The all-night Pathmark had an ambiance and a community all its own.
Well, maybe “community” is stretching it. At 2 a.m., the Pathmark had an assortment of fellow travelers who only slightly acknowledged each other’s presence as they scooped up everything from the cliché bread and milk to a full week’s — or full fortnight’s — load of groceries.
Those folks — often, myself included — qualified as visitors, or as casual members of the aforementioned community. The permanent “residents” — shelf stockers, Michelle the cashier who did other stuff but I’m not sure what, truck unloaders — to them, Pathmark in the wee hours was their temple.
People who work at night, or whose jobs start at zero dark thirty or end at bar-closing time, might as well be elves, considering how they’re often viewed. What they do seems to happen magically, reliably, predictably. Often quite creatively. Just as often, not. And that’s OK. It’s all necessary.
Think about who those folks are. We’ve met the Pathmark natives; the visitors included women in surgical scrubs, men and women ostensibly in the custodial field, the occasional peace office or first responder, new parents (usually dads) lost in the baby food aisle, fashionably dressed commuter-type people, and past-deadline journalists.
Every one of them — every one of us — are doing something at night so the rest of the world can function during the day.
Though it’s been years since I worked the evening or night shift steadily, I still come alive after the sun goes down. It’s odd, considering I have … well, not exactly a fear of the dark, but a low, unconscious dread of what may lurk in the uncertainty that darkness engenders.
I find I’m most creative and most productive under artificial light, the gloom barely an arm’s length away. Other people draw more deeply into their own selves as any given day winds down, which offers me the solitude I need to concentrate most fully.
I love people, but, oh, that Cone of Silence!
I think again of the night crew at the late, lamented Pathmark.
I was in the store more than once when Michelle announced lunch break (hey, it’s lunch when it’s in the middle of your day, regardless of what hours you consider to be your day). But unlike the chatty, energetic midday meals shared by coworkers I came to see in my 9-to-5 days, the night guys scattered, ate quietly, and with their body language threw a DMZ around themselves.
Which made me review the others in the store. Most of them, and especially the regulars, had portable DMZs around themselves. Not antisocial, but asocial.
Because this was their time, whether by choice in the first place or by making the best of the situation.
Some social scientists say that we need alone time in amounts that correspond directly with how deeply, how intensely we absorb the world around us, and especially how deeply we connect with other people, how much of their crosses we help them carry.
That may well explain it: This disconnection, enabled by a night schedule, can help people be better spouses, parents, friends, children of the Almighty. I prefer to believe this, and not that those people are cranky sourpusses.
Of course, with the store long gone, I’ll never know for sure.
