Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

He looks around. Rubs his hands together. Smacks his lips. Now’s my chance. The other two still have their heads in their magazines. The place smells like a hospital. Too clean altogether. Not a bit of graffiti on the walls. No soul whatsoever. He starts to hum: Ol’ buttermilk sky, I’m a telling you why, now you know, keep it in mind tonight, are you going to be mellow tonight? As Fancypants’s car moves away, he walks toward machine number five. He lifts the lid quickly. Fingers shaking. Rummages. Finds it. Water spurting down onto his thick hands. He takes the white blouse and tucks it under his overcoat. Can’t you see my little donkey and me, we’re as happy as a Christmas tree, heading for the one I love, the one I love. Whistles softly to himself. It will be a little wet, a small spot of blue detergent on the sleeve, but who cares? Juanita will love it. Gonna poppa the question, that question, do you darling, do you do? It’ll be easy so easy if I can only bank on you. He feels the wetness of the blouse beginning to seep against his own shirt. He lets a little smile fly from his lips and shuffles out the laundromat door. Christ, he thinks, but it sure is a hot one today.

* * *

He sits in the leather chair that the good folks down at Saint Vincent de Paul’s gave him for a dollar. The room is small and cluttered and full of silence. On the mantelpiece there is a picture of him as a young man in red gloves. His skin is drawn tightly over muscles. Those were the days. A cowlick hanging happily over green eyes. A pair of silk shorts hangs beside the photo. A couple of trophies nearby. Sheets on the bed are crumpled. Above the bed is a picture of Juanita, her hair threaded down her back, like the girl in the song with her hair hung over her shoulder. Beautiful. My Juanita. Books of poetry talk to one another on the floor. A TV spits gray. A kettle boils. The cupboard at the end of the room is full of women’s clothes. Blouses. Dresses. Skirts. Scarves. It’s getting choc-a-bloc in there. He must get busy with the doorknobs. He smiles to himself.

Right in front of him, on a coat hanger dangling from the lampshade, is the white blouse with the blue frills. He gets up slowly from the leather chair, wheezes, reaches out, and touches the sleeves that dangle in the air. Runs his arms along the collar. Then presses his face against the blouse, holding it, breathing in deeply, smiling.

“Juanita,” he says softly. “Juanita, my love, you look absolutely gorgeous.”

* * *

On down past the graffiti again, hurrying this time. He has remembered that he left his tweed cap on one of the plastic chairs back in the laundromat. Hope to Christ that Fancypants isn’t still there. It’s been an hour and a half, and surely the tumble dryer has finished now and she’s off and away, oblivious. Get a move on now, Flaherty. Step we quickly on we go. No gaiety now. And sure isn’t gaiety something altogether unfashionable these days, unless you live in the French Quarter? There’s some graffiti on the walls about homosexuals, but nothing as good as the cocking out of muscles, alive-alive-o. Hup two.

Juanita will be hopping mad if he isn’t home in time for the tea that she has boiling on the stove. And even madder if she finds out that he’s lost his hat. She bought it for him in Clery’s in Dublin back in the fifties, when money was round and made to roll. They walked out onto O’Connell Street in the drizzling rain, and she pulled it delicately over his black curls. Said it made him look like a leprechaun. Leprecorny perhaps. She laughed. People stared as they walked. A tall brick of a man and a tiny Mexican girl, fitting together like a hand in a glove. Sauntering down the quays, stopping in bookshops. The Liffey tossing down to the sea, barges bound from the brewery, pigeons quarelling over bread, motor cars beeping at tinkers in horse carts. Kissing Juanita under the blue awning of an antique store. Ah, she looked so sweet from her two bare feet to the sheen of her lush brown hair. Hup two. On you go, with a song in your heart. Gotta get the damn hat back.

He almost falls on the steps near his favorite piece of graffiti, grazing his hand as he uses it to prevent a fall. Rise up out of the bed of your oppressors, he mutters to himself. Quickly now. Hup two three four.

He negotiates the steps, wheezes out onto Carrollton Avenue, and looks up the street. Damnblast and bugger it. There’s Clarence LeBlanc leaning his skinny legs up against the wall, chatting with Miss Jackson. Maybe he’s the one who got her up the Swannee. Howiloveya, howiloveya, my dear ol’ Swannee. He hopes not. LeBlanc couldn’t squire anything but a long lanky drink of bogwater. Perhaps, however, when Juanita decides that she’s worn the white blouse with the blue frills long enough, he’ll give it to the pregnant girl, though it might be a little tight around her belly. He moves to tip his hat to them, then remembers that it isn’t there. A man without his hat is like a pig with a gold ring in its nose. Down the road, alongside the clutter and clang of cars. LeBlanc is shouting something behind him, but he pretends he doesn’t hear. Quickly now, Flaherty. On your toes. No time for graffiti.

Down past the flower shop, the little green man flashing, cars beeping, the clammy roar of a hot New Orleans afternoon. Thirty damn years of living in this town and never once was I able to cross the damn road in time. Past the chicken shop, past the bank. The neon sign flickers. 4:31 P.M. 94 degrees. Jalapeño time. Upwards, Flaherty. Away. May your ways be merry and your paths be few. Hup two. Christ. Still rhyming. Hot. Hot. Hot. He takes off his overcoat as he shuffles and tucks it under his arm when he gets to the parking lot of the laundromat. Negotiates a couple of potholes. Give me a ring with ropes and I still could dance. And, sweet Jesus, there in all her glory, a little bit bemused, by washing machine number six, is Fancypants.

He stalls in the parking lot, wondering. But Fancypants couldn’t have a clue. Probably hasn’t even noticed the missing shirt. Have to get the cap back anyway. A man’s gotta do. Juanita will be hopping mad if I lose it. She adores that hat. He shuffles toward the door, keeping his eyes down. Hup two. On the seat nearest the door, he catches a glimpse of his gray tweed. Hallelujah and hail to the king. Grand job, Nora, as the saying goes. Nora being the girl that the bold Sean O’Casey left behind. He chuckles to himself. Here comes the Playboy of the Western World. Or was that Mr. Synge? Onward. Away. On yer bike. Quickly.

He looks up and notices that Fancypants is watching him. Uh-oh. He smiles at her as he picks up the hat. “Fierce hot today isn’t it?” he says to her.

“What?” She moves out from around the back of the machines. “Yes. Well. Excuse me, sir, did you happen, by any chance, to, like, see somebody in here?”

“Not a soul. I just forgot my hat.”

“I misplaced a blouse.”

“Sorry to hear that. Well, I must be on my way. Juanita expects me home. She has the tea on.”

“Excuse me?” says Fancypants.

“My wife. She’ll be angry as all get-out if I lose my cap. I left my cap here.”

“Oh,” says Fancypants.

“Had to run all the way here. Still have it in my lungs, all the same. Used to run six miles a day. Way back when.”

“I see. But you didn’t happen to see anyone in…”

“Devil a soul. There were two women when I left. Now that you mention it.”

“Did they go to that washing machine?” Fancypants points over toward number five.

“Not that I know of.” With his back to the door he hears someone enter the laundromat. He doesn’t turn around, just stands, watching Fancypants. “I hear there’s been some thievery going on all the same,” he says. “It’s a terrible thing. Can’t trust a soul these days. All the young ones are into drugs. No wonder they call it the junior high.”