Laundry on a Saturday

I wish there was more light down here. The one exposed light bulb isn’t bright enough, and the miserable clouds dim the light from the windows. My flip-flops clack down the stairs and across the bare cement floor. The clacking bounces off the walls and back through me – hollow. It smells like armpit down here.

One of the washing machines is running, rattling in the empty air. My clothes are done. I open a washer and pull out my whites in wet clumps and drop them in my plastic laundry crate. A couple blouses, a dress, some undershirts. Then there’s my old white denim jacket.

I run my fingers over each of the stitches – along the seam on the left side, across the bottom of a pocket, and over both underarm seams. They’re holding up. I turn the jacket over. Then again. And again. And again. I don’t see any loose strings. The white fabric is turning a bit off-color. The metal buttons are a little scuffed up, and one of them is missing.

I open the drier, gently turn the jacket inside out, and set it inside. I hate tumble-drying it, but I’m not going to just let it air dry. I can’t stand wearing stiff denim.

After stuffing the rest of my whites inside, I close the door. Three quarters go in the slots. The coins clang down the chute, ringing for the sake of their loneliness before they chink chink chink on the bottom inside.

The sun is going down when I get back to the laundromat. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. The drier’s still running, but it should be done in a minute or two. I wish they would do something about that smell.

I stop. Something about the smell is different. The drier. I yank the door open. Whisps of grey smoke puff up in my face. My whites are splotched with black burn marks. I grab a handful. They’re crispy. Literally crispy. I pull out the singed clothes and throw them on the ground until I find the jacket. It's half-covered in a horrible black scar.

I clutch the scorched denim against my chest and it crackles. It burns on my fingers. It sears my skin. It rubs black ash on my shirt. I don’t care.

I can still remember, by the campfire at my uncle's, when Mom slipped it off herself and put it around my shoulders. She knew I hated being cold. I wore it all night.

When the family was going through her stuff, bickering over her furniture, her sterling silverware, her precious jewelry, even her clothes, her mattress, and all her embroidery down to her hand-stitched pillowcases, I couldn’t stand to be there. As much as I wanted something tangible to hold on to her memory, I couldn’t stand it. Then, I found the jacket buried in my room. The rest of the family took most of her stuff, but I kept the jacket.

Grey whisps curl up inside me, dancing in my empty place.

I kneel on the cold floor and gently fold the jacket, covering up as much of the charred fabric as I can. I stay there for a long time. Finally, I stand and carry the jacket up the stairs and outside. Lifting the lid of the trash bin in fading sunlight, I hold out the jacket and lay it to rest.