Safeway of the damned

They come out at night.

Maybe it's the glare of fluorescent lights, stark against the night, that draws them like moths. Maybe it's the easy promise of a 40 ouncer and a pack of smokes. Or maybe just because it's open all hours.

For whatever reason, the downtown Safeway in Portland, OR, between 10th and 11th on Jefferson, while plenty creepy during the day, gets really freaky at night. Just say "Psycho Safeway" or "Safeway of the Damned" or "Crack Safeway" to anyone in Portland and they'll know what you're talking about. It's the downtown Safeway that pulls in the night people, the cranksters, the junkies, the you-don't-have-to-go-home-but-you-can't-stay-here people. The ones who are at their peak when the day people sleep.

There's probably one in your town, too. You know what I'm talking about.

Now, I'm no class warrior or anything, I have no opinions either way about people of non-nothern european origin working anywhere in any job. But I have never been to a safeway where the deli was not manned by a cacophany of different ethnic backgrounds, none of them honkies.

I look to the right, further back into the deli area. Two more employees, both white. All three are clean, with well done hair cuts, clean uniforms, and no evidence of being welfare mommies or daddies. Rattled, I pay for my soda and await prole's emergence from the bathroom.

She does, and informs me of the creepiness there. I decline to investigate the mens room, certain that I'll be destroyed before I can return to the awaiting vehicle. She also, I can tell, notices the odd racial mix of the employees behind the deli counter, but instead of mentioning it, buys some Jo-Jos.

Soda and Jo-Jos obtained, we flee for our lives from the small pocket dimension which had taken up residence near the I-5's offramp.
I hope never to see such a scary sight again.