The bodega is the heartbeat of the block. Open twenty-four hours. Coffee at five in the morning. Beer at two in the morning. A sandwich at any hour because the bodega does not judge what time you eat. The bodega knows your name. The bodega knows your order. The bodega knows you came home late last night because you bought cigarettes at three AM and the guy behind the counter nodded and did not say a word. The bodega is the neighborhood's memory.

Every musician in New York has a bodega. The bodega where you bought your strings. The bodega where you got coffee before a gig. The bodega where you stood outside at midnight eating a bacon egg and cheese and talking about music with a stranger who turned out to be in a band and that band needed a guitar player and that is how you got the gig. The bodega is the networking event of the street. No tickets. No name tags. Just a counter and a cat and a conversation.

My bodega was on Avenue A. A Dominican man named Luis ran it. Luis did not care about music. Luis cared about the block. He knew every person on the block by name and he knew what they drank and he knew who was having a bad day. Luis was the mayor of Avenue A. Not the elected mayor. The real mayor. The mayor who opens at six and closes at midnight and knows more about the neighborhood than any politician who ever ran for office.

The bodega cat is the most important employee. The bodega cat does not work for the bodega. The bodega cat works for the neighborhood. The bodega cat sits on the counter and judges you and that judgment is the most honest thing that will happen to you all day. The bodega cat has seen everything. The bodega cat has seen you buy ice cream at midnight and beer at seven AM and the bodega cat does not care. The bodega cat is the priest in the confessional and the confessional is open twenty-four hours.

They are replacing the bodegas with chains. A Starbucks on every corner. A Duane Reade on every block. The chain store does not know your name. The chain store does not know what you drink. The chain store does not have a cat. The chain store has a corporate policy and a regional manager and a customer satisfaction survey and it does not know a single thing about the block it sits on. The bodega knew everything. The bodega was the intelligence agency of the neighborhood. The bodega never needed a survey because the bodega never stopped listening.