by R. Passov
I went into a store the other day. An old man helped me pick out a pair of running shoes and, while doing so, thanked his friend for stopping by to ask how his health issue was coming along. The friend asked in such a way as to let it be known that the issue was something both fatal and not in a place that you would ever point to in public.
The old man who helped me to find the right running shoe, though infirm, had a doggedness about him. It wasn’t enough for me to say a pair fit comfortably. I had to demonstrate which meant jogging on a tired strip of astroturf set off against a far wall. I’m 67 years of age and not accustomed to running in front of an audience. And yet, I ran.
I ran in a store that had been frustrating to find. On a long street in a neighborhood that, once filled with small enterprises providing footholds to working class families dreaming of their next generation’s college graduations, looks like a stretched rubber band of mostly empty store fronts. Somewhere in that bland row of cheap, merchant glass is a hard-to-find half door under an awning shared with some other business not anywhere near retail running shoes.
You run on your toes, the old man said, as though it were the equivalent of saying that I’m not really a runner. And you pronate and the shoes you’re asking for are not the right shoes and your size is not an eleven but instead an 11.5. I ran in different pairs of shoes until he was satisfied.
As I was running, I felt a hard sadness that comes from knowing that shoe store will go the way of the old man, will be another loss in a long line and the old man knows this. He knows just as he’s dying of cancer, his brand of commerce is being strangled by Amazon.
From the archives, written around that last time I ordered something from Amazon:
I buy my gum from Amazon. I’m an Amazon Prime member and so order one piece at a time, which Amazon sends to my doorstop by drone. I get my cereal from them too, ordered by subscription, and fresh milk delivered by the same drone that sometimes brings my gum.
I love the farm fresh eggs, delivered three at a time, just as I need them for my three-egg omelet. I get shampoo in small packs and through the service on Apple Apps that allows data to be shared, I’ve connected my Tinder and Amazon profiles. With location access, say I’m leaving a bar on a good night, I swipe on Tinder and wherever I am, the Amazon drone delivers protection.
I read on Kindle when I’m not watching Transparent on Amazon Prime.
I love Amazon, but I do miss my old neighborhood. I miss the tailor who sold suits that didn’t fit. Sam from Italy who knew your measurements by sight, sat among piles of cloth threading his sewing machine that ran when he pressed a foot pedal until, somehow, out of a jumble of cloth came something that I could wear to work. A once-brown suit hung in his window until it shrunk in the sunlight, turned purple and looked more like pajamas.
I miss Daisy and Bob’s hardware store. No bigger than a small mountain cabin, they hung their wares from the rafters. If what you needed was simple, say a ¾ inch screw, why they were out of it. But if you needed a pressure sensitive valve for your very old boiler, which if you couldn’t find meant you’d have to replace your whole heating system, why they had that and the number of a friend that would help you fit the valve back into where the oil flowed.
Daisy and Bob’s son ran a local car wash for the four years that he played high school baseball. The proceeds were used to send the third-grade class to Danny’s Toy store and then to Mary-Ellen’s Home-made, Home-made candy store.
Danny’s gone. Closed his store. Went back to his father’s farm and the family shop where the wooden toys were made: the fire engines, tug boats, cranes, cement trucks, dumpsters, front loaders all of which worked off of fine, hand-made gears.
Mary-Ellen closed her store just after Danny went back to the farm. Home-made, home-made, the best kind she said, was just getting too hard to make. Why she couldn’t find anyone to string out the rainbow taffy in the window or hand-turn the crank that mixed licorice with butter and sugar to make her favorite caramel or pour the molten chocolate into the molds that her grandfather had made by hand, back in Austria, before the war to end all wars.
No one’s moved into Mary-Ellen’s place so the Home-made, Home-made (it’s the best kind) sign is still out front above the store.
Two Albanian barbers are now in the place where Danny had his toys. They only offer crew cuts, but that’s ok.
There’s a nail salon where Daisy and Bob’s store was, the place that only had what you needed if you needed it really badly. Miss Missy’s Nails, Done better Than You, the sign says, so come have your nails done. You can get your toes done too, and for extra money, Miss Missy will pull hair from your private parts, both men and women (although that’s not on the sign.)
The tailor shop is also a barbershop and next to that is a beauty parlor and next to that a massage parlor, also owned by Miss Daisy.
I was ok with all the changes going on and was getting used to the crew cuts from the Albanian barbers, each of which did one side so that usually your right side was just a little longer than your left.
Then Danny sent the card that said it’s all because of Amazon that everyone left. And that’s when it hit me. Wouldn’t it be nice if Daisy and Bob and Mary-Ellen were still in town?
So, I’m asking if Amazon could help. Maybe they could donate 5% of everything I buy back to my hometown. That way, Mary-Ellen, Daisy and Bob, Sam the Tailor and even Danny could keep their places open. Not selling anything of course, just decorating their windows and saying hi whenever I came to town to get a haircut or my nails done.