The Laundromat Stayed Open Past Closing Time

The kid who came in at nine fifty-six had a white pillowcase over his shoulder. It sagged in the middle like it was full of wet sand. I’d already turned off the sign and was standing on the inside of the door with my keys.

“Last wash is nine,” I told him.

“I know. I can read it from out there.”

He didn’t say it smart. He looked tired enough to read only one thing a day, and I had the feeling he’d used it up on my sign.

I knew him a little. He worked down the block at the repair shop and had brought me a bolt once that he thought had come out of a dryer. It turned out to be off his own belt buckle. He came back the next night and told me because he didn’t want me worrying about a dryer coming apart.

“Only washer at my building quit,” he said. “I have to open the shop at six.”

I looked down at the pillowcase. Through it I could see the corner of a blue work shirt. He’d taken some trouble to fold the clothes before putting them in there. I asked him why.

“They fit better if I do.”

I’d been locking up on time since July. My right wrist had started giving me trouble, and the last bus left at ten eleven. The walk home was six blocks, fine in daylight, but the wheel on my shopping cart had been dragging since the spring. I kept a brick by the door to hold it open while I pulled the cart over the sill.

The kid looked over his shoulder at the bench by the window. It was technically outside, under an awning that kept the rain off if it fell straight down.

“I can wait out here till morning,” he said, setting his laundry bag down on the curb.

Behind me a dryer ticked as it cooled. It was the one sound in there that always waited until closing time. I put my keys back in my pocket. “One washer. No comforter, no rugs, nothing that used to be part of a car.”

He picked up the bag. “You can check.”

I found him a machine where the water ran hot. He counted his quarters onto the lid in stacks of four, then tipped them in. After the washer caught, he sat down and put both hands flat on his knees. There were little clean crescents at the base of his nails where he’d tried to get the grease out.

His name was Eli. I told him mine and went to get my cart.

He heard the wheel before he saw me. “How long’s that been doing that?”

“Since the dogwood bloomed.”

“Was it a nice dogwood?”

“Beautiful. I didn’t notice the wheel for a week.”

He asked if he could look at it. I emptied the cart onto the folding table, including the two library books I’d meant to return three weeks ago. Eli tipped the cart onto its side and pulled a wad of clear packing tape from between the wheel and the frame. Then he spun the wheel with one finger. It went around so easily he did it twice.

“I could’ve done that,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and turned the cart right side up.

I offered him coffee from the machine. He asked if there was any way to turn the television down. I did, and we listened to the dryer instead. His work shirts kept hitting the glass with their buttons. Whenever the rhythm changed he looked over, like there was something he could tell from it.

By the time he folded the last shirt, the street was empty. He offered to walk me to my corner. I said he was welcome as far as the stoplight, where he’d have to turn the other way.

At the light I stopped. Eli stopped, too.

“What is it?” he asked.

I pulled the cart forward a foot. We both listened.

“Nothing,” I said.

He went toward the shop. I turned home and took the long way around the block, past the dogwood. A porch light shone through the bare branches. The sidewalk there was smooth, though.

For half a block I couldn’t hear a thing behind me.