Convenient? For you and me, sure

Looking through things I’ve written, I stumbled upon something I blogged almost a decade ago. After a stop at a convenience store close to home, I had to put my thoughts into words:

Joe works the overnight shift at a nearby Circle K. When I lived in this neighborhood from 1999-2002, I met Joe after stopping in for a midnight snack or a roll of paper towels. He is the kind of cool I wouldn’t mind being: uncomplicated, unaffected, rushing for nobody and yet in no way a slacker. He works two, maybe three jobs to make ends meet.

I lived in an apartment in another neighborhood, then moved back here in October 2004. The first time I stopped at the ol’ Circle K after relocating, there was Joe, restocking between waves of customers.

This Circle K is in the crosshairs of a convergence of wildly different neighborhoods, a short walk from a highway exit fully capable of depositing drifters, across the street from an all-night bar no cop would care to investigate — and popular after midnight. I’ve seen people dancing in the parking lot to music playing on their car stereos. I’ve seen fights. I’ve seen people drive up and just sit in their cars, waiting … for what?

I worry about Joe. Late-night crime documentaries are rife with security-camera video of convenience-store robberies and murders. This is the reason I prefer the term “overnight shift” to the more common version when I talk about Joe.

Often I wonder why anyone would want to work there. Then I realize Joe is probably like most in that he doesn’t have many other options. Every time I hear about a robbery at a convenience store, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before this Circle K gets hit. Would Joe be one of the lucky ones and escape harm? Would his gentle, unflappable cool save him or make him more vulnerable?

Nothing I buy there is all that essential to my life. Sometimes I marvel at how Joe could be putting his life on the line on any night he goes behind the counter, and I don’t take for granted that he is there when I walk in to buy something I don’t need or something that could usually wait until morning. It’s a strange feeling Joe could be harmed for a fistful of money that could include my little contribution.

Maybe there is just something morbid about my mind late at night, but each time I leave the store I think about Joe’s position and wish him well, and I hope I see him again next time.

This piece has echoes for me today, two time zones away from where I wrote that. The convenience store on my way home from work these days is even closer to this apartment, so it’s very convenient. Instead of a Circle K, it’s a 7-Eleven. I can walk there, and have, sometimes late at night when I want something but shouldn’t drive because I’m not wearing my contact lenses. The late-night walk is refreshing, even in a light drizzle.

I don’t know the names of the people who work there, but they’re all friendly. Sometimes we chat for a few minutes before I leave, and that occasionally means I get to see aspects of their jobs I wouldn’t want to deal with — rude or drunk (or stoned) customers who won’t take no for an answer, or who spill something on the floor, or who try to circumvent store policy (or the law), and so forth. This store, like the Circle K, is near a highway, and there is regular pedestrian traffic past it. One night, a guy came in wanting to recharge the tracking device he’s legally required to wear. There’s a State Patrol station within walking distance, so the overnight clerk recommended he go there to plug in the device. I don’t know if he did.

During my chats, I’ve learned a few things about store security practices, and about the precautionary procedures law enforcement uses — when stopping at a convenience store — to head off or minimize potential incidents that could affect bystanders. It’s knowledge that gives me a deeper appreciation for what these officers do every day on the job.

(Another thing that struck me when I read my old post again was how many people I knew, and know, named Joe — all of them great guys. Joe at the Circle K. Joe the barber. Joe the gas station owner. Joe my former co-worker. Joe my nephew. Joseph the New Orleans transplant living in the Pacific Northwest and making good Southern and Cajun food that’s perfectly seasoned and soothes the savage homesick beast. And those are but a few Joes.)

Once again, although in a different part of the country and in a different type of neighborhood, every time I think about the convenience of such a place, I think about the risk the people who work there take every day and night they are there earning a living.

And I’m always glad the next time I see them.