The Funky Gourmet

If Blue Cheese is your strain, this is your sign: the Funky Gourmet. The shop after closing, the door locked, the spotlights on, and the wheels going up into towers.

The shop, after closing. Door locked, lights on. Spotlights up, wedge up, and the wheels stacked for the night. Five seconds of after hours.

If Blue Cheese is your strain

You never go home at six. You flip the sign, you lock the door, and then the real day starts: the wheels go up into towers, the lamps come on, the record drops, and the small room you are in becomes the best room in the city for about an hour. You have done this so many times it is a liturgy, and you have never once got tired of the joke.

You talk about the things you love the way other people talk about records: the veins are the bassline, the rind is the room. You laugh from the belly, which is where you keep it. You let people in on two knocks, and you give everyone a plate before you ask their name.

At your best you are the host the night organizes itself around: the baker dances like someone who has been up since four, the kid dances like someone who was never told how, and you narrate every wedge to nobody in particular while the yellow light goes round. Nobody leaves early. Nobody is ever sure why they came.

Your flaw is the load-bearing joke. You will say the wheels are structural every single night, and you will mean it a little, and you will never retire it. You keep lights from a club that closed, and posters for nights that only happen here, and you are, by any honest accounting, not over it.

What you need is a cold room to think about blue in, and a record player that plays what it plays. Give you that, and the sign says closed the whole time, which is the joke.

Your hour: Twenty past six, after the sign is flipped
Your place: Behind the counter, on the floor
Your object: A wedge of blue, held up
Your tempo: Four to the floor until two
Your weather: Acid-yellow spotlights going round
Your flaw: The load-bearing joke

Your people

The Night Courier (Sour Diesel)The Night Courier knows two knocks, and the bridge brings him past your door at the right hour.
Cindy at Midnight (Cinderella 99)Cindy at Midnight arrives laughing with one shoe, which is exactly how you like people to arrive.
The Sprinter (Green Crack)The Sprinter is first on the floor and first to leave, and you have never once minded.

Things you say

Cheese is just music you can eat.
Two knocks. Everybody knows two knocks.
A good blue has a bassline.
We’re closed. Come in.
Mind the wheels, they’re load-bearing.

A scene from your world

After hours

At six the Funky Gourmet flips the sign to closed, locks the door, and does not go home. He never goes home at six. He wipes down the counter, pulls the cream apron straight over the shirt with the blue marbling, and starts moving wheels. The big ones go on the bottom. The medium ones go on the big ones. By twenty past, the shop has four towers of cheese standing where the shelves were, and he will tell anyone who asks which ones are the subs.

The spotlights come on next. There are three of them, acid yellow, bolted above the shelves, and they came from a club that closed a long time ago where he used to run the nights. He kept the lights. He kept the posters too, the ones on the wall that advertise nights that only ever happen here, and he kept the habit of talking about a good blue the way he used to talk about a good record: the veins are the bassline, he says, and the rind is the room.

The record player on the counter is old and loud and plays what it plays. He drops the needle, turns the lamps so they sweep the towers, and stands in the middle of the floor with a wedge of blue held up over his head like it is the last thing left in the building worth holding up. Then he laughs, from the belly, which is where he keeps it.

Two knocks at the door. Two knocks means you know. It is the baker from next door with the end of the day’s bread under one arm, and behind her the kid who delivers the milk, who has started coming by at this hour for reasons the Gourmet has decided not to investigate. He lets them in. He gives them each a plate. He points at the towers and says, “Mind the wheels, they’re load-bearing,” which is not true, and which he says every night.

For an hour the small shop is the best room in the city. The baker dances like someone who has been up since four. The kid dances like someone who has never been told how. The Gourmet cuts cheese between songs, narrating each wedge to nobody in particular, and the yellow light goes round and round the towers and catches the gold hoop in his ear every time it comes past.

At two he mops. The wheels go back on the shelves one by one, the posters stay up, the lamps go off last. He unlocks the door to let the others out, locks it again behind them, and flips nothing, because the sign already says closed. It has said closed the whole time. That is the whole joke, and he has never once got tired of it.

The shop

The counter: Wiped down at six and used as a stage from twenty past. The record player lives at the end nearest the door.
The towers: Cheese wheels stacked like speaker stacks, big ones at the bottom. He will tell you which ones are the subs. They are not load-bearing. He says they are.
The spotlights: Three acid-yellow lamps from a club that closed. They live above the shelves now and come on at twenty past six.
The posters: Flyers for nights that only happen here, in this shop, with this crowd of three.
The cold room: The one quiet place. He goes in there to think about blue, and comes out with a wedge and an opinion.
The door: Locked at six. Two knocks means you know. The sign says closed the whole time, which is the joke.