The Power of Permenant Press

I always sit atop the washer as it works. Ad hoc sharper image relaxation technique, i award myself as i hop up, bouncing with the spin cycle, water lapping at the metal surface desperate to hit my pants. Not this pair, no, i'm wearing this pair. You have enough sets of ripped pant legs to start on already, one bit at a time, i coo at the thrashing Kenmore machinery. My journey to the makeshift laundromat proves more stressful with each successive load. An awakening experience - i never knew i had this many t-shirts and rogue socks.


My hands slip across the binding of the downstairs neighbor's book, torn at the bottom, pages bent uniformly tell the tale of my bag. If i were a celebrity, i think, this might be my autograph. No pen, just rips and coffee stains, uneven dogears and smeared lead across the right side of the picture. Note to self: buy will a new book. My fingers reach into my memory and pull at the opening of my last literature excursion, page 114, yes, here we were. The washer hums, my fingers trace, eyes pace rapidly like a clairvoyant in an oneiric trans. Time and water and dryer sheets and humming all take their places neatly in the background of my mind, marked with masking tape to frame the stage where the reading will be done. And it booms, the story, I sit in the theater atop more washers and dryers and baskets and carts and those vending machines dispensing generic brands of detergents and fabric softeners. The story stops for no finished load, spinning and twirling a tumultuous mingling of words and smells and the sole laughs that burst from my lips. And it whirls and it whirls and i'm worried i might get sea-sick, desperately clinging to the side of my Kenmore quite aware that it might toss me overboard at any given moment, and then KNOCK. A face, male, shrouded in shadows and alcohol appears. I know it to be a face, only by the boyish goofy smile and sidekick of a hand waving and pointing through the dusted window. I jerk and turn, shocked, racking my memory for this man's smile or palm. Then it's his turn, equally shocked. We both stare, and BUZZ - i jump, and he follows suit, me off the white surface of my appliance and him into an extended branch of a nearby maple, his head turns in offense and embarrassment to look at the mess he's created. And he waves his arms and shakes his head gesturing, "not you, sorry not you. i thought you to be someone else but, oh, clearly you're not," blurs of forearms flying one over the other, selecting bits and pieces of an outdated handjive. I pardon him with a nod despite his unprecedented interruption, if i may be quite honest. And with the authority of a schoolteacher excusing her students he runs off to join his gang as they stumble down the street.



I pull at the edges of my little black dress, wet and entangled in a compress of other articles. Read the tag aloud, "dry clean only", my feet firmly planted on the cracked linoleum floor. They say, "don't risk it Rachel. This is a new purchase", my arms yell back, "FUCK.THAT.SHIT. do you always abide by the stitching in your clothing?? who's the boss of who, huh?" I smile, remembering my new found authority with the late-night knocker, and toss the dress into an open dryer. Ah, it feels good, the rest of the load accepts, marching itself in along with my dry-cleanable clothes. Swipe, shut, spin.