From

"The Little Store with No Name" 

by 

Oscar De Los Santos

Yes, it was them: Irene and Norman, the hermit and her nephew who lived together (for reasons as obscure as the little store with no name’s ageless nameless status) at the very far end of the cul de sac.

What a sight: Irene and Norman coming to a party and joining the milling, jabbering, laughing crowd of fifty-five strong by early evening, making it a wild mix of Heinz Fifty-Seven. There was Irene, extricating her scrawny (but not too scrawny to do a hell of a lot of snooping around the neighborhood) frame out of nephew’s red and impeccably detailed Mustang. Norman fumbled himself out of the driver’s side of the car trying so very hard to look cool but only succeeding at underscoring his goofiness, in spite of his beloved Mustang, which was unquestionably an impeccable and well polished work of art. Sadly, its owner was hardly that and a whole lot less. He eyed the crowd suspiciously and finally cracked a rictus grin that seemed to wrack his body into spasms of pain. Irene’s highlight of the week, tragically, was her outing to the laundromat down the road.  She usually bought most of the week’s groceries at the Super Food Mart next to the laundromat, but made several trips a week to replenish small items at the little store with no name. Her nephew also patronized the little store with no name more regularly when Simon caught on to Norman’s particular fetishes—cars and lawns—and began to stock plastic pails and chamois and a variety of car soaps and polishes and Armor-All. Also, pruning shears and gardening gloves and three types of grass fertilizer. Well, everyone at the little store with no name agreed that Irene and Norman took the Surprise Guests of the Evening prize at the little store with no name’s swan song party. Yes, they patronized the little store with no name, but quickly, fleetingly, and almost subterraneanly. Yet such was the power of the little store with no name that it could draw out the neighborhood hermits to party down with the rest of the neighborhood into the wee hours.