The record store was on 82nd Avenue in the Strathcona District. The Strathcona District was the trendy area of town with lots of nice little boutique shops, restaurants and bars. The University wasn’t too far, and on weekends the bars would fill up with young students drinking away their little student lives. The record store was on the shitty side of the tracks. Instead of cool shops, the store was surrounded by pawn shops and a used car lot. A burger joint was on the corner of the block. On the weekends, instead of students, the parking lot filled up with motorbikes and associated motorbike-type people.
I had a fold out couch in the back office; and a TV and a fridge that Patrick’s dad had given me. It was a nice little set-up actually. There was no shower, so I would wash in the sink and get a shower at my parents’ place whenever I could. It was loud and you could hear sirens and motorbikes, and the drunks on the weekends.
Most days the store was slow, especially in the winter. Business wasn’t enough to need more than one person at the store during the day, so usually I was alone until Patrick came after school. I would sit behind the front counter playing solitare on the computer. Or in the back watching TV. When a customer would walk in the bell above the door would ring and I would walk slowly back to front of the store and sit down to play another game of solitare.
