The Baltimore Atrocities by John Dermot Woods

Author:John Dermot Woods [Woods, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781566893794
Publisher: Coffee House Press

SALESMAN

AT TIMES WE WOULD FEEL particularly alienated during our year in Baltimore. At those times, it took the example of those residents who remained there, despite having little to anchor them, to inspire us to persist. For instance, there was a Greek man who held the lease on a storefront on Eastern Avenue, and for some unknown reason did not have to be concerned about a regular income, according to a friend who worked at the city chamber of commerce. He had been operating a “treat stand,” a store that purported to sell some kind of sweet, but indeed had not sold a single item in more than twenty years of operation, and, in fact, had never had a single item for purchase stocked on its shelves. The neighboring residents said that on most evenings, just after closing, the man closely inspected the empty shelves, apparently taking inventory, regularly noting things on a clipboard. My friend at the chamber of commerce said the man must have considered selling his business several years earlier, when he inquired at the local bank about having the value of his operation determined. Afraid of embarrassing him, the bank employee politely suggested that it would be more lucrative to operate the store himself, and he accepted this advice. At the height of the midsummer heat, for two weeks each year, he closed down the store and, according to a cardboard sign that hung in its window, traveled to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It was an escape from the doldrums, quiet, and oppressive humidity of August in Baltimore.

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