"Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot"

Everything was cool up until the summer that Liberty Avenue closed. More specifically the morning where it first occurred to many of them that maybe this company was no longer on the upswing. Their acting owner has just called a meeting, to announce the shuttering of their original location, which somehow endured in this town, in a beleaguered, not exactly great spot, from the late 1970s up until now. And also, oh yeah, that their president, Duane Hatley, who had received the news earlier than his employees, had just chosen to tender his resignation as well.

“I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” Duane told said acting owner, Rob Drake, a quote which has somehow already become common knowledge, and is basically disputed by no one, not even by the targeted individual himself — that it was said, anyway, though Rob would presumably disagree with its sentiment.

But they are a relatively strong cast of seasoned veterans, those assembled in this conference room, and nobody immediately freaks out. Even Liberty’s looming extinction, in fairness, isn’t exactly a news flash, although everyone had remained optimistic it might weather the storm. And meanwhile they have three other locations, all of which are performing somewhere in the range of fair to strong, their tiny chain has endured setbacks before. They will be okay.

Once the unavoidable vague if nervous giddiness associated with even bad news wears off, however, many will wonder what this means re their future president, then. Much subsequent hand wringing will ensue. Some muse that an outsider would represent the best thing for this company, while others opine that an outsider is about the last thing this company needs. And all the while their lame duck of a president admits that he really isn’t sure what he plans on doing after leaving this place, only that it isn’t this.

The very structure of this enterprise is an odd one, though it’s somehow worked, on a mostly uphill slope, for over 25 years. Bellwether Snacks, a wholesale operation shipping packaged goodies around the globe, was founded decades upon decades earlier by one Walter Locke, a former peanut vendor turned self-made multimillionaire. He and his faithful wife, Beatrice, both now safely in their late 70s yet still quite active, slowly increased their holdings and their spread across the years, to its current state of a half dozen distribution centers throughout the United States. In 1979, as a “hobby,” Beatrice persuaded Walter to let her open the Healthy Hippie Market, a funky little shop on a major thoroughfare, in a major city. A store dedicated to the sort of lifestyle its name might imply — green, local, sustainable. Over the years the ol’ Healthy Hippie has undergone a mind-boggling array of permutations, until reaching this dim summer morning, and the announcement that its flagship store is, well, throwing in that flag.

Edgar arrived on the scene eight years and some change earlier, in yon sepia tinted January of two thousand and seven. In retrospect, it must have been obvious to everyone that he was slumming it. A lot of them were. His situation revolves around having just moved to this state, and grabbing the first tangible offering he could find. So yeah, the pay’s not great, but he’s not complaining — he kind of likes this kooky little mom and pop operation. And when thinks back upon these early days, his thoughts inevitably lead to his first curated trek around their Palmyra outpost.

“If you think this place is dysfunctional,” Corey Brown is telling him, guiding Edgar through this meandering tour, “you should see it at inventory time. I think they find these people 4 in the morning at the bowling alley.”

Corey Brown is the assistant store manager at Palmyra. His incongruous appearance matches that of Palmyra’s, which has nothing in common with either of its big city stores to the south. Towering and burly both, in the Paul Bunyan model, and often even dressing the part. Big on the corduroy pants and the flannel shirts, for instance. But with a curly mop of bright orange hair and matching goatee, as though Bunyan’s distant Irish cousin.

So he escorts this latest hire, Edgar, about the premises, to point out various highlights, challenges, and possible future projects. Palmyra is one of the wealthiest per capita little hamlets in this region, an enclave of upper-class white people, as far as its residential base. But it’s also a college town. Hence, this outpost attempts catering to both demographics, somewhat. Only somewhat because, as is often the case during tours like these, what he is being “officially” shown is probably not all that important…but a lot of the background noise, so to speak, the stuff Edgar’s seeing elsewhere he suspects just might be.

Like, okay, this Palmyra location apparently just cleared out the utility room two weeks ago, to make room for a new water tank. Outside, on the concrete slab of a back dock, they’ve set a table that looks like maybe it was stolen from a laundromat, out there to rot, next to some empty greeting card racks, items that were apparently in the utility room, prior to this. Random weird objects are just lying on the floor in the hallway, such as a paring knife, and a shrimp fork, though it’s unclear whether these precede the new water tank or not. Yet even for a shop with Hippie in its store name, these seem like odd touches for this demographic, this lack of concern for appearances.

Then again, this is all stuff behind the curtain, really, which the average customer wouldn’t see. So this old hot plate tossed casually aside by the ice machine, or old wooden baskets, and ugly white foot cases with black matting which nearly block the back door are maybe not that big of a deal.

Some of the decisions limiting their work spaces are a bit more puzzling, however. The produce department’s back room is almost entirely taken up by twin rows of shopping carts, which cashiers are apparently halfway through re-stickering in their spare time. Carts obtained on a deal from some other grocery store, which admittedly do look pretty decent. A folding table has been casually laid atop some of these, as a clever workaround to the space crunch, which in turn has become a convenient catch all for stacking crap. Meanwhile, in the meat/deli department, one of their walk-in coolers is blocked by a rack of heavy white smocks, which nobody can apparently find another place for. Whenever they need to get in there, they move it out of the way, and then slide it back.

Edgar does wonder what the health department might think about that one, but he isn’t an expert on these matters. And anyway it’s none of his business, nor one of his concerns. It’s a bit odd, though, that the assistant store manager is describing this place as dysfunctional, with a rueful laugh, as if out of his hands — but then again, Edgar thinks he already digs this lowkey establishment much better than the corporate world he left behind. And Corey’s attitude surely reflects this laidback atmosphere, high priced all-natural market or not. And possibly the all-hands-on-deck mentality they either encourage or have no choice but to accept here: like how the water tank has already flooded twice in just two weeks, and their company president, Duane Hatley, went around installing replacement floor tiles himself. They were without hot water for a day and a half at this store, however, calling into question perhaps whether this water tank was actually “new.”