting, I reason, the best that can happen is that Dwayne somehow subdues the naked man, but even if he does we’re likely to end up with a crime scene, a bloody mess, ambulance chasers and one big hassle. Better just to give the naked man what he wants.
“Listen,” I say, turning to him. “If I let you have one beer, will you promise to leave?”
He nods solemnly, looking almost sane. So I start toward the beer refrigerator in the back of the store, until I get to Dwayne.
“You can’t,” he growls, blocking the way. “That’s not how it’s done.” The Thunder Rod is still over his shoulder, but now Dwayne’s stance is rotated in a different direction: toward me.
“Come on, Dwayne! Give me a break.” He just stands there, though, clogging the canned goods aisle and glaring at me. Finally, after five or so excruciating seconds, he inches aside ever so slightly.
I dash to the beer refrigerator and remove the first bottle I see, then pass it to the naked man. “Now leave,” I say. “You promised.”
However, he just stands there in his nakedness and looks at his beer.