Fairy tales are filled with nocturnal characters. A goodly chunk of them are servants or guardians of some sort: They shine shoes and fill them with chocolates. They craft ball gowns for orphaned princesses. That sort of thing.
The real world at night, it has servants and guardians, too.
Police, other first responders, watchmen and -women have to take a more cynical attitude because (a) there are fewer of them and (b) malevolent forces hide in the dark.
Not everyone on the street at night is a threat, but night people have their quirks. Some start that way; some evolve.
Though I’m mildly nyctophobic, I worked on night shifts for almost three decades. I’m a news editor and designer; at night is when my work got done. I chose the profession. The schedule chose me.
Before online banking or convenience banking, I chafed at the 10-to-3 bankers hours that were the norm. Stores, businesses, professionals open 9 to 5 or 8 to 4? Yeah, I was no fan of those, either.
But the all-night Pathmark supermarket? That was a blessing.
RIP, Pathmark.
At 2 a.m. back then, you saw workers stocking the shelves with items the ad circular had promised 18 hours before but the store failed to display on time. This crew had a tight-knit camaraderie, and yet as individuals they presented as lone wolves.
Quirky.
Customers mostly grabbed the stray product or two they’d need for the kids’ breakfasts in four hours, or pre-sliced cold cuts for their own lunches, to be eaten around 9 p.m. Fellow night-shifters. You could tell the schedule had chosen them, as it did me.
The PJs people … young parents grabbing diapers or milk, older folks buying light bulbs.
Then there were the hard-core vampires.
Oh, these were not goth-looking folks, usually; more often than not they were in surgical scrubs or other uniforms. Tired, a bit worn and dirty, and clearly living their days upside-down.
These folks, you see, had full shopping carts, with a week or more’s worth of everything from apples to zinc supplements.
These folks … I’ve always admired them. Some clearly are working multiple jobs for the betterment of their families. Some are working a schedule opposite a partner so there’s an adult around the house always.
It’s not a fairy tale for them, but they make it as close to a happily ever after for their families as they can.
