WASH, DRY, FOLD

While doing her laundry at Steely Suds, Kesha thinks about the day’s events. Her father, who had been absent throughout her 35 years on this earth, suddenly contacted her out of the blue via email. He claimed he had cancer, it was inoperable and he wanted to meet with her tonight. The doctors had said he wouldn’t make it through the year and had speculated that these next months would be his last. He desperately wanted to reconnect with her and get to know the headstrong woman he’d read about in her theater reviews that had touted her as the next big star in the local rags. He would be at Cup’A’Joe’s tonight at nine and, if she wanted, she could meet him for coffee, no strings attached.

Kesha’s only memory of her father was the day he told her he was going to the corner store for a carton of Dutch Pinks, his favorite brand. She was seven years old and she remembers it like it was only a few hours ago. Various dreams of him over the years added closure to the story, where he would attend every birthday party, show up at every play, front row. These were just dreams, yet every time she woke up from one, they were so real that she had to remind herself that it hadn’t happened the night before.

The drying cycle ends. She folds everything on the yellowed, plastic table, places each item into her laundry basket and proceeds to her car. As she pulls out of the parking lot, her mind drifts back to her father. She wonders what he looks like now. How many of his mannerisms had she been aping over the years without her knowledge? She’d always enjoyed performing. Was that something he’d done at an earlier age or was that something she’d picked up along the way that set them apart? Her curiosity tugged at her, but not hard enough. She passes by the Cup’A’Joe’s without ever looking in to notice the frail black man at the table by the window. He peers out into the street, looks at his watch and digs into his coat pocket for his pack of Dutch Pinks. As he lights up outside, he thinks, "Give her another hour."

The "open" sign in the window of Cup'A'Joe's goes out.  He stands there long after his last cigarette is gone.




-SLL