Mysterious Uni Mart In Washington

Comes Back To Life

Ben Atwood

Aug 15, 2022

Hello friends

and welcome to the Cement City Courier

a newsletter about the world of rust belt real estate

the forces that shape it

and the people who inhabit it

My name is Ben Atwood

and I used to write real estate news stories on a large real estate platform

Real retina burners

with titles like

Something Big Is Going On In Little Reading

Investment Motives of Cranberry Woods Buyer Remain Uncertain But Energy Subsidiary Could Provide A Clue

and

my personal favorite

Healthy Multifamily Demand Not Enough To Bring Investors To Schuylkill County

I did this for seven years

from Northeast PA

where I lived with my wife

and during that time

I fell hard for the Commonwealth

I must have traversed the state

over 40 times

and in my travels

saw the face of god

in her rivers and mountains

and read my nation’s history writ large across her

abandoned factories and mines and mills and towns

Along the way

I met thousands of wonderful sinners

optimistically navigating through their rivers of life

whose winding paths were sculpted by

deindustrialization

opiates

pointless wars

entrenched racism

and

corruption

Getting paid to share

highly sanitized

versions of these stories was incredible

because

writing has always been my passion

and this was the first job

I ever loved

But

at the end of 2021

it was time to hop off the corporate content creation train

I will spare you

the boring details

it is sufficient to say that

an abrupt

shift in personal fortunes

annihilated the appeal of writing

That’s all you’ll hear about me

though

because while some intro is necessary

this newsletter is about the world of real estate

the forces that shape it

and the people who inhabit it

Its inspiration came in the form of some halogen lamps

turning on inside a rundown uni-mart

about two blocks down

from a one-bedroom apartment

in Washington

a small city in Southwest Pennsylvania

where I live

alone

Every night

for months

I would walk under its cracked sign advertising

Beer Tobacco Lottery Vape

while listening to podcasts

about the importance of loving yourself

and

ask myself

how could this guy

screw up so bad

BTLV checks off all the boxes in a neighborhood like mine

which is not quite on the wrong side of the tracks

but close enough to hear the train

and an area where stimmies and unemployment boosts would have

local consumers flush with cash

Some cryptic window graffiti reading

RIP Steve

had me thinking the proprietor died

but a solid 20 minutes of googling

the address

uni-mart

and

uni-mart, steve, dead

uncovered no eulogy for the man

or his store

I mourned him

though

and when the lights came on in July

I rejoiced

as though Lazurus himself

had risen from the weed choked lot

Yes

it is possible

perhaps even likely

that whoever turned those lights back on

isn’t Steve

merely his replacement

However

that’s lame

and as a former journalist

and current marketing professional

I am quite comfortable

having an open relationship

with the truth

I prefer to think

that Steve loved working at the uni-mart

and his dream was to one day own his own

but when the opportunity arose

it came with a caveat

such as

Steve had to move across the state immediately to take it over

That’s difficult

but doable

however

what if that move

pushed a strained marriage

past the point of no return

And

what if

around that same time

the head of the uni mart corporation

lost his goddamn mind

and working for him

became a repulsive experience

Why

then Steve would have found himself

in a strange city

with no friends or family

and no place to go

but back and forth

between a job he detested

and a two-bedroom tomb

where nothing awaited him

but his thoughts

Sometimes I wonder

as his life was burning down around him

that the smoke swarmed poor Steven and it may even be that these vapors proceeded to take on the shapes of a million memories and mistakes making it impossible to keep up with day to day things like regularly bathing or procuring groceries and if that were the case then it would be safe to speculate that inevitably Steve would probably turn to drugs and chug whiskey or gin for solace and its not big leap for us to imagine that in his grieving he was getting approximately two or three hours of sleep every evening and our boy became increasingly useless and reclusive to the point of utilizing gas stations exclusively for food which he ate in their lots so as not to be rude to other consumers because people look sideways at dudes weeping in a whole foods aisle two holding a bottle of her favorite shampoo

If things were really that bad

it is an absolute certainty that Steve would hit a point

where he couldn’t remember why he liked running the uni-mart

or being alive

at all

But

nearly everyone has been under

unbearable

levels of strain these past few years

and in the grand scheme of things

Steve’s story isn’t really all that tragic

Jobs and marriages fall apart

every

damn

day

That’s the human condition

and in and of itself

not a story worth sharing

However

bouncing back after life beats the piss out of you

always is

and maybe

just maybe

that’s why the lights are back on

Perhaps Steve hit bottom

got help

broke up with the bottle

cut the grass

and shed the Sheetz weight

It could be that in this rebuild

he realized he had a passion for running convenience stores

knew he was good at it

missed it

and wanted to give it another shot

And

maybe this new uni-mart won’t even be affiliated

with THE uni-mart

instead

it will be his own thing

and

freed from corporate interference

he could tend his little store however he wanted to

Hell

he might even stock it with something other than BTLV

and while some might find the Steve-Mart

odd

that is ok

because

Steve is an odd dude

and

does not care

a lick

if the Steve-Mart

succeeds or fails

because he is having fun again

doing something he loves

That

my friends

is a tale worth telling

even if it’s not real

and it might not be

because

like I said

I didn’t do much research on this

and I am an unreliable narrator

it’s entirely possible

Steve is just some graffiti

I noticed

hovering over my reflection

while scoping out

a newly lit storefront

a few blocks from my apartment

on my pre dawn run

listening to a podcast about the history of west virginia

and feeling so

fucking

grateful

to be alive

Either way

it is ok

because

this real estate newsletter

might be less about the world of real estate

and more about

the forces that shape it

and the people

like Steve

who inhabit it

I am so glad you checked it out

and I hope you come back for more

The Cement City Courier

Mysterious Uni Mart In Washington

Comes Back To Life