The Newsstand, Part 1
The newsstand had been sitting on the square for as long as anyone could remember, which isn’t really saying much since in these brave early days of the new century “as long as anyone could remember” usually means a month. So let’s try a different way to communicate the age of the place.
The newsstand had been sitting on the square since 1923. To complicate matters further, it had been decades since it was just a newsstand. Within a decade or so after it opened the owners had built on a lunch counter, then sometime in the 1950’s they began running a car service out of the back parking lot. That was the heyday of the place: the bland and optimistic mid 20th century. By the time Carl took up residence on the end stool at the lunch counter with his back resting against the faux-pine paneled wall next to a tied stack of last Sunday’s papers the lunch counter had stopped serving lunch and instead sold pre-wrapped cakes and middling-quality coffee poured into paper cups from a Bunn-o-matic of indeterminate age. You know the kind, it could’ve been built any time after the Bronze Age and the owner typically keeps a plastic lid from one of the coffee cups on top of the carafe sitting on the top burner to keep flies from taking a final, fatal caffeinated plunge.
Carl was one of the few who were allowed a seat at the counter as he spent sufficient coin on both reading material and beverages. The owner was an old crustacean named Pat who spent most of his day yelling “This isn’t a goddamned library” at kids who congregated around comic-book racks when he wasn’t yelling “This isn’t a goddamned bank” at people who came in looking to get change for the parking meters without buying anything. Of course, if there really wasn’t anything the parker wanted to buy Pat would generously supply three quarters for a dollar noting that he had to offset the costs of purchasing change from the bank, finishing with a cheerful “take it or leave it”. Given the amount of desperate motorists who “took it” Pat probably was technically the recipient of a government subsidy though he certainly never reported his change-giving profits to Uncle Sam.
There were a few other regulars who sat around the mostly-disused lunch counter at the time Carl was there. He knew them but not particularly well; any talk was small talk concerning the headlines, the weather, or neighborhood gossip. Carl wasn’t a big talker or very sociable, but he enjoyed the regulars who came into the place and Pat was certainly better entertainment than what Carl could find on his battered old Zenith TV. Pat’s gravelly yelling, the squeaky stool, the crackling linoleum and the creaking paneling felt more like home than home itself.
One morning after the morning pre-work rush of newspaper and coffee buyers had passed Carl settled onto the stool with his usual three newspapers and a large coffee when Pat wandered over and said “Heard about the robbery at the liquor store?”
“Yeah”
“I wish those pricks would try that stuff here.”
“Why?”
By way of reply Pat reached into a cabinet behind the counter that had probably held plates when the place was a fully functioning luncheonette and pulled out a handgun.
Carl didn’t know anything about guns and cared even less but to be polite he gave a low whistle and said “Nice”.
“Not to those robbing bastards if they try to come in here.” With that comment, Pat returned the gun to its hiding place.
Carl went back to reading his papers.
The newsstand had been sitting on the square since 1923. To complicate matters further, it had been decades since it was just a newsstand. Within a decade or so after it opened the owners had built on a lunch counter, then sometime in the 1950’s they began running a car service out of the back parking lot. That was the heyday of the place: the bland and optimistic mid 20th century. By the time Carl took up residence on the end stool at the lunch counter with his back resting against the faux-pine paneled wall next to a tied stack of last Sunday’s papers the lunch counter had stopped serving lunch and instead sold pre-wrapped cakes and middling-quality coffee poured into paper cups from a Bunn-o-matic of indeterminate age. You know the kind, it could’ve been built any time after the Bronze Age and the owner typically keeps a plastic lid from one of the coffee cups on top of the carafe sitting on the top burner to keep flies from taking a final, fatal caffeinated plunge.
Carl was one of the few who were allowed a seat at the counter as he spent sufficient coin on both reading material and beverages. The owner was an old crustacean named Pat who spent most of his day yelling “This isn’t a goddamned library” at kids who congregated around comic-book racks when he wasn’t yelling “This isn’t a goddamned bank” at people who came in looking to get change for the parking meters without buying anything. Of course, if there really wasn’t anything the parker wanted to buy Pat would generously supply three quarters for a dollar noting that he had to offset the costs of purchasing change from the bank, finishing with a cheerful “take it or leave it”. Given the amount of desperate motorists who “took it” Pat probably was technically the recipient of a government subsidy though he certainly never reported his change-giving profits to Uncle Sam.
There were a few other regulars who sat around the mostly-disused lunch counter at the time Carl was there. He knew them but not particularly well; any talk was small talk concerning the headlines, the weather, or neighborhood gossip. Carl wasn’t a big talker or very sociable, but he enjoyed the regulars who came into the place and Pat was certainly better entertainment than what Carl could find on his battered old Zenith TV. Pat’s gravelly yelling, the squeaky stool, the crackling linoleum and the creaking paneling felt more like home than home itself.
One morning after the morning pre-work rush of newspaper and coffee buyers had passed Carl settled onto the stool with his usual three newspapers and a large coffee when Pat wandered over and said “Heard about the robbery at the liquor store?”
“Yeah”
“I wish those pricks would try that stuff here.”
“Why?”
By way of reply Pat reached into a cabinet behind the counter that had probably held plates when the place was a fully functioning luncheonette and pulled out a handgun.
Carl didn’t know anything about guns and cared even less but to be polite he gave a low whistle and said “Nice”.
“Not to those robbing bastards if they try to come in here.” With that comment, Pat returned the gun to its hiding place.
Carl went back to reading his papers.
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