THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510040044
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL SLICES
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines
``ROLONDA'' goes unwatched on the small, black-and-white TV behind him. Bernard Winslow doesn't hear the talk show guest say that when he gets his drug-dealing son home, he's going to plant a size-11 boot in the kid's rump.
It's background noise, is all. Winslow has little time to pay the thing much mind, what with all the customers who wander up to his little shop's single window.
``Hey, Pop,'' one says, appearing now on the sidewalk outside. ``Pack a long, pack a short, Newports.''
Winslow scans his cigarette rack. ``OK,'' he says, stooping to squeeze his words through a stainless steel drawer below the window, ``but I got the shorts in the box, now.''
The customer dumps his money in the drawer. Winslow slides the cigarettes out to him.
``You got a light, too?''
Winslow pulls a lighter from his pocket, snakes his hand into the drawer, flicks it. ``All right, Pop,'' the customer says, his cigarette smoldering. He flashes a peace sign.
``All right,'' Winslow murmurs.
It's late on a weekday morning, a couple of hours into the 12-hour daily routine at the Corner Connection, an enterprise that gives new meaning to the term ``small business.''
The building around Winslow, a cement-block wedge nestled into the `Y' at Granby and Church streets, is perhaps the tiniest commercial structure in Norfolk. Its 220 square feet approximate the size of an average bedroom. Its longest wall, just a few feet from the traffic on Granby, measures 25 feet; its shortest, only 4 1/2. It is 9 feet tall.
Customers aren't invited inside. Sunny days might find Winslow sitting outside, a few of the store's offerings arrayed on the sidewalk around him, but the interior is far too crowded with a soda cooler, shelves, a small fridge, a desk, piles of plastic-wrapped pillows and Winslow himself to permit transactions there.
So patrons stay out on the sidewalk, and on days like this - cool, cloudy, the air heavy with the promise of rain - Winslow stays inside.
``Hey, Bernard, you in there?'' A man in his late 20s smiles through the glass.
``Yo!'' Winslow hollers.
``Hey, old boy, what you doin'?''
``Workin' hard, man.''
``Old boy, you come out here.''
``I can't right now,'' Winslow says. ``I'm busy.''
``Busy? What are you doin'?'' He doesn't wait for a reply. ``Gimme a cigarette.''
Winslow fishes a pack from his pocket, begins to pass it through the drawer.
``Go ahead and light it for me,'' the man says. ``I don't have no matches.''
A minute passes. He smokes the cigarette, looks around. ``Red funeral tomorrow, you know,'' he finally says.
The shopkeeper frowns. ``Which Red?''
``Red, worked down at the Quick Shop.''
``Ah, yeah,'' Winslow says. ``All right.''
The customer strolls off, to be replaced by a young man astride a bike. ``Gimme two of those 10-cent cigarettes,'' he says.
Winslow fishes two loose cigarettes from a cup beside the window. Most of the store's business seems to be cigarettes. ``We have a lot of traffic because our cigarettes are very bargain-rate,'' Winslow explains. ``Sell a lot of cigarettes, and some sodas.'' He scans the place. ``Bedding products. Toys for the kids. Large pictures.''
These items are stacked on the floor, the desk and high atop the cooler. A curious range of other products fills the shelves: disposable lighters, cigars, shaving cream, tampons, aspirin, salsa, aerosol oven cleaner.
The shop's most notorious product isn't in evidence. Four years ago, the Corner Connection's owner - Bernard's brother, Walter ``Peaches'' Winslow Jr. - came under fire for selling non-prescription stimulants. The trade was legal, but City Hall didn't appreciate ``Peaches'' hiring sign painters to turn the tiny building into a veritable billboard for the pills.
The wedge has bristled with signs since the day it opened as an Anne Lee Candies outlet 50 years ago, through incarnations as a laundry, a hot dog stand and a variety store. In fact, Winslow's landlords originally bought the place as a billboard anchor. Its strategic position is unarguable; everyone traveling between Wards Corner and downtown passes it.
But this was different. Even if the stimulants were no more than caffeine-based diet pills, the signs seemed to promote drug use - a worry here at the eastern fringe of Park Place, a neighborhood dotted with crack houses and plagued by drug-related violence.
``Peaches'' agreed to quit the advertising.
A black Plymouth pulls onto the concrete just outside and its driver, the store's first car-borne customer in 30 minutes, approaches the window.
``Hey, man, how you going?'' Winslow says.
``Hey!'' the guy shouts back. ``Gimme a pack of Marlboro Lights and I'll give you a dollar and 60 cents.''
``That sounds like a winner.''
``There's a dollar. And there's 60 cents.''
The morning slides on. The TV keeps chattering. The customers keep coming.
``How's it going, Gene?'' Winslow yells to a regular, slipping a pack of smokes into the drawer before he's asked for them.
The man studies his palm. ``I'm three pennies short,'' he moans.
``Three pennies short,'' Bernard mumbles. He deliberates silently for a moment.
``That's OK,'' he says eventually. ``I got three pennies.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
The Corner Connection, nestled between Granby and Church streets in
Norfolk, deals mainly in smokes and sodas.
by CNB