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A Joe

Kenneth Weene

    “They must have kicked him out last night.” People milled around talking in confused bursts.
    “He was open yesterday.”
    No one seemed to know where else to go for their morning fix of coffee, newspapers, and smokes. Joe had been a fixture for over three years. The store, marked only with a generic bodega sign, had been there much longer.
    Inside was a single aisle. One side ran the counter, behind which Joe dispensed good coffee, soft drinks, ice cream, cigarettes, candy bars, newspapers, change, and – when business was slow enough – advice on life and the ponies. The other side held shelves on which essentials like cat food and catsup, mayonnaise and canned soup were arrayed in no particular order. In the back stood the cooler with milk and juice. “I wish they’d let me sell beer,” Joe had complained, “then maybe I could actually pay the rent.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Probably the cops.”
    “Why?”
    “You ask a lot of questions.”
    For a while comments flew back and forth. Then the crowd thinned; people moved on. Jobs were waiting; the periodic roars and rushes of hot air from the subway vent on the corner reminded people there were trains to catch.
    By midmorning only Mrs. Rosenbloom and Mr. Hernandez remained. Pensioners, they had nowhere else to be.
    “He’s been here a long time, Sadie,” Thormas said
    “Over three years. Nice guy.”
    “Liked to tell stories about the army. Served in the Gulf.”
    “And about his girlfriends,” Sadie added.
    “A regular guy,” Thormas observed.
    Folks’ll remember him.”
    “Maybe. Tell me, Sadie, do you remember the last one?”
    She thought for a moment. “No. Do you?”
    “I don’t think so. After a while we won’t remember Joe neither.”
    “I suppose not. Where do they go? What happens? It seems unfair.”
    “Strange,” Thormas Hernandez added, “the way a guy can disappear.”
    “That, too.”
     “You think somebody will take his place?” Sadie asked.
    “Of course. They can’t afford to let good locations stand empty.” Thormas was looking at his watch. His television show would be starting soon.
    “Who? Who can’t?”
    “I don’t know, Sadie. Look, I got to go. I think they call it the Iron Hand.”
    “You mean like a crime family?”
    Thormas shrugged his shoulders and shuffled away.
    Sadie wandered off in the other direction. The morning rush of regulars at the corner bodega was over.
    Matt Jones from Ace Realty came by with a crew of illegals. They gave the place a quick clean and away. A sign taped in the window: Store For Rent with a number written in marker underneath.
    The building’s owner raised the rent.
    “The next guy’s gonna want to sell beer or something. Something with a better turnover,” Matt pointed out.
    “Tell him we’ll look into it,” the owner of Ace instructed.
    “But we won’t?”
    “Not with the supermarket down the block. They’d give me hell. Got to keep the big dogs happy.”
    “So the next guy...?”
    “Dead before he walks in the door.” The realtor pulled a puff on his thick cigar. “Course he won’t know it till he’s broke and evicted.”
    “Poor sucker. Doesn’t seem fair,” Matt commented with a smirk.
    “Nothing personal. Just what they call the iron hand of economics.”
    “So where is Joe?” Matt asked. “Where does a guy like that go?”
    “Think I care?” The big man blew a cloud of smoke in his employee’s face. “You start asking questions like that, you turn into a Joe, too.”

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