Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

West 9th Street News

The sign hung over the door, one side facing north and one side south, was small, blue neon script announcing "West 9th Street News." The scantily-dressed mannequin and womannequin in the window clued in the passer-by about what might be found through the painted-gray door, Marlboro sign in the window and a small black metal sign with white lettering screwed to the left of the door handle just below the window telling the passer-by, "MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER."

The store is open 24 hours; so, people can get "cigarettes" any time of the day or night. Three people work there, one on each eight-hour shift, the corpulent, white guy standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, the oversized, black guy standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, and the rotund, white woman standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth.

In the early morning, the men and women smoking outside the employment agency next door, waiting to be called to work that day, will be engaged by whichever West 9th Street News employee might be standing in the doorway, the omnipresent cigarette bouncing up and down as he or she converses.

The West 9th Street News is no more. Understand me, the store is still there. In the window, he wears a pair of white silk boxers with red hearts, bulge in place; and she wears a red, filmy chiffon top tied at the neck with red poms, a small white heart on a triangle of red silk strategically placed below the waist.

And the sign on the gray door tries to bar those under the age of 18 from entering still. The neon inside, allowing for easy navigation by those who venture through the door and advertising the store's hard wares, DVD's, and other items that might arouse the interest of those who pass by, still brightens the interior. And the employees haven't changed, except that she wears a dark-colored sweater, torn at the left elbow, in the frigid air.

This past Friday, arching over the storefront, thrust out from the building over the sidewalk, not discreet, an atrocity, purple and orange, was erected, as if we really need to be told, but in stylish lower case:

adult mart

Posted by Bill at January 21, 2007 07:49 PM