Harlem Bodega Blues
A day in the life of a bodega attendant — navigating the everyday struggles of the community and her life.
Fiction | Long Form | Voices In My Head | Soundtrack
Candice hummed the words to I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free by Nina Simone as she slid the key into the bodega’s lock, her fingers stiff from the early morning chill.
Her store stood on the corner of 135th and Lenox, its neon “Open” sign flickering half-heartedly 24/7, even when that was a lie. Well, it was not her store, but she worked here. She’d been here before the sun for the past ten years, through every kind of Harlem morning—rain, snow, and the heavy heat of summer.
Today, the thin felt sharp, like the city was holding its breath away from its residents. Candice rubbed her hands together and looked to the left, right and over her shoulders. It seems so quiet this morning, she thought before she opened the door and flicked on the lights.
Inside, the bodega felt like her second skin. Candice exhaled and relaxed her shoulders. She knew every inch of the place — the dusty shelves, the whirr of the coolers, the creaky floorboards behind the counter. This store, her little kingdom, had taught her more than any classroom could.
Her mother used to tell her, “Maya Angelou said, ‘You must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. Some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.’ You know more than them bougie gentrifiers, Candice.”
Her mother’s words were always flat and matter-of-fact, spoken like a shield against a world that never seemed to offer much to women like them. It was the only quote her mother knew, it seemed. She used it to explain away any and everything quite effectively. Candice could still hear her, clear as day, that raspy voice cutting through her doubts.
“You don’t need their new clothes or brownstone apartments to know what matters,” her mother would say when Candice came home from school, frustrated by the girls in her class who had the latest outfits and the smooth confidence that came with having everything handed to them. Those girls didn’t have to worry about what happened when the lights went out at home or how to stretch the last of the groceries until the end of the week.
Candice envied them. She envied their ease, the way they glided through life with smooth, aloof discontent. There was a time when she wished she was just like them, when she thought, If my mother had a little more money, I might feel like I belonged in their world. But then she would feel bad about and for her mother.
She thought that perhaps doing well in school could fix the social imbalance. But no matter how hard she worked to get straight As, she never felt like enough, and she never felt seen by the world.
Her mother saw her, though.
Many times, the middle-aged woman seemed engrossed in preparing dinner. Her calloused fingers rubbed the white off the rice under the thin, hesitant stream of water from the kitchen faucet. Just then, she would call Candice over her shoulder. “Don’t let them fool you, baby,” she’d say. “Them girls might look like they got it all together, but they don’t know half of what you do. We had to work for everything. And that makes us smarter.”
Candace knew that was the cue — she would stride over to her mother and stand beside her. Taller than her since she crossed her fifteenth year, she stared down at her mother as rice grains slipped through her fingers, a calming ritual she never rushed.
⬆️ 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝙵𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚜 ⬇️ 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝙿𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚜 ˋ°•*⁀➷