Laundry Day

Today Friday the 13th I went to the Pacifico Coin Laundry Lavanderia to do some laundry. After all my clothes were placed in their respective washers. I sat down to enjoy my Yerba Matte Tea and continue reading Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. As I was reading about Sproule and the kid meeting some Mexican's an odd conversation was going on near the dryers.

My brain frantically trying to understand what is going on in the book and at the same time trying to listen in on the conversation between a married man and a woman with children from many different "baby daddies." I put it this way because that is how it was put. It all started as a conversation about a woman who was gruesomely murdered in the neighborhood.

"I can't believe it neither. It two blocks from where I is. Me'n ma sick wife you knows."
"Mmmmhuhhh. How is ya wife?"
"Well ya know. She good, ya know. I mean she is now. She'ad surgery. Minor surgery, but hell ain't no surgery minor. You know."

As the conversation continued. The male began to up the ante and tell stories of how good he is to his woman. One time stating that he cooked for a week straight for his woman but she disrespected him by making her own food. "But I a good cook," he says. Which then prompts him to list all the foods that he had made for her. Homemade gumbo, chicken, and turkey meatloaf to name a few. The turkey meatloaf was a sore spot for the gentleman. Apparently upon his wife finding out that he had made turkey meatloaf from scratch, she got up and made her own turkey meatloaf from scratch. This angered the man greatly to which the woman responded in a definite, "Oh no she di'n't."

I'm sorry Cormac McCarthy but it was at this moment that your lyrical prose was no match for the raconteurs near the folding tables and dryers. He delighted her with quips about New Orleans, the love for his daughter from a baby mama, and how good of a driver he is. She enchanted him with stories of her teenage daughter's escapades and resulting pregnancies, her twenty something daughter's abnormally devoted husband, and her wild ways growing up.

Laundry now in the dryer, I once again attempt to continue reading Blood Meridian. Not three minutes into reading does a new character walk into my auditory space. With a smile on his face he strolls in to check on a load in the washer. He notices the man sitting next to me and gives him an "I've been drinking all day" smile.

The man next to me says, "How ya doin'?"
"I'm blessed. I am so blessed."
"Alright."
"So blessed. I went down for an interview for a job at the placement center an 'ney said you gon' need a physical. An that lady left for a phone call an another lady come up and check out ma sheet an say I ain need a physical. I got a job now. Start Monday. I am blessed and drunk."
"Slip through the crack did ya?"
"Blessed."

I am unsure exactly how long that conversation went on but I do know that when I finally took my attention away from them and looked to my dryers, they were finished. I went and unloaded one dryer into a rolling cart and headed to a folding table. I began to get in that laundry folding zone. All sounds around me silenced and it was just me and my clean clothes. Divvying up socks and boxers. Folding shirts as best but also as fast as I could. Then something out of the corner of my eye took a hold of me. my folding slowed and the sounds swelled back into my brain. It was the man from earlier and he is now walking towards the woman with purpose but there is something amiss.

"Hey. Hey we's jus' talkin'. You know."
"Not about that you wasn't."
"Come on. You know it ain't like that."
"Then how is it then?"

And with that I was paying more attention to them than I was my laundry. Every once and a while he would lean into her and say something softly to which she would respond in one of two ways. She would either get mad and say, "Uh Uh," or smile and giggle.

"You a married man."
"I'm just talkin'. C'ain't a man talk? I ain't do. I just talkin'."
"Uh huh."
"Look what you heard ain't how it is."
"How is it then?"

He then leans into her and says something into her ear. "Uh Uh," she says and goes about getting her laundry together from the dryers attempting to ignore the man.

"Oh so you ain't gonna talk. I'm gonna sit here. I can sit here. That's it then.?"
"You can do what you want."

She really shouldn't have talked because I think she could have killed it there, but then again maybe she wanted to talk more. I also should say I was picking up some extremely uncomfortable sexual tension. At first I thought he was propositioning her, but then he asked her to give some other woman his number. Manage trois, fix her plumbing, babysitter? The mind races with what could or will happen with these two, but I will say it made for a great day of laundry. I can't wait to do laundry again.