Nonfiction / Rosa Sophia Godshall 

 

:: Writing the Nightshift ::

I work grave­yard shift at a gro­cery store, stock­ing shelves. In the evening I lace up my steel-toed boots and don my black trench coat, tug­ging a skull-and-cross­bones beanie over my ears. I tuck my note­book under my arm and walk into the dark out­side my mother’s house in rur­al Penn­syl­va­nia where skele­tal trees coat­ed in ice bend over the driveway.

In the car, I warm up the engine, turn on the heat, lis­ten to Jim­my Cliff singing about sail­ing along the coast. I clock in at the gro­cery store at ten p.m., meet­ing my boss at the door to his office. “Big truck tonight,” he says. “Bet­ter get to work.”

Under the glow of flu­o­res­cent lights, I walk to aisle nine. The same fif­teen songs will play on repeat all night on the over­head stereo sys­tem, but as time goes by, I won’t even notice. It’s a 24-hour store, but few peo­ple arrive to inter­rupt my silence. There’s the drone of an elec­tric pal­let jack as some­one drags stacks of prod­uct into the back aisle for me and my cowork­ers to unload and shelve; occa­sion­al con­ver­sa­tions between the five of us on our small crew; the thunk, thunk of box­es hit­ting the floor.

I tuck my note­book and pen between stacks of pack­aged nap­kins and paper towels.

What if I write a mys­tery nov­el about a girl who works night­shift in a gro­cery store? How is her life dif­fer­ent than mine? How would she han­dle such a situation?

*

My lap­top died last night. It was my first. I got it out of a shed behind my friend Woody’s house. His father served in the mil­i­tary and dur­ing the ear­ly 2000s col­lect­ed and donat­ed com­put­ers to ser­vice­men in Iraq. But he wound up with so many—most of them flawed or bro­ken, with loose hinges or cracked screens—the U.S. Army start­ed refus­ing them.

        “Dad leaves the door open,” Woody said, “hop­ing some­one will rob him.”

My first lap­top is an Idea­Pad with a faulty key­board. All the lap­tops in the shed are stamped by com­pa­nies that pre­vi­ous­ly owned them. And most of them are trash—no bet­ter than donat­ing expired canned goods to a char­i­ty dri­ve. I plug in a key­board and mouse and use the lap­top until one day an Inter­net virus takes hold and some­one halfway across the globe gains remote access, plung­ing the screen into blackness. 

When I was a kid, some­body gave my fam­i­ly an old green-screen word proces­sor. I wrote my first nov­el on it, the words print­ing dot-matrix on con­tin­u­ous sta­tion­ary paper.

At mid­night on break at the gro­cery store, I tell one of my cowork­ers, Jim—also known as the Cat Man—about my first trip to a Best Buy com­put­er depart­ment, before the free lap­top. I just want­ed anoth­er word proces­sor. Instead, I saw brand new lap­tops with more func­tions than I need­ed and signs adver­tis­ing fast con­nec­tion speeds, high-def­i­n­i­tion screens and modems built for gam­ing. That was 2006, my first year at the gro­cery store. I was 20.

        “I want to switch back to a type­writer,” I tell Jim.

The Cat Man drops a cig­a­rette to the pave­ment, putting it out with the sole of his shoe. “I might have one for you,” he says.

The fol­low­ing night, he brings me a Sears elec­tric. We’re all stand­ing out­side on break again. I’m rear­rang­ing fire­wood on a log pile to serve as a makeshift arm­chair. I sit between two pal­lets of propane, my steel-toed boots dan­gling over the con­crete. To my left, my best friend Jeff—who helped me get this job a year ago—leans against a line of shop­ping carts and lights a New­port. Jeff, in a zip­pered hood­ie with the design of a skele­ton embla­zoned across the front, watch­es Jim open the case, reveal­ing the typewriter.

        “I wrote all my col­lege essays on this,” Jim says, light­ing a cigarette.

Near­by, Ron—who’s giv­en Jim his nickname—crosses his arms over his chest. “Them things are gonna kill you, Cat Man,” he says.

Ron’s called the Rab­bit, and he says it’s because he hops and skips down the back aisle, stock­ing juice and box­es of cere­al. Ron is 60, old­er than Jim by at least 11 or 12 years. But because he chain-smokes and has a scruffy, gray­ing beard, Jim looks a lot older.

Jim ignores Ron, looks at me. “Any­way,” he says, nod­ding to the type­writer, “enjoy it in good health.”

*

On my day off, I sit at my desk in the apart­ment I share with my broth­er Miles, who also works night­shift, but at a dif­fer­ent store. I turn on the type­writer, pour a shot of 100-proof Old Grand­dad, and begin to write. I write for hours. The type­writer breaks the silence of the night. It’s so loud it makes the floor of the small apart­ment trem­ble, and every time the car­riage flies to the left, it catch­es itself with a resound­ing thunk and clang, the motor groaning.

        “God­damn it!” Miles shouts. “Will you turn that fuck­ing thing off? I can’t sleep.”

        “Let me fin­ish this chap­ter,” I tell him, but I write for hours until I’m drunk and Miles is still curs­ing on the oth­er side of the paper-thin wall. Noth­ing can stop me.

Years lat­er, I’ll real­ize I stopped writ­ing so spon­ta­neous­ly. The excite­ment dis­ap­peared, replaced by a nag­ging fear I might be doing it wrong. Every writer at every craft lec­ture will tell you to build a writ­ing rou­tine, to have a set time and place, even if noth­ing appears on the page.

In 2006, we didn’t have smart­phones or social media. We had MySpace, but we had to log-in via com­put­er. My old lap­top didn’t sup­port Wi-Fi, so I had to con­nect by plug­ging in a Belkin wire­less note­book card. It was too much trou­ble to do it all the time, too cum­ber­some an act to con­tribute to any kind of addiction.

If we’re con­stant­ly inun­dat­ed by much more than is nec­es­sary to write, how can we cul­ti­vate a healthy writ­ing prac­tice? Are these devices drain­ing us, tak­ing away our cre­ative ener­gy? I’m still using a com­put­er, even if I write at a spe­cial desk or a cozy nook.

How can I relearn how to express my cre­ativ­i­ty with­out seek­ing some kind of per­mis­sion? Where’s the sep­a­ra­tion, or is the space I’ve made just an illusion?

*

Ron calls me Lit­tle Mama. My 1995 Hyundai Accent has a stick­er on the back that says, “My oth­er car is a broom,” so he dubs it the Witch Mobile.

As the win­ter deep­ens, the tem­per­a­ture drops and it’s too cold to sit out­side. Those des­per­ate for a cig­a­rette bun­dle up and brave the frigid mid­night, but I sit inside on a wood­en bench by the phar­ma­cy. Ron ambles up to join me. Sci­at­i­ca forces him to walk with an uneven gait, and he wears a red cap to hide what’s left of his wispy hair. He looks tired.

        “Hey, Lit­tle Mama.” He nods to the bench. “You wait­in’ for the bus to Dirtyville?”

        “You know it,” I tell him. “Want to join me?”

He laughs and takes a seat. He’s harm­less. But the dayshift peo­ple aren’t so sure, and Ron’s been report­ed more than once for fol­low­ing young women around the store. “The bus to Dirtyville” is a Ronism I’m hap­py to accommodate.

For a short time, in the ear­ly part of the night, a woman or two will work the self-check­out, and they’ll think I’m strange for befriend­ing Ron. It’s clear on their faces. Maybe they imag­ine I’m vul­ner­a­ble, the only young girl on the grave­yard shift.

From the self-check­out, Vic­ki glances over and rais­es an eye­brow. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a pony­tail. I wave to her, laughing.

I ask Ron how he’s doing and he tells me about his cat, an orange tab­by named Elmer. He tells me about his ail­ing mother—he takes care of her—and he men­tions his old­er sis­ter and how he doesn’t get along with her.

Some­times, Ron talks about his time in the ser­vice. Long before he was dis­charged from the mil­i­tary, he worked, and worked hard. His life hasn’t been easy. He just wants to be accept­ed for who he is. So do I. Maybe that’s why we under­stand each other.

Break ends and we all go back to work. Lat­er, when our night man­ag­er Chris does the order­ing, he stomps down the back aisle shak­ing his head.

        “What’s wrong?” I ask.

        “Ron can’t see a god­damn thing, so he’s putting the juice in all the wrong places. I have to fix it,” he says, head­ing for the back room.

I step to the end of the pet food aisle, glance toward cere­al and pro­duce. I can hear Ron talk­ing to him­self, curs­ing. I go back to stock­ing the last of the laun­dry detergent.

Ron’s eye­sight is a point of con­tention. He tries his best to extend his youth, and he’s still strong, muscling box­es from stacks of prod­uct. But the guys on the crew make fun of him, and this in itself iso­lates him—separates him from the rest. I feel for him.

At four o’clock break, I’m stand­ing with Ron and a cou­ple oth­er guys at the front of the store. Ron nods down an aisle toward two peo­ple stand­ing at the far end, close to the meat depart­ment. One of the cus­tomers is tall with long hair.

Ron nudges me, winks. “Look at her, eh? What do you think of that?”

        “Ron, that’s a man,” I tell him. I don’t mean to embar­rass him, but the guys over­hear, and soon they’re laugh­ing about it. Ron leans his head for­ward, cran­ing to see.

After work, I’m stand­ing out­side the store with Jeff while he smokes a cig­a­rette. I watch Ron climb into his Ford Ranger and put on a pair of thick-lensed glass­es. He doesn’t want any­one to know he needs them.

He’s not aware I can see him. There’s a sad­ness around his eyes, a frown at the cor­ner of his mouth as he starts the engine and talks to him­self. He turns his head, begins to back up.

        “See you,” I say to Jeff, who opens the door to his blue Hon­da Civic.

I climb into the Witch Mobile before Ron notices me watch­ing him. I want to safe­guard his fan­ta­sy, pro­tect him from the harsh onslaught of time and the jeers of our coworkers.

I want him to think I don’t know about his glasses.

*

Much lat­er, I’ll remem­ber how I wrote in the aisle at the gro­cery store and I’ll won­der what made me stop—what slowed this spon­ta­neous flow of cre­ative ener­gy. I’ll think of Ron sit­ting beside me on the bench by the phar­ma­cy and I’ll say, “I should write about that moment in time.” But I’m not sure where to start, yet.

I’m 32 and in grad­u­ate school when I learn the rules of writ­ing. I think back on my note­book at three a.m. in the gro­cery store, my type­writer and my Old Grand­dad whiskey. I wor­ry I’ve been doing it wrong all this time and nobody told me.

In a writ­ing work­shop, my pro­fes­sor says, “You can only break the rules once you under­stand them,” but I’m par­a­lyzed. How do I know when I’ve got there?

After class, I join my fel­low stu­dents in the park­ing lot. The sun is set­ting. “Some­times I wish I could go back and un-know all of this,” I tell them. “Maybe I was bet­ter off when I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t wor­ry about whether or not I was doing it right. I just wrote.”

In the course of con­ver­sa­tion, I tell my friends how I used to write in my note­book while work­ing the grave­yard shift. I tell them about Chris. “He’d walk down the aisle close to six a.m. and he’d shout, ‘Hur­ry the fuck up!’ No pre­ten­tion, no bull­shit. I miss that lev­el of honesty.”

My friend Michael adjusts his back­pack on his shoul­der. When he speaks, he knows what he’s talk­ing about—he’s been through a lot and he knows the blues. “When you’re on the bot­tom rung,” he says, “there’s no need for pretention.”

There’s some­thing else, though. I used to slap bumper stick­ers on my car, wear a chain-wal­let, curse and not care who was around. I used to dress how I want­ed with­out wor­ry­ing about what oth­er peo­ple thought. I was open about being pan­sex­u­al, queer—not car­ing if any­one knew. Some­where along the way, I stopped being hon­est with myself. I want­ed approval in what­ev­er form I could get it, and this meant sac­ri­fic­ing my per­son­al truth.

On the grave­yard shift, I can relax a lit­tle. The five of us hold noth­ing back, tell dirty jokes, mess around when the work is slow.

On the grave­yard shift, I devel­op a kind of openness—a crude sense of style. All of us on the night­shift are mis­fits. Where pub­lic school lim­it­ed my self-expres­sion, the grave­yard shift trashed all sense of decorum.

Some nights our small crew gath­ers in Chris’s office. He tells us sto­ries about his sex­u­al con­quests. He also tells us sto­ries about the gro­cery store. He nods to the see-through glass door.

        “This place is nasty,” he says. “They didn’t always have a glass door on the office. They switched them. You know why? You’d be sur­prised how many peo­ple used to fuck in here.”

I look around at the benign office, peer down at the arms of the chair I’m sit­ting on. “Jesus,” I say to myself.

The cov­er of night came with a kind of free­dom we didn’t have dur­ing the day. When the sun came up, it felt like the world rescind­ed the per­mis­sion of self-expression.

On the grave­yard shift, our small crew got away with things that would’ve been unac­cept­able else­where. What we talked about would’ve got us fired dur­ing the day. 

As the sun came up, the day man­ag­er crossed the park­ing lot straight­en­ing his tie. The bright over­head lights came on. The bak­ery man­ag­er tied his apron and slid fresh loaves into the oven, the smell drift­ing over the aisles. The cus­tomers entered the store, ush­er­ing in a dif­fer­ent world. A place in which I didn’t belong.

All these years lat­er, the same hes­i­tan­cies bub­ble up with­in me. Maybe I’m still hav­ing trou­ble being hon­est with myself. Maybe that’s why I feel par­a­lyzed in front of a blank page. I keep hav­ing recur­rent dreams in which Chris walks down the aisle with his order gun, scan­ning labels, curs­ing when he finds an error.

        “Hur­ry the fuck up,” he shouts, look­ing at the time. “Hur­ry the fuck up!”

In every dream, I’m rush­ing to stock prod­uct, and the box­es keep com­ing. I can’t seem to fin­ish. There’s too much to do and not enough time.

Even now, we’re still run­ning out of it—the years melt­ing like ice as the sun ris­es on a win­ter day out­side the gro­cery store.

After mid­night break, I hear the hum of the floor clean­er. Josef’s arrived. Josef is about five-foot-two with white hair and a salt-and-pep­per mus­tache. He push­es a big blue machine around the store, clean­ing the white tile until it sparkles.

I buy a small Uzbe­ki to Eng­lish dic­tio­nary. I ask Josef how to say cer­tain things—but now, I don’t remem­ber any of the words.

One con­ver­sa­tion will always stand out to me, though.

I’m sit­ting on the bench by the pharmacy—waiting for the bus to Dirtyville—when Josef paus­es to chat. Some­how, I get around to ask­ing him what he did in his home coun­try, and he tells me he went to uni­ver­si­ty. He’s an engineer.

       “An engi­neer?” I ask. “But then…why are you clean­ing floors?”

Josef shrugs, a soft, sad smile on his face. “Degree mean noth­ing here,” he says, ges­tur­ing to the machine in front of him. “So, I clean floor.”

*

It’s a qui­et night on the grave­yard shift and we have a big truck and Chris isn’t here. He’s out on leave, his feet swelling from gout. The crew is short-hand­ed and the Cat Man’s in charge. I like Jim, but he’s no good with an order gun. Dur­ing the sum­mer, he dou­ble-clicked a but­ton by mis­take, result­ing in a truck full of choco­late which melt­ed with no room to store it.

Ten­sions are high, the crew irri­tat­ed and over­worked. It’s late in the night and we’re nowhere near where we should be, the back aisle still clogged with full pallets.

Everyone’s work­ing and it’s qui­et. I emerge from the back room, my box cut­ter in hand, when I hear the squeak­ing wheels of a U‑frame. I turn and notice Ron approach­ing, but at first, I’m unable to process what I’m seeing.

Ron’s hat is miss­ing and his face is drenched in blood.

The blood soaks his chest, his shirt. There’s so much blood I can’t tell where it’s com­ing from. Because we’re short-hand­ed, there’s no one around. I’m stand­ing in the back between meat and seafood, the huge cool­ers lit up, the store emp­ty of customers.

At first, I’m frozen in place. Then my instincts kick in.

Ron’s push­ing the emp­ty U‑frame, his eyes emp­ty and focused ahead. I run up to him. “Ron, what hap­pened?” My voice trembles.

I touch his shoul­der, but he doesn’t notice me. He just keeps walk­ing, push­ing the U‑frame. He’s like a ghost. He walks steadi­ly, nev­er waver­ing, his lips mov­ing as if he’s talk­ing to him­self but no words are com­ing out.

        “Ron, it’s me. It’s Rosa.” As I walk beside him in the direc­tion of the frozen food depart­ment, I’m glanc­ing down the aisles for help, my heart pound­ing, but I don’t see any­one. Where are they? It’s not break time yet.

I keep talking.

        “Ron, you’ve got to stop walk­ing. You’re hurt,” I tell him, but he doesn’t reg­is­ter my pres­ence at all. I tap his arm again. “Ron! Ron, lis­ten! You’ve got blood all over you.”

Noth­ing. He keeps walking.

I’m look­ing for somebody—anybody—but there’s not a soul in sight.

His body’s on autopi­lot. I keep try­ing to attract his atten­tion, wav­ing a hand in front of his face, but he doesn’t notice me at all. I grab the U‑frame and try to stop him, but Ron’s feet keep mov­ing even when he’s sta­tion­ary, as if he’s try­ing to fin­ish a job and noth­ing can stop him.

I’m fright­ened, my hands trembling.

His whole face, a mask of blood, his eyes unsee­ing. “Jesus Christ,” I say to myself, and then, “Ron! Ron, lis­ten to me! You’ve got to stop. You’re hurt real bad, Ron.”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a cell phone on me. I don’t want to leave him alone, so I walk with him, hop­ing we’ll find some­one soon.

I stay by his side as he rounds the dairy depart­ment, then turns right head­ing for the front of the store. We’re near­ing the self-check­out machines. Someone’s sure to be near­by. “Help!” I shout. “Help, someone!”

The Cat Man steps out from aisle six.

        “You’ve got to call 9–1‑1,” I tell him. “Hur­ry! Ron’s been hurt.”

Lat­er, I’ll tell peo­ple how the Cat Man just stood and stared. How he shook his head in dis­be­lief. How I shout­ed, “What are you doing? Hur­ry! Call an ambu­lance!” I’ll tell them how I found out—much later—that Jim didn’t believe me at first.

He saw Ron’s face paint­ed in blood, his chest hair mat­ted with the stuff, and he thought for sure we’d planned some kind of elab­o­rate prac­ti­cal joke.

Jim knew every­body was pissed at him. He ordered too much prod­uct and kept us late. He put us in dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions. Jim’s bad lead­er­ship led to one of my crew-mates being crushed between the wall and a card­board bale, and after he limped out of the store, his par­ents threat­ened to sue the company.

Because he wouldn’t let me use a pow­er jack after six in the morn­ing, I hurt my back and neck pulling a pal­let of deter­gent with a hand jack. When­ev­er I got home from work, Miles had to help me out of the car, put me to bed, lift me when I need­ed to stand. The injury would be per­sis­tent and lifelong.

Jim shouldn’t have been in charge. He didn’t trust us.

Maybe he doesn’t believe his own eyes. There’s so much blood.

Mean­while, Ron keeps walk­ing, push­ing the U‑frame for­ward before veer­ing off to the side. “Call 9–1‑1!” I shout again.

The oth­ers are com­ing out from the aisles now, pulling off work gloves or drop­ping half-opened card­board box­es. “What the fuck,” one guy says, his eyes wide.

When Ron push­es the U‑frame into the wall by the cash reg­is­ters, but keeps mov­ing his legs as if he’s still head­ing some­where, the Cat Man goes to the store phone and makes a call. Soon, we can hear sirens, an ambu­lance com­ing from Grand View Hos­pi­tal down route 309.

When the EMTs arrive, I’m still shak­ing. They do what I can’t. They take Ron by the shoul­ders and push him onto a gur­ney. At last, he relaxes.

As I watch them check him over and take him to the ambu­lance, I wring my hands. “You don’t have to keep work­ing, Ron,” I say to myself. “You can take a break for once.”

Qui­et falls back over the store. We have to fin­ish stocking.

Some­one cleans the blood off the floor in aisle three.

At the end of the night, I walk out into the chilly morn­ing as the sun ris­es. Ron’s Ford Ranger is still parked near the Witch Mobile.

I stare at it for a moment, won­der­ing when he’ll get out of the hospital—and who will bring him back to his truck. Who will feed Elmer, his tab­by cat?

At home, I draw a Get Well card for Ron. On the front is a car­toon bun­ny. In bub­ble let­ter­ing, I write, “Get well, Rab­bit! We miss you!”

I take the card to work and have all the guys sign it.

Long after I’ve moved to Flori­da and Ron calls on the phone—the last time I hear his voice—he says, “I’ve still got that card, Lit­tle Mama. I’ve still got it. Thank you.”

*

At home, I write on the type­writer the Cat Man gave me.

I want to learn to let go, to be myself again.

I want to be unapolo­get­i­cal­ly me—like Ron always was, with his nick­names and his sto­ries, his odd­i­ties and his isolation.

I want to write about this on a type­writer or a note­book, the two most active ways of writ­ing push­ing me into a place where I can­not pos­si­bly cor­rect my mis­takes as I go.

Type the num­ber 8 instead of an apos­tro­phe? It’s okay, because there’s no way to go back. I can­not erase what’s typewritten.

In this way, writ­ing with a type­writer becomes syn­ony­mous with fac­ing my own self head on—my sex­u­al­i­ty and all the things I’m afraid to admit.

I ques­tion whether it’s okay to write about a par­tic­u­lar top­ic, whether or not it’s accept­able. In the same way, I ques­tion whether or not my queer­ness is accept­able. Even though I write it on the page, I’m afraid to speak it aloud.

I prac­tice typ­ing these things on my 1930s Rem­ing­ton Portable, slam­ming the keys, not with aggres­sion, but with inten­tion­al­i­ty, a dif­fer­ent lev­el of aware­ness of the activ­i­ty of writing.

Then I move to the next line, slide the car­riage over, hear the draw-band wind itself. I type to the end of the line, meet­ing the gen­tle ding of a bell.

How can I regain my free­dom, the desire to write with­out wor­ry­ing about the result? On the type­writer, I find a way to approach what scares me the most. Writ­ing on a type­writer allows me to get out of my own way. Maybe I’ve dis­cov­ered the balance—the place in which an under­stand­ing of craft meets a will­ing­ness to let go.

When I draft this essay in my note­book, I move the book­mark aside, num­ber the page, write para­graph after para­graph with a foun­tain pen.

        I write, night­shift.

        I write, writ­ing the uncomfortable.

        I write, grave­yard.

Dur­ing my last week on the night­shift, before I move to Flori­da, I’m stand­ing on a milk crate, stock­ing an upper shelf while Chris orders prod­ucts on a low­er shelf. While he’s on his knees, he leans for­ward and licks the end of my steel-toed boot, his wide tongue leav­ing a swath of mois­ture on black leather.

        “What was that for?” I ask.

        “I don’t fuck­ing know,” he says, laughing.

I choose to take it as a thank you. A good­bye, a well-wishing—a per­mis­sion. Any­where else, HR would’ve thrown a fit. But here on the night­shift, the ges­ture became a kind of acknowledgment.

Maybe it’s the late hour. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. But I choose to see him kneel­ing on the floor and lick­ing my boot as a sign of grat­i­tude, a way of say­ing, “Let it all go.”

*

Two weeks after quit­ting the gro­cery store in 2010, I pack my car and dri­ve 17 hours to Palm Beach Coun­ty, Flori­da, where I move into an apart­ment in North Palm Beach. As late as 2015, I still hear from Ron every once in a while until—one day, noth­ing. He disappears.

Time pass­es and I won­der where he’s gone. It’s not until 2023 that a strange feel­ing ris­es in my chest and, sens­ing the worst, I Google his name.

Ron died in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On a trip back to Penn­syl­va­nia in 2023, I seek out his grave. I find the ceme­tery at the cor­ner of a busy inter­sec­tion. Inside, I go into the main office and inquire with a woman at a cor­ner desk. She looks him up in a paper fil­ing sys­tem, an elec­tric type­writer sit­ting before her.

        “Ronald J. Arlen?” she says, glanc­ing at me.

        “Yes, that’s right. He was a friend of mine.”

        “I’m very sor­ry for your loss.”

She tells me how to find his plot—go down the wind­ing road, seek a stone by a cer­tain tree. “If you’ve reached the inter­sec­tion in the mid­dle,” she says, “then you’ve gone too far.” She hands me a map, and I thank her.

It’s a sun­ny day in win­ter. But it’s not as cold as it will be tonight, mid­night, when we used to work the night shift. The ground is hard, the grass a brown­ish green. I find the curve in the path and make my way to the grave. There he is—Ronald J. Arlen, 1946 to 2020.

I think of the sis­ter he didn’t get along with, and his moth­er, long-since dead.

I won­der who paid for the stone. I imag­ine a funer­al here. How many peo­ple gathered?

I crouch by the grave. I pic­ture him across from me in his green polo shirt and black work jeans. He smiles at me and says, “Hey, Lit­tle Mama.”

        “Hey, Ron,” I say aloud. “I guess you caught the bus to Dirtyville after all.”

My words hang in the frigid air.

        “You ever have a type­writer, Ron? What kind was it?”

In my imag­i­na­tion, we’re still sit­ting on the bench by the phar­ma­cy under the gro­cery store’s flu­o­res­cent lights. I wait and lis­ten for the sound of his voice.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

“Writ­ing the Night­shift” is part mem­oir, part craft essay. This essay is part of an in-progress col­lec­tion which cen­ters around the theme of writ­ing using note­books and typewriters.

The sto­ry takes place in a gro­cery store in Penn­syl­va­nia where I worked the night­shift, a place where I felt com­fort­able being myself. Reflect­ing back on that time, I con­sid­er the sim­plic­i­ty of ana­log writ­ing tools, and how I began to expe­ri­ence self-doubt over the years as a writer.

In the sto­ry, the read­er gets to know Ron, an old­er man on the night­shift. I write, “His life hasn’t been easy and I can tell he’s lone­ly. He just wants to be accept­ed for who he is. So do I. Maybe that’s why we under­stand each other.”

“Writ­ing the Night­shift” invites con­tem­pla­tion. How can we give our­selves per­mis­sion to express our own per­son­al truths as cre­atives? Or, should we be ask­ing per­mis­sion at all?

Rosa Sophia God­shall’s work has been pub­lished in Philadel­phia Sto­ries Mag­a­zine, Sen­tience Lit­er­ary Jour­nal, SoFloPo­Jo, Islandia Jour­nal, Thim­ble Lit­er­ary Mag­a­zine, Limp Wrist, and oth­ers. She is also the author of Many Miles (Har­bor Edi­tions, 2025) and Vil­lage of North Palm Beach: A His­to­ry (The His­to­ry Press, 2020). She was the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Christo­pher F. Kel­ly Award for Poet­ry, spon­sored by the Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets, through Flori­da Inter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty. She holds an MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing and a degree in auto­mo­tive tech­nol­o­gy. She is also the man­ag­ing edi­tor of Mobile Elec­tron­ics mag­a­zine, a pub­li­ca­tion for the after­mar­ket car audio indus­try. Rosa lives in Palm Bay, Flori­da, where she repairs type­writ­ers and writes type­writer poet­ry on demand: www.torquesgarage.com