Speaker 1: Us Studios The Corner Grocery. The Corner Grocery sat at
Speaker 1: the intersection of Birch Street and the Old Canal Road,
Speaker 1: a narrow building with a green awning and a bell
Speaker 1: above the door that had been ringing for forty seven years.
Speaker 1: The bell was small and brass, and it made a bright,
Speaker 1: clear sound, like a single note held in the air
Speaker 1: for just a moment before it faded. Inside the store
Speaker 1: was warm and close, with shelves that reached almost to
Speaker 1: the ceiling and aisles so narrow that two people had
Speaker 1: to turn sideways to pass each other. The floor was linoleum,
Speaker 1: scuffed and cracked in places, but clean, always clean, because
Speaker 1: Guss swept it every morning before opening and every night
Speaker 1: before closing. Gus had owned the store since his father died,
Speaker 1: which was thirty one years ago. Though it felt like
Speaker 1: a hundred, he was not a large man. He was
Speaker 1: medium height, with gray hair that he combed straight back
Speaker 1: and hands that were always moving, re stalking a shelf,
Speaker 1: wiping the counter, folding a paper bag into a neat square.
Speaker 1: He wore the same thing every day, a white shirt
Speaker 1: with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and an apron
Speaker 1: that had once been blue, but was now the color
Speaker 1: of a faded sky. He did not wear a name tag.
Speaker 1: He did not need one. Everyone in town knew him,
Speaker 1: and he knew everyone in return. The store was opened
Speaker 1: from seven in the morning until ten at night, seven
Speaker 1: days a week, every week of the year. Guss closed
Speaker 1: only on Christmas, and even then he left a basket
Speaker 1: on the front step with bread and milk and a
Speaker 1: note that said, take what you need, pay me whenever.
Speaker 1: No one ever failed to pay him back. Though some
Speaker 1: took weeks and a few took months, Gus did not mind.
Speaker 1: He understood that life sometimes moved slower than money, and
Speaker 1: that a person who needed bread to day might not
Speaker 1: have the coins until third and that was fine. The
Speaker 1: bread would wait. His regulars came at their regular times.
Speaker 1: Missus Patterson arrived every morning at eight, just after the
Speaker 1: store opened, and bought exactly the same thing, a quart
Speaker 1: of milk, a loaf of wheat bread, and a single banana.
Speaker 1: She paid with exact change, always counting out the coins
Speaker 1: on the counter with the slow precision of someone who
Speaker 1: had done this ten thousand times. Guss never rushed her.
Speaker 1: He counted the coins back to her, even though he
Speaker 1: knew the total by heart, because he understood that this
Speaker 1: small ritual was important, that it was the shape of
Speaker 1: her mourning, the first thing she did that made the
Speaker 1: day feel real. High school students came at lunch, crowding
Speaker 1: the counter for chips in candy bars, and bottles of
Speaker 1: cold water. They were loud and quick, their wallets full
Speaker 1: of crumpled bills, their laughter bright and careless. Guss liked them.
Speaker 1: He remembered their parents, some of them who had come
Speaker 1: in thirty years ago, with the same bright laughter, the
Speaker 1: same crumpled bills. Time moved strangely in a small store.
Speaker 1: It was not a line but a circle, and the
Speaker 1: people who passed through it were always arriving and leaving
Speaker 1: at the same time. At night, the store changed. The
Speaker 1: bright overhead lights gave way to a softer glow because
Speaker 1: Guss turned off every other fluorescent tube after eight o'clock.
Speaker 1: The aisles became quieter. The customers came in ones and twos,
Speaker 1: not rushing, but lingering, standing in the produce section with
Speaker 1: a head of lettuce in one hand and their phone
Speaker 1: in the other, not sure whether they needed anything else.
Speaker 1: These were the night owls, the people who could not
Speaker 1: sleep or did not want to, who came to the
Speaker 1: store not because they needed groceries, but because the store
Speaker 1: was open and warm, and the bell above the door
Speaker 1: made a sound that said you are welcome here. Gus
Speaker 1: listened to them all. He was not a therapist or
Speaker 1: a counselor. He was a grocer. But he had learned
Speaker 1: over thirty one years that people who came to a
Speaker 1: store at nine o'clock at night were not always looking
Speaker 1: for milk. Sometimes they were looking for some one to
Speaker 1: talk to, some one who would listen without judging, someone
Speaker 1: who would hand them a bag of flour and say
Speaker 1: the bread is better if you let the dough rest
Speaker 1: over night. And so Gus talked. He talked about the weather,
Speaker 1: about the tomatoes, about the canal, and the herons that
Speaker 1: sometimes stood in the shallows at dawn. He talked about
Speaker 1: small things, because small things were the things that held
Speaker 1: people together. One evening, a man came in who had
Speaker 1: not been there before. He was tall and thin, with
Speaker 1: a coat that was too heavy for the season, and
Speaker 1: a face that looked like it had not smiled in
Speaker 1: a long time. He walked up and down the aisles,
Speaker 1: slowly touching the cans and the boxes as if he
Speaker 1: were reading them in a language he had forgotten. He
Speaker 1: came to the counter with a single apple and a
Speaker 1: bottle of water. Guss rang him up. The man paid,
Speaker 1: he did not leave. Gus looked at him and said
Speaker 1: nothing for a long moment. Then he reached under the
Speaker 1: counter and pulled out a brown paper bag. Inside was
Speaker 1: a sandwich, still wrapped in wax paper, that Gus had
Speaker 1: made for himself that morning and had not yet eaten.
Speaker 1: He set it on the counter between them. You look
Speaker 1: like you could use this, Gus said. The man looked
Speaker 1: at the sandwich, he looked at Gus. His mouth opened
Speaker 1: and closed once, like a fish pulled from water. Then
Speaker 1: he sat down on the stool by the counter and
Speaker 1: ate the sandwich slowly, in small bites, as if each
Speaker 1: one were something he wanted to remember. He came back
Speaker 1: the next night, and the night after that. By the
Speaker 1: end of the week he had a name, which was Thomas,
Speaker 1: and a story, which was that he had come from
Speaker 1: a city far away and had lost everything that mattered
Speaker 1: to him and did not know what to do next.
Speaker 1: Gus did not offer advice. He offered a stool, a sandwich,
Speaker 1: and the sound of the bell above the door, which
Speaker 1: rang every time someone came in, a small, bright sound
Speaker 1: that said you are not alone. There are others. The
Speaker 1: store is open. Thomas stayed for three months. He found
Speaker 1: work at the hardware store on Elm Street. He rented
Speaker 1: a room above the laundromat. He still came to the
Speaker 1: grocery every evening, but now he came to buy things
Speaker 1: he actually needed, bread and milk and the good coffee
Speaker 1: that Gus kept on the top shelf. He smiled. Now,
Speaker 1: it was a cautious smile, the kind that took its time,
Speaker 1: but it was real, and Gus was glad to see it.
Speaker 1: On the night that Thomas told him he was moving
Speaker 1: to an apartment across town, a real apartment with a
Speaker 1: kitchen and a window that faced east, Guss shook his
Speaker 1: hand and said, I am glad you fag your way here.
Speaker 1: Thomas said, the bell above the door. I hear it
Speaker 1: sometimes when I am walking home. It is the best
Speaker 1: sound I know. Guss turned the sign on the door
Speaker 1: from open to closed. He swept the floor. He turned
Speaker 1: off the lights one by one until only the street
Speaker 1: light outside remained, casting a long yellow rectangle across the linoleum.
Speaker 1: He locked the door and stood on the step for
Speaker 1: a moment, looking up at the sky. The stars were out,
Speaker 1: faint and scattered, like salt thrown on a dark table.
Speaker 1: The canal was silent. A dog barked once far away,
Speaker 1: and then was still. He walked home. The streets were empty,
Speaker 1: the houses were dark, except for a few windows that
Speaker 1: glowed with late night light, televisions and reading lamps, and
Speaker 1: the blue shimmer of screens. He liked this walk. He
Speaker 1: liked the way the town felt at night, the way
Speaker 1: it held its breath, the way it trusted him to
Speaker 1: keep the store open just a little longer than any
Speaker 1: one else. At home, he made tea and sat in
Speaker 1: his chair and did not open a book or turn
Speaker 1: on the television. He just sat listening to the quiet,
Speaker 1: thinking about the store and the bell, and the people
Speaker 1: who came through the door, one by one, carrying their
Speaker 1: small needs and their large sorrows, looking for warmth and
Speaker 1: light and a paper bag folded into a neat square.
Speaker 1: He closed his eyes. The quiet held him. He slept