Touch the Throne

MISTER CAINBRIDGE WAS a West Indian merchantwho owned a small grocery store in Harlem. Fromearly morning to late evening he sat in front of his store nextto the vegetables, on a wooden milk crate with a faded pillowon top that served as a cushion. There, six days a week, beneath the heavy brown canvasawning, cranked down over the store window, he sat,representing an approachable throne of earthly grace, wherea familiar face was trusted to buy food on credit, and duringthese depressive days of 1938, everybody needed a little extratime to pay for food.