“Sure,” says Bunny. “Sure I will.”
“Because good daddies are few and far between,” says June, raising her voice a little bit and glancing toward the back of the store. “Wouldn’t you say that was right, Paul,” she says.
“Relax,” says the invisible Paul.
“You be sure and tell him honey, won’t you?” June is wiping the counter again with a big rag. Slap slap. Although it is already clean.
“Oh yes, I will,” says Bunny. She hesitates, but she likes June and she can feel Merle around her in this place. “You know, I think my sister might have passed through this way,” says Bunny. “It was about a year ago? Maybe a little more than a year ago.” Bunny ticks off months on her fingers, although she knows exactly how many months it has been. Fourteen.
“Not that many folks pass this way,” says June.
“She’s taller than me and much more, you know, filled out, and she has hair that goes all the way down her back.”
“I don’t recall. Fourteen months is a long time even in this sleepy little bugtown, sweetheart. Where is she now?”
“Really red hair.” Bunny says. Bunny looks into the mirror now and sees a shadowy shape. Bunny holds her breath and doesn’t move, waiting for Merle to say something, afraid to turn around. Her heart is beating and beating. Outside it is thundering and lightning again. Merle, is that you Merle?
“There was the terrible thing a while back.” The hamburger man is talking with his mouth full. “Over by New Hope, wasn’t it? That girl they found strangled? Terrible.”
“You okay, sweetheart?” asks the waitress, whose cool hand is by now covering Bunny’s own. “You look a little woozy there. We don’t allow fainting in here, do we, Paul.”
“I’m okay. Got to go now.” The shape is gone.
June protests but Bunny is already halfway to the door. She is mad at herself. She can usually tell when somebody is going to say something she doesn’t want to hear. But she didn’t see it coming.
Outside it is raining hard, like little eggs coming down, splashing.
YOU LEAVE TRACES of yourself, Bunny thinks, everywhere you’ve been. Silvery shapes. She has thought hard about it, because to tell the truth this isn’t the only time she has seen Merle. The first time was on the bus that goes up Broadway. Bunny had been outside the Cathedral Market. There in the third window, her face against the glass, was Merle. She hadn’t smiled, she hadn’t waved, she had just fixed her eyes on Bunny. She’d looked sad. Bunny had run after the bus shouting and waving, but it hadn’t stopped. She misses me, Bunny says to herself, she’ll send me a sign. Bunny just has to be in the right place at the right time and presto, there will be Merle. Maybe Merle has opened an embroidery business in New Hope, with a changed name. Maybe Bunny will walk across a little green bridge and find her there, maybe her hair cut short, maybe dyed black. Anything can happen.
4
THE AUGSVILLE SUD-Z Laundromat is set back off the street, with a parking lot out front. Bunny is sitting on a bench against the back wall pretending to be doing a crossword puzzle while pretending to be waiting for wash. Outside it is raining cats and dogs. There were a few people here when she first came in but nobody noticed Bunny. Everybody was busy folding. Except one boy who was stuffing a sopping wet blanket into a dryer. It dripped on the floor and nobody said anything. Then he left.
Bunny can see the blanket going around in the dryer, probably still wet. Everyone is gone now except one mother and her baby. The mother’s mouth looks like a dent in her face, and her hair is separated into greasy strands and her arms are fat but she is wearing a sleeveless shirt and too tight shorts. The baby is skinny. The woman is trying to get stuff out of the dryer and into one of those big carts but the baby cradled in her left arm keeps crying. It sounds as if it can’t get enough air to scream, so it just quacks like a duck. Finally the woman sighs, holds the baby with both arms, and goes to stand at the back door, which is propped open by a chair. Bunny watches her patting the baby’s back. Beyond the door Bunny can see a rusted metal picnic table and a couple of plastic chairs. Rain falling all over everything. After a while the child quiets down. Bunny looks at her watch. It is only two-thirty. Bunny hates two-thirty. What a nothing time.
Bunny isn’t sure what to do next. She is waiting for a sign. The crossword puzzle was lying on the bench when she came in and she hoped it had a message for her. But all of the questions are about golf. One of the filled-in blanks says IGOR and another NED. All the rest of them say ROLAND. Roland can’t be the answer to everything, and besides the name is squeezed in when there are only three spaces. But who knows. Bunny doesn’t do crosswords. That was Merle’s specialty. “What’s a four-letter word for asshole,” Merle whispered to Bunny once. “Mook,” was the answer, and Bunny had giggled until she’d almost peed her pants. That was a couple of years ago, when everything was okay. Now the world is enormous, full of small black roads that hardly go anywhere. She wishes she could take a hot shower. She thinks about the bathroom back home, with Mook’s razor and toothbrush. “Mook likes his coffee with milk in the A.M.” her mother had said, as if Bunny gave a good goddamn. She’d like to serve him up a nice hot cup of dog piss and see how he liked that.
“You want a tissue?” A soft voice startles Bunny. She realizes she is sitting forward on the bench with her shoulders hunched up and her hands under her thighs and is just staring at nothing whatsoever in the shape of a washing machine. She touches her face, which is wet as if she has been crying. The crossword has slid to the floor.
“I’ve got a diaper you can use.” The fat mother is holding a cloth out to her. Bunny sees she is young.
“Thanks,” says Bunny, wiping her eyes.
“You can keep it,” says the mother. “I’ve got plenty more.” She is piling things into a yellow laundry cart and pushing them over to the table in back for folding. The baby is asleep.
“What a cute baby,” says Bunny, to be polite.
“Looks like his old man. Bald as a bat.” The woman smiles a little. Still, her mouth is kind of caved in. Bunny watches her fold the diapers expertly, she watches her fold up the tiny baby clothes and a couple of crib sheets. She folds up some large underpants and a tremendous pair of shorts, bright red. She is just going along as if everything were normal and yet she is so terrible looking.
“Want some help?” Bunny asks.
“I got it, thanks,” the woman replies, her chin holding one end of a towel to her chest, managing to fold it up neatly with her left hand while her right arm holds the sleeping baby. “You get good at this.” She smiles again. She doesn’t have any top teeth, that’s what’s the matter.
Five minutes later the woman is ready to leave, everything folded and put in a green laundry basket. “Bye-bye,” she says.
“Oh, bye-bye.” Bunny waves to them, the baby asleep on his mother’s shoulder.
She feels a little weird now that she has the whole place to herself. Only one washing machine still going and as Bunny sits listening to it spin, it stops. There isn’t any noise at all now except the fan and the dryer with the blanket. She doesn’t want to just sit here but she doesn’t know exactly what to do and she is tired of her boring mind, which has nothing in it she wants to think about. She digs around in the knapsack and unearths the foil-wrapped brownie. She looks to make sure nobody is watching her through the window, then she breaks off a big piece and pops it into her mouth. It tastes so weird, kind of like mud. Now she lights a cigarette. Chocolate makes you want to smoke. Maybe she should throw a few things into a washer. Her sneakers, for instance. They’re starting to smell bad and her feet feel slimy. She gets up and buys some packets of soap from a machine on the wall. Just for fun and because she has so many quarters she drops one sneaker in one washer and the other sneaker in another. She wishes she could wash her clothes but she has nothing to change into. There is nothing in her knapsack to wear except her jacket, unless you count the tarp. At least it’s summer and she doesn’t need mu
ch. And the linoleum feels cool under her bare feet. Now she is thinking about Merle’s flip-flops. They were the color of red peppers or paprika or those teeny tiny red spiders that you sometimes see, but they weren’t meant for running. The last time Bunny saw Merle she was running. “Go home, Bunny,” she had yelled, as if she were angry with Bunny. “Don’t follow me now.”
“But your shoes!” Bunny had held one up.
Merle hadn’t turned around again. Fourteen months ago Merle crossed the street barefoot and turned the corner down Broadway.
Suddenly Bunny feels bad for her sneakers. They must feel so all alone tumbling around in the great big machines with no other company. She walks over to the big table against the wall where all the lost-and-found stuff is. There are a lot of socks. She throws a couple of socks in with one sneaker, a couple more with the other. Company. Then she goes back to the table and picks one-handed through the pile, holding her cigarette off to the side. Maybe there is something here she could wear while she washed and dried her clothes. Bunny pauses, the cigarette in her right hand, a graying Dacron blouse in her left. Sometimes sad clothes space her right out. She drops it back on the table. She picks up a Mickey Mouse T-shirt with a huge stain on the front. Maybe she could wear that, it comes down to her knees. She stands there picking off the pinkish gray lint. Then quickly she pulls the big T-shirt over her head like a tent and slips out of her jeans. She pulls on a pair of purplish lost-and-found slacks, which fit okay, a little big. Then she throws her clothes into a third washer (good thing she brought so many quarters) and sits back down on the bench, the crossword puzzle in her lap. She feels a little strange sitting in somebody else’s clothes. What if they come in and demand them back? She wishes Merle would show up soon, or at least send her some message. Her cigarette is burned down to the filter, balanced on the edge of the lost-and-found table, where she left it.
In the bottom of her knapsack is one postcard from Merle. It is dated almost fourteen months ago to the day. Bunny almost never looks at the postcard because it is already so worn and wrinkled from when she used to look at it all the time. Now she keeps it wrapped in tin foil and sealed in a Baggie. She thinks about looking at it now. But why? She already knows what it says. It’s just she likes to touch the ink. The postmark was New Hope.
Merle ran away on a Saturday morning. Bunny was already up and eating toast and jelly in the kitchen. Momma was in a bad mood because there wasn’t any milk for Mook’s coffee. Merle had come into the kitchen wearing a pair of cutoffs and a boob tube and Momma had looked at her and her mouth had gone tight and her eyes had gotten little. She tried to stare Merle down. Merle opened the icebox and looked for the milk. “Out of milk?” she asked casually. She must have just come out of the shower because her hair was wet and hung down her back, starting to go curly the way it always did when it dried. Momma’s hair was like Bunny’s, kind of boring, although she gave herself permanents.
“And I wonder who drank it up,” said Momma, banging her glass down on the table.
“Wasn’t me, don’t look at me.” said Merle. “Mook’s the one drinks the milk around here.” Merle was cracking eggs into a bowl.
“He didn’t touch the milk.”
Merle opened the drawer and took out a fork. “Want some French toast, Bunzie?” Merle asked.
“She’s eating already,” snapped their mother.
“Take it easy, Mom,” said Merle, “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” She turned her back to her mother and a big patch of bare skin showed through the ass of her shorts.
That was all Momma could stand and she started yelling tramp this and tramp that, and what did she think she was doing wearing clothes like that. Bunny stared immediately at her toast. The jelly made purple mountains majesties on her toast. Above the fruited plain. Bunny hated fights. Momma kept yelling and the louder Momma screamed the softer Merle answered, which drove Momma crazy. “I’m an expert at Mother,” Merle liked to say. “Watch her turn bright red and sputter like a goddamn firework.” But she said it without smiling.
“I know what you’re doing,” Momma began to scream. “You’re coming on to Mook!” Bunny picked up the last of her toast and went into the living room.
“Mook? Coming on to Mook? In his dreams!” Merle started to laugh.
Bunny heard a crash, and then a yell. She ran back to the kitchen. The bowl of eggs was knocked to the floor and Merle had a handprint across her cheek. “Look what she’s holding! She’s threatening me!” yelled Momma, pointing at Merle. Merle had the fork in her hand.
“You hit me,” said Merle evenly. “Don’t hit me again.” And then Mook came lumbering down the hall.
“What the hell is this?” He stood in the doorway in his undershirt and shorts. He stared at Merle, who still held the fork. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“She’s threatening me,” Mother said, grabbing Mook’s big arm and pointing to Merle. Merle looked from Momma to Mook and back again.
“I didn’t touch you,” she said to Momma.
“Look at the way she’s holding that fork! Just look at the look on her face!” Momma was beginning to scream again. “I want to call the cops. Call the cops, Mook. I want her out of here. I want her in custody.” Mook moved toward Merle.
“Is that what you want, Merle?” Mook took a step forward.
Merle rolled her eyes but her chin was trembling. Then she put the fork on the counter. “I’m out of here,” she said, taking her jacket off the back of the chair. “I’m history. I’m smoke.”
“What did I tell you,” screamed Momma.
“Where are you going?” Bunny asked when Merle brushed past. Momma began screaming again and Mook yelled at Merle to stop right there or not bother coming back. “Wait up! Merle!” Bunny started down the stairs after her. She heard Mook saying, “Girl is out of control,” just before her momma slammed the door. But it had looked to Bunny like Merle was crying. Even from the back Bunny was sure Merle was crying, only Merle never cried. Bunny felt very strange. Everything was wrong.
“Don’t follow me, Bunny!” Merle had yelled, the only time she had ever raised her voice to Bunny, and Bunny had stopped on the sidewalk. Dead in her tracks.
ONE TWO THREE four five six seven eight. Nine washing machines. Five dryers and three really big dryers. A bulletin board with six red thumbtacks and eleven white ones. Counting things works when she feels weird. She makes herself go out front and buy an RC cola, the nice tumbling sound of the can coming from somewhere deep inside and winding up in the little bin down below, frosty and cold. The sneaker machines are done and Bunny fishes them out along with the socks. She throws them in the same dryer. Wham clunkity boom boom boom. Sneakers make a lot of noise. The dryer with the big blanket has stopped. Bunny opens it and touches the blanket, which is still damp. Out of kindness she puts in three more quarters and the blanket starts up again, whirling and plopping, whirling and plopping.
Bunny sits on the bench and puts her head between her knees and her hands over her ears. She is getting the tiny dot feeling. This is where Bunny suddenly feels like a tiny dot in the middle of everything so big and her only this tiny dot. It makes her need to not move. She has gotten used to the slippery ice feeling, but not the tiny dot feeling. It is worse. She would like to make herself walk around and look at things but it is dangerous to get off the chair. She doesn’t make a sound either, once she tried talking but it was like her voice was coming from a corner of the ceiling, far away. That was terrible, because she knew she was going crazy. In her mind she says, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but it doesn’t work, the words just fall away from her like scraps.
IT IS GETTING dark now and Bunny is still in the Laundromat. At the moment she is holed up in the utility closet, which contains a big metal bucket with a wringer and a mop and a couple of bags of maybe lint or something, she isn’t sure. Her forehead feels hot and her arms feel shaky. She should never have gotten herself in the hiding mood becaus
e it is so hard to get out of it. She hopes nobody will want to use anything in here. She is wrapped in the boy’s blanket (which he never came back for and she figures is now partly hers) and she must have been asleep because her watch says seven-thirty. It glows in the dark. She pictures herself in a little gray tepee. In her lap she’s got her knapsack and the crossword puzzle book. For a while she was just giggling in here, but that stopped and she fell asleep. You can’t always tell what kind of mood you’ll be in. There’s no way to exactly regulate the amount of brownie that works to make you feel sleepy and good.
She has heard people come and go. Sometimes their footsteps come right next to the closet door like when they stand by the soap machine. “Where is your sister!” she imagines somebody pushing the door open and shouting. Now she hears dryers banging open and closed one after another. Somebody is out there. She gets way under the blanket and curls up as small as she can. If only there were coats she could hide behind. Somebody is standing right outside the closet door. Did she leave a trail? Is she, like, phosphorescent? The next thing she knows the door is being pulled open.
“What the hell is this?” A boy’s voice. “That’s mine,” he says, pulling the blanket off her head. Bunny’s hair is all staticky and she can’t see because the light is so bright with the door open.
“I didn’t know it was yours.” Bunny’s voice sounds rusty.
“I left that sucker in a dryer.” He is staring at her. “What are you doing in the closet?”
“You don’t have to yell.” She shades her eyes to look at him but she has to squint because the light is so bright behind him. She doesn’t know what else to say and neither of them speak.
“I don’t appreciate thieves.” He holds the blanket up now, inspecting it for damage. As if Bunny might have chewed holes in it like a moth or a dog. Then he looks more carefully at her. She is still sitting on the floor. “Well, no hard feelings.” As he speaks he begins to fold the blanket into smaller and smaller squares.
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