Alex seems almost endeared. “Yes,” he says. “24/7 means every day, every night, day and night.” He looks down at me from his counter, which is so high that if I stand on tiptoe I can put my chin on it. I never saw him leave his post at the quintessential New York corner store. The light is always on.
But I’m not one to catch. “What about Thanksgiving?”
“We’ll be open then.”
Christmas? ‘Open.’
Easter? “Open too.”
July 4th? Sugar festival? On New Year’s Eve, exactly at midnight? Alex sighs. ‘What I say: we are open 24/7.’
The last time he closed his Brooklyn Gourmet Deli, he says, was during the vicious Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Closed for one day after New York police officers forced him to do so. The grill, an even higher counter next to him that requires you to stretch your neck to order, hiss permanently.
I can’t hide my excitement.
I still sometimes think of them: the Italian couple who once accosted me on the square in front of Amsterdam Central Station. It was three o’clock during the week, they had just got off the train and circled back to the station after a journey through a dark, closed city. Despair in their look. Wasn’t this party city Amsterdam? Why was everything closed?
I didn’t have the answer.
They kept trying. Were coffee shops open anywhere? “All closed.” bar? club? Need a student association? ‘Closed.’ And night shops, they must be there, right? ‘We have night shops. But they are also closed.’ I referred them to McDonald’s, maybe, I didn’t actually know.
As a self-proclaimed night owl, I sympathized with them. Over the years, I’ve come to see the idea of 24/7 as a utopia: something magical, imaginary, not an actual promise. As a student I heard rumors about a cafe in Groningen that would never close. I do not know if it’s right. The night is often quiet in the Occident.
No, then here. Alex’s case is no exception. This applies not only to New York, the archetypal metropolis, but to many places in the US. Like this neighborhood store, there are already two in our short street. The dive bar, from diner, the patisserie, pharmacy, cinema, electronics store, food truck, subway, every reception, that one gym that I’ve vowed to join for two months: they stay open, open, open.
“Thank you,” I pop out from the counter, as if thanking a veteran for serving. Alex shakes his head.
I don’t use it much, weeks later. More and more often I turn out to be more of a night person. Then I just crawl into bed around midnight, turn on my side and just before I sink down I feel a little smile curl around my lips, because I know if I want, and I don’t want at all, but if I want to , whatever: it is possible.
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