Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.
"King Kong!"
I heard the name again, more distant, then nothing. I shook my head. Half the reason I kept using this Laundromat was fear. If I had become familiar enough to warrant a nickname from the dealing ring, what would happen if I stopped showing up? Who knew, drug rings might be territorial.
The other half was location. The city probably housed hundreds of Laundromats, not to mention the laundry rooms on campus, but this one wasn't two blocks from my apartment. I didn't need to haul two garbage bags' worth of laundry any farther than that. And I didn't want to feel any semblance of bond between myself and certain students.
Inside, the usual greasy thirty-something who never seemed to sleep lounged in the corner. He never seemed to do laundry, either. Mitchell Schiezwitz, who shook everyone's hand at least thrice before being sure he knew them, sat in a plastic chair scribbling in his notebook. A small Asian woman who let her favorite customers swipe Pocky was loading a corner machine.
Only one costumer was out of the ordinary. A boy of indeterminable age sat atop a running machine, folded into a casual lotus position. He had shaggy brown hair that was damp but still needed a wash and had obviously been dyed: he was a natural blond. His eyebrows betrayed as much.
I dumped my dirty clothes into a machine, tossed in the soap, and slammed the door shut. While I waited, idly watching the machine spin my jeans and shirts and boxers in endless circles, I watched the other patrons. Which one, I asked myself, would most likely steal my clothes if I left the Laundromat?
Mitchell wouldn't take them. He'd just watch, write it up, and possibly name the perpetrator. He was trustworthy without any shred of affection.
The greasy no-laundry man might. Maybe he didn't have any clothes to wash. No, his clothes were in fine condition. He had money. Drug ring, and obviously this guy was on the better end of it. Either he'd take the clothes for the sheer thrill of doing something wrong, or he'd ignore them, not needing the cash. And he had probably surpassed the point of being excited by petty theft.
Asian Lady, I decided, was the likeliest candidate. Why would she steal my clothes? Maybe to sell them, maybe to cut them up for cloth, maybe because she was a weird old Asian lady who I couldn't begin to understand. I could picture it, though: Asian Lady bent over a stolen laundry trolley, wheeling as swiftly as her bent old back and sensible shoes allowed. Or, more comically, Asian Lady cackling as she made a break for freedom.
But what about the kid? He seemed oblivious, moving slightly in time with the motion of the washing machine. Still, maybe that was a front. He clearly needed money.
Wherever my mind wandered, it returned to him. I couldn't explain it—something about his face looked too innocent. The neighborhood, just the Laundromat seemed to frighten him, though he didn't even seem to notice that it housed a drug ring.
Asian Lady's dryer finished first. She chattered to herself in Cantonese as she folded printed cloth at record speed. Then she slipped her clothes into plastic shopping bags and waddled out of the shop, sturdy reused plastic wearing into the thick layers of wrinkled skin on her arms.
Mitchell's dryer dinged next. He shut his notepad, bundled his clothes into a ball under his arm, and walked out.
"Bye, Mitchell!" the boy on the washing machine cried hopefully, his trunk extending towards the departant scribbler. He waved. Mitchell didn't even turn, and the boy slumped back, defeated. He looked like he might cry, but I knew he wouldn't.
His washer dinged, then mine. We loaded our dryers in silence. In another season, I might have taken my clothes home and dried them on the lines on the roof. That day, though, it was raining, so I settled into a plastic chair to wait.
The greasy drug ring man left through the back door.
A minute later, I felt eyes boring into the back of my neck. I turned. The boy gasped and promptly looked at his crotch. His face turned bright pink, whether because I'd caught him staring or because he realized he was staring at a sexual area. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, when acknowledging his ownership of a penis—or, hell, even a nipple, is about equal to public fornication.
Feeling understanding for the kid, I looked away, shaking my head and chuckling.
I caught him looking twice at me more before hauling myself out of my chair and ambling over. His eyes widened and he inched back towards the wall.
I offered my hand. "I'm Tom," I said. "Friends call me Collins." And he looked so shocked, either this kid was in desperate need of a friend, or he had never seen a black person before. We were living in New York City. If he hadn't seen a black man before, he was blind.
He shook my hand. "Roger."
"How long've you been in the city, Roger?" I asked.
He claimed, "About three months." When he said it, he straightened up, set his jaw and stared at me.
I raised my eyebrows. "Sure you don't mean three weeks?" That seemed more suited to his uncertainty, and his need to prove it.
Roger sighed. "Two, actually. It shows?"
I chuckled. "Hardly," I lied, and he laughed, knowing it was a lie. "So what're you in for?" I asked.
He looked quizzical, then realized I meant in the city and he laughed. "Oh!" he said. "That was funny!" Not only did I not need his affirmation, his laughter assured me of his pleasure with the joke. He was so young, this boy, the way he smiled and rocked when he laughed, and the way he looked at me. "Life," he suggested to answer my question.
I gave him a snicker of laughter. He needed it. "Yeah? What's the charge?"
"Being a teenager?" he asked.
"Nineteen?" I guessed.
Roger opened his mouth, then closed it. He tilted his head. "Yeah," he said at least. "I'm nineteen." He couldn't have picked a more obvious lie, or a less harmful one. I had the feeling if I'd suggested thirty-five Roger would have agreed to it, though he looked more like twelve.
We talked until the greasy man returned, crunching on the last of a chimichanga. Roger and I talked until the dryers rang finished, and while we folded our clothes. He told me he was trying to be a musician, well that he already was a musician but was trying to make money off it. Was he making any? A little.
Translation: not enough to live off.
"Where do you play?"
"It varies."
He had few items of clothing—boxers, T-shirts, and a spare pair of jeans—so he finished folding well before I did. He slipped his clothes into a duffel bag, grabbed his guitar case, and kept chatting with me.
"You mean like, which stop you play varies?"
He laughed. "I play the park sometimes," he said. "It's nice to get out, you know?"
"Sure." I swept up my clothes and headed out of the Laundromat. Roger fell into step beside me. "How long have you been playing?"
"Only about a year," he admitted, "since I was fo—eight teen." He said it like that, with two hard t's.
I don't know why I didn't call his bluff. Maybe because it didn't matter? I knew he was a kid. Hell, he'd've been a kid even if he was nineteen. I knew he was a kid and I wasn't going to do anything to hurt him. "Electric?"
"Acoustic."
I nodded. "Nice." Truth be told, I didn't know much about music. I sang in the church choir when I was younger, up until the profound revelation of my atheism. That is the extent of my musical experience.
"What do you do?" he asked.
"I teach."
"Yeah? What grades?"
"C's, mostly," I said. He looked at me strangely, then got it and laughed. "College. Philosophy."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
We walked a few more feet, then I turned and headed up the steps to my apartment. Roger followed me up the first step, then realized, made a little noise, and stepped back. "So, uh… maybe I'll see you around?" he asked hopefully.
I nodded. "Yeah. Take care, Roger."
"You, too." He sighed, turned and slumped down the street.
As I watched him go, I knew what I was going to do. Roger was seventeen and living on the streets. I had known him for a grand total of forty-two minutes, but he seemed reliable enough. He seemed too innocent to consider doing anything wrong.
"Roger!" I called. He turned. "You got a place to stay for the night?"
--
Things worked out fine for a while. Roger brought in a fair amount playing street corners and subway stations. I was employed at Columbia. All right, financially, we weren't equal. Roger tried to manage two hundred and fifty dollars a month in rent (the lie I told him was half) and sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he didn't. Mostly he didn't. He never said anything, but it bothered him if his thinness was any indication. Kid wouldn't eat.
Then I saw him without dye in his hair.
"Whoa."
Roger froze. He was halfway to the kitchen (didn't eat, but drank a veritable sea of water). He glanced as me. "What?" he asked.
I was on the couch. I scooted to sit up a bit more and said, "Your hair. I didn't know that was its natural color." It wasn't even blond. It was golden. 'Golden' is a cliched storybook romance description of some helpless, overly effeminate princess. Inked onto the page is something roughly the color of turmeric. Roger's hair was actually golden. It shone.
He nodded. "Yeah."
"It's nice," I told him. For a white boy, he looked fantastic, almost attractive. I immediately shook myself, mentally, rebuking myself for even thinking of a sixteen-year-old in those terms. But I wouldn't make a move on him, so it was easy to forgive myself.
"Thanks," he said. Testosterone must've skipped his vocal cords.
"You could keep it that way. You'd probably pick up better tips." This is not to say the kid wasn't talented. If he truly had been playing only a year, he hadn't done much else but practice.
"Why?"
"Because people would stop just to look at you. Roger, you are actually beautiful."
He took a step back. "A... are you, like, a queer or something?" he asked, watching me. When I shifted my position he stepped back again, shaking his head.
"Roger," I said, trying to calm him down. But it only served to mean 'yes'. He fled into his bedroom, really ran, shaking his head and murmuring to himself.
The next morning there were traces of blood on Roger's fingers. Each one was wrapped in its own bandage, barely bending. Luckily for his sake it was his right hand and he only needed his thumb to strum the guitar strings.
Still, it was an odd wound to see. "What happened?" I asked, reaching out to touch his hand. It was a habit I'd learned from my mother. She always touched you, gently, on the shoulder or cheek or forehead, like some form of medicinal magic. When I tried to touch Roger's hand, he yanked it back, held it tight against his chest and stared at me. His eyes went round.
"Don't," he whispered. "P-please. It's n-nothing." He was trembling as he said it.
My initial response was offense. I walked away from Roger and went to grade papers. A few minuets later I remembered that I had been going into the kitchen to eat breakfast. I glanced up. Roger was still sitting there, cradling his hand and murmuring to himself. If I could have touched his shoulder to calm him, I think I would have.
But instead I returned to grading, too angry to even feed myself. Pure spite.
It was only later, when I remembered how he had looked and spoken, that I realized Roger was just a scared little kid. He didn't hate gay people. He was just terrified.
--
Two weeks later, I was sitting on the couch with a book of poetry and a beer. It was my single Friday celebration, and I was enjoying it, though I wasn't happy. There were footsteps behind me. I didn't look up. A fish in the water can sense movement through a sort of external nerve. So I felt towards Roger, though my external nerve was only a sense of hearing met with tension. I didn't read a word as he fumbled around in the kitchen and popped a pot of popcorn. I didn't speak to him and he didn't speak to me.
Roger poured the popcorn into a bowl. He came over and sat on the couch. I scooted my feet closer to my body to give him space. What? Gonna sit with me, Roger? You're not afraid my queerness will rub off? Honestly, what did the boy expect? Living in the East Village-- living in New York City-- he was going to meet homosexuals. This wasn't the midwest. It wasn't Texas or a meeting of the Young Republicans.
"Hey," Roger said.
"Yeah?"
I awaited an apology. At the very least I wanted an explanation. Instead he said, "Want some?" and held out the bowl of popcorn. It was chewy and crunchy and sufficient.
to be continued!
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