The Taste of Penny (15 page)

Our old Laundromat, run by our friend Rodney with hands like pinchers, had gone out of business. The concept had failed. I never liked that combo Laundromat/bar anyway.

Drunk people were always dropping their socks.

We leave downtown and enter the ‘villes. James has something very specific in mind. We know we have about thirty minutes tops before the moped people catch on. Near the dry part of town, between Clintonville and Woodville, he cuts me off, swerving into the parking lot of a little strip mall with a Korean grocery and a Battery-Mart. We cruise into the back and roll the mopeds down an embankment into some sewer run off. Then we double back.

What is it? I say.

A potential, he says.

Shouldn't we hit the bank? I say.

We'll do it later, today's our only day off.

We only work half days, but half days turn into whole days when James is around. Next to the Battery-Mart is a dark window that says Cowtown Herps, and I go in there while James checks out the Laundromat.

It smells like moss. A hippie girl is changing a millipede's litter. Little alligators are stacked in black tubs, their mouths electrical-taped.

You've heard of the snakehead? I ask.

I've heard, she says.

Happened to have one?

No, sir. That's an illegal fish.

That's a legal alligator?

Want to see his papers?

An alligator's got papers?

Everything's got papers.

That's a shame, I say.

Wait a sec, she says. You know anything about a snakehead?

I know they can walk.

Walk?

Yeah, walk.

She goes over to a tank and reaches her arm in to the shoulder, wetting her sleeve. She takes an embryo-looking fish out by the head. She drops it on the linoleum where it flops around.

You call that walk? she says.

It's got flounder skin, I say.

It has the motion of walk, back and forth, one side then the other on these flimsy front fins. It basically turns a circle.

He's cute now, but within the year, he'll outgrow that tank. If you sit where he can see you a lot, he'll love you.

Thanks, I say.

When I walk out I hear the ploosh of the snakehead returned to the tank.

The Laundromat is wide and empty except for the most sterling steel washing and drying equipment. Everything new under fluorescent lights. The Laundromat/Bar had hundred-year-old gunk, beige machines tinted purple by lint. The smell of onions about the place. The dryers here exhale, I would say. The washers—petite toploaders to super industrials, which, a sign claims, can take up to sixteen sheets at one time.

The only thing old is the sound system, like spaghetti strainers installed in the ceiling. The sound comes out with a hiss:
In just five weeks, you too can conquer death. Order now to try our program free, and you'll soon be death free.

James has his arm around a small Korean man, who is smiling.

I've got a million ideas for you, Steve, James says. Euphotopia.

 

Wednesdays, we're gate-check squad. There are 69 functioning
gate arms on campus, which spans less than four square miles. We check each one. We drive a golf cart with a pickup bed. When we find a broken one, and there can be many, especially after football, we have two options: 1) If it snapped close to the mechanism (Reattachment Acceptable), we saw off the splintered end and salvage it. It will still obstruct most of the roadway. 2) If it's broken anywhere near the middle, we chunk it in the Unusable Crate and bolt on a new one.

We make them over by the bus facility because Immediate Supervisor, whose name is Rectifor but who we call Immediate Supervisor, says they cost $200 each from gate arm companies and it's only $20 per with me and James slapping them together. We cut them out of soft pine and attach bendable Plexiglass pieces on the end like Immediate Supervisor wants. James saws the Unusables into shelves for his locker.

I am frustrated with our job and it has a lot to do with the following essential truth: gate arms are not designed to stop anything. You can crack them by looking at them funny. I'm like, if we're going to make gate arms, why don't we
make
gate arms? Something that will really stop somebody or damage some paint? What's the purpose? And for what purpose are we replacing them all the time if they have no purpose?

The only time we see Immediate Supervisor is when we're handing in the Gate Arm Status Report sheets. Other than that, everyone pretty much leaves us alone there, which isn't exactly what we want, since we're going for full-time.

James has the broken gate arm radar. Out of the 69 he can take us direct to the broken ones. Today he is glazy, distant, but still he zeros in on the broken gate arms, and at his direction we hit the West Stadium side first.

Do you know why I love Laundromats? James says, as I am sawing off a splintered end. We sit on the grass to do this and
the business of the day—buses, shuttle, bikes, skateboards, cars with permits and cars without—goes by unimpeded.

Why do these gate arms even exist? I say.

Because they're warm. The sound of dryers is a lullaby. If you go into a high-end one, that smell, all Snuggles. You can play video games, eat gumballs, and get change for free. How could it be even more warm, more cozy, more wonderful? Imagine a Laundromat that allows you to snooze, near-naked in an MRILIKE tube of fluorescent bulbs, which cook your body while its compatriot machines wash and then heat your clothes to a toasty warm. Warmth in
totale
.

I understand it is about the impression of obstruction, but I can't help feel even more useless than when I didn't have a job, always replacing them when they fail to perform the function they are designed to fail to perform, I say.

I have proposed—and Steve has accepted my proposal—that he incorporate into his Laundromat a tanning facility. Whereas most salons sell thirty-minute or hour-long, Steve's Korean Laundry & Tan's increments will be associated with your wash cycle. At mid-tan you walk out, transfer your clothes, re-up your dryer time and back to tan based on that particular dryer increment.

Forcefields, I say. Forcefields are the future of vehicle-access control. Not these toothpicks. I crack the remains of an Unusable over my knee.

I have a feeling there's some serious work for us over by Research Library, he says.

We pack up and watch one of our new gate arms raise for a Fritos truck.

Immediate Supervisor comes on the walkie-talkie.

Immediate Supervisor, I say. And just then my Nokia buzzes. It's my girlfriend. I drive the cart with my knee and listen
to the walkie-talkie with my right ear, the Nokia with my left.

What are you doing after work? my girlfriend says.

Where are you? Immediate Supervisor says.

We're test-driving mopeds, I say to her. We're right here, I say to him.

I cheated on you again last night, she says.

Where's here? Immediate Supervisor says.

His gate arm bigger than mine? I say.

Oh, honey, she says, like tossing a hotdog down a hallway.

Wherever you are, Immediate Supervisor says, get you and your wacko guy over to Research Library. Someone battering-rammed it.

James and I hear the sound of urethane on asphalt. We turn our heads in time to see a rollerblader snap through a gate arm we'd just replaced and speed away down the hill.

 

James and Steve unpack the tanning bed and I go visit the Herp girl. Maybe it's the ease with which she handles things that bite. I cringe to reach for a teddy bear hamster. She has no fear.

Can we try the snakehead in mud? I say. My feeling is it can walk in mud. We can clear the alligators out of one of these tubs and pack it with mud, then that thing will go.

What snakehead? she says.

The one you threw on the floor the other day.

That wasn't a snakehead. That was a particular catfish which happens to resemble a snakehead. Like I said, snakehead's not legal.

We are standing across from each other, separated by the small cages of the millipedes and tarantulas.

But even if it was a snakehead, she says, which it's not, it couldn't walk in mud. It's a myth, that they walk from lake to lake decimating populations. Thing's got bad press. Might be
legal if it weren't for that kind of dis. They decimate populations, sure, eat everything with gills, sure, some amphibians, sure, but they, meaning snakeheads, which is not what is over in that tank in this licensed pet shop subject to wildlife laws and regulations of this fine state, do not walk, period.

She leans across the counter, resting her breasts on a tarantula cage. The tarantula tries to attack them through the aerated lid. It hops at her breasts, but she doesn't seem to care. She sniffs my shoulder.

You have the essence of broth, she says. After the boil. I can smell you coming a mile off.

I eat a lot of soups, I say.

The Laundromat is empty. I go back into what used to be the office but is now the tanning facility. Steve and James are standing in front of a high-tech coffin and puzzling over the directions. They've stapled a poster of a waterfall on the wall and they are piping in some fuzzy bird chirping from the old spaghetti speakers.

You're in luck, James says. You just won a free tan.

Steve looks at James. Free? he says. Steve and James confer quietly in the corner.

I don't want a tan, I say.

Come on, man, James says. That pet store girl is crazy about guys with tans. She probably lives for the beach.

What do I do?

Lay your shit down, hombre. I'll come get you in twenty.

Could stand a little color, I guess.

That's the spirit, James says.

I strip down to my boxers and James hands me a pair of Ray Bans. I climb in and hear a switch flip and these long tubes light up. It warms quickly, and I start to think James was right about this. It's nice.

I close my eyes underneath the Ray Bans, taking in the hum of the bulbs and the bird chirping. Earlier, when we'd hit Research Library, there were six downed gate arms, none of them broken near the mechanism, so they all went in the Unusable Crate, which on one hand made our jobs easier because there was no sawing, only bolting involved, but which on the other hand always seemed needlessly wasteful to me.

We felt good about our day, like we'd worked at our useless job, until Immediate Supervisor came by to collect our Gate Arm Status Report sheets and said that there's a budget crunch, that the increased destruction of gate arms isn't helping any—so by the way we might lower the size of the Reattachment Acceptable or even duct tape some ends onto the longer Unusables. But whatever, there's a very real possibility he's going to have to let one of us go.

I
have the broken gate arm radar, James immediately said.

Hey, I said. Here he was, turning it into a competition again, always at my expense. And in this case he had the edge. I had no practical skill which would give me an advantage over him in replacing gate arms. Maybe I could saw faster or bolt quicker, but probably not. If he could shave off precious seconds of the workday by driving direct to the brokens, how was I to compete?

When I wake up, there is the sense that something is wrong. The feeling of being inside the tanning machine has changed. It sears. I push the lid off the coffin and sit up. My arms, my whole body is chalky and pink. I pull on my clothes, which burn when they touch my skin.

Steve and James are leaned over the Korean Bible in the main area of the Laundromat. I come around in front of them and they don't even look until I wave a pink hand in front of the Bible.

Wait a sec, James says.

Steve points to a squiggle and tells James that it means Job.

You guys maybe forget something?

Man. You look all crabby, James says.

Timer, Steve says.

Timer, James says. Hey, we were thinking of hiring some good looking tan bitches. Maybe your girlfriend would do it?

Steve snickers.

I am standing here burnt to a crisp, I say.

You are burnt, he says. It's a significant burn, acknowledged.

Speaking of my girlfriend, we need to get ourselves to the bank, I say.

James points at another squiggle in the Bible. Steve opens up his Korean-English dictionary. Faces of the ground, Steve says.

As soon as I have time, I'm going, James says. I agreed to sign the little paper, get it witness and notarize and shit.

I say, Catch you at the schoolhouse. I take the bus home but it hurts to sit.

A cold shower brings out the red. My girlfriend rubs a special aloe cooling agent all over my body. It is one of the best nights we've shared until she boots me to the couch because, she says, I emanate too much heat. By morning I already peel.

 

I formulate my own proposal, looking to put me one up in the initiative category and make more work for us, which means more hours which means more payola. When Immediate Supervisor collects our Gate Arm Status Report sheets, I pose a question: Who breaks our gate arms the most, Immediate Supervisor? I say.

It's Fall, he says. Why are you so red?

Drunk people, James says.

Drunk people in cars, drunk people walking, drunk people riding bikes, Immediate Supervisor says. Students who don't want to pay. Students who want to park where they're not supposed to. Though they have universal remote openers for gate arms, emergency vehicles crash through them rather than waiting for them to rise.

There's nothing we can do about some of those, and maybe not even a freak occurrence like this Research Library thing the other day. But when mostly do all those drunks you mentioned do their damage?