Shelter From The Rain

At a laundromat at 2 in the morning, taking shelter from the rain.  Perfect silence.  Except for the clock tick-tock and an occasional car passing along on wet asphalt.  Nobody is here.  Just an enormous daddy long leg in the corner of the bathroom ceiling.  And several other dead ones in its web.  Grand (dead) daddy long legs?  One orange yellow light filled with dead flies.  A dusty plunger, no toilet paper (shit!) A paper towel dispenser (thank God) with a corner of brown paper sticking out like a tongue.  Ruined, graffiti’d walls.  

 There are snack machines and tables.  Ever hungry, and all the restaurants are closed–go to the laundromat.  Ever poor and out of toilet paper–steal the laundromat’s.  Ever lonely and unsure of how to inject yourself into social situations–go to the laundromat.  Ever need to take a shit, but the walk home is too far–do so at the laundromat.

 You’ll likely find much of what I’ve already described, except the people in my case.  I didn’t find any of those.  It’s 2 in the morning.  You might also find lots of notes, taped above the doorknobs, light switches, heaters saying things like:

 DO NOT STAND IN FRONT OF OR BLOCK HEATER

 DO NOT PLACE CLOTHING NEAR HEATER

 DO NOT ALLOW SMALL CHILDREN NEAR HEATER

 DO NOT TOUCH HEATER OR CONTROLS

 This among other sparsely and plentifully placed signs either typed or hand-written in ALL CAPS.  They are interesting, though, because their collective messages give me the sense that this person is very particular and strict and careful.  I mean, in one sign that is framed and typed, he wrote:

 FIND A STACK OF CUPS FOR YOUR CHANGE TO YOUR LEFT

 And, sure enough, to my left, there was a stack of plastic cups with stickers that branded them as COIN CUPS.  He never intended to move the framed note or the cup depository.  And, despite the note missing a couple letters here and there (just like several of the other notes) I can see this man–Steve Alan, says the framed note, later on–is quite critical of detail.  He owns a cleaning facility, I suppose.

 There’s an ancient television hanging from a dark corner of the laundromat.  It has knobs and is branded by the word Zenith.  You know a television is old when it has knobs instead of buttons.  It’s screen is gray–not black–and I can see its pixels from my little plastic chair.  There are cobwebs and dust motes and bugs tangled around the knobs and I truly doubt that the thing even works.  A note, taped under the knobs says:

 DO NOT CHANGE CHANNELS – TV GETS ONLY ONE CHANNEL – CONTROLLED FROM OFFICE

Televisions, at one point, only ‘got’ one channel?  But the channel knob inscribed with numbers into the double digits says otherwise.  And, as I look around, I see three doors: one which I entered through, the bathroom door, and an emergency exit which is big gray and dented.  An office, I wonder.  

 There are strange copper wires twisted together with thick white and black wires in the back of the Zenith, and I’m not sure what they do.  I’ve never seen such wires on a TV, but apparently Steve Alan knows what he’s doing.

 The walls are cement and well-painted.  One wall is wallpapered baby blue with tan squares.  Most of the washers have notes on them saying they are broken, not to have children touch the, to use another washer known as the Maytag, which I later discovered is a washer that is, too

 OUT OF ORDER

 There are modern cameras, several of them, fixed to the ceiling–little black eyes.  I wonder what the viewer of these cameras’ recordings will think when he sees me walking around the place in my black hoodie, hands behind my back carrying a small black notepad, not touching anything, but leaning close to study the place.  He’ll see–Steve Alan, that is–me writing and wonder what I’m writing.  Maybe he’ll wonder–maybe he won’t.  Maybe he’ll wonder, most paranoid, what I was doing–what I was stealing or breaking–when none of the cameras could see me.  Maybe he’ll wonder as much about me–this nameless figure in black, stalking his facility–as I wonder about him, Steve Alan, this careful, particular, detail-oriented man who owns a laundromat in Edinboro, Pennsylvania and occasionally omits letters in his notes.  

 Somehow, I don’t think this place would have the same effect on me in the daylight as it does, now at 3 in the morning, when I should be a half-mile away, sleeping.  In the dead of night, with all the absence and stillness and silence, only the tick-tock of the wall clock of this perhaps-70s-erected laundromat and Steve Alan’s life story in teacherly notes around the place, this place is comforting to me for reasons I’m not yet clear on.  There’s memory here.  I can feel it in this dusty, dryer-sheet air–lots and lots of memory and happenings.  

 I’m like a fly on the wall, watching what may or may not have been over time, imprinting myself here only as much as the fly leaves–it’s six footprints smaller than needle heads.

 There’s lots of memory here, and it charges me like the dead are quickened by the night.  And during the day, this place would not exist to me in this way.

 But look, it’s stopped raining.