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  She left it three weeks before visiting his grave. It was a gray March afternoon, with flecks of rain in the air, and a shrill wind rippling amongst the solemn headstones. Michelle stood, flowers in hand, and wept for her old friend. She apologized for not being at his funeral, and concentrated on an abundance of wonderful memories…found that they had the power to sweep away anything unwanted, all doubts and hesitations. She recalled the warm pressure of his hand, the joy in his deep blue eyes, and the thousands of candles that shimmered along the years of his life.

  He had helped so many, and brought hope and happiness without bounds. That was what she remembered…until she crouched to lay the flowers at his headstone, and heard from beneath the earth a faint thumping sound. And a voice, vague but very real…

  “Ik bien niet dood.”

  Did she sleep? Not at all well—troubled glimpses, perhaps. She would more often lie awake with the sheets gathered around her, thinking about that thumping sound, and wondering how long it would take for the coffin lid to collapse under the weight of the earth, and for Mr. Vandenhoff to scratch and scramble his way to the surface. Would he come to her…the only one who had cared? Would he want to hold her hand and recount endless wild tales? Michelle thought it most likely, and could almost sense him hanging in the darkness of her bedroom, dripping and decomposed, mumbling that dreadful phrase: Ik bien niet dood. She had done some research, and learned that it was Dutch for, “I am not dead.” Although the last two words—niet dood—sounded, for all the world, like night dude.

  Ik bien niet dood.

  I am the Night Dude.

  Michelle began to think about that big white hospital in Salem, and how it might not be too terrible a place. The medication would be seductive…somniferous. Even better, there were bars on the windows.

  Laundry Day

  STEVEN A. ROMAN

  Josh Kosinski hadn’t planned on going to the Laundromat the night the world went total bug-fuck crazy, but the stench from the pile of shit-streaked underpants and grimy work clothes in the bathroom hamper finally became too much for even him to ignore. Besides, he’d run out of air freshener.

  Truth be told, it wasn’t the nostril-singeing scent of ripening Fruit of the Loom that bothered Josh so much as the fact he’d run through his drawer of briefs and boxers and been forced to go commando the past couple of days. Not an altogether unpleasant experience under the right circumstances—he occasionally preferred his “boys” to have their freedom—but the crotches of the pants he wore as a mechanic at Triple G Auto Works over in Blissville always chafed him like a son of a bitch when he moved around. Underpants, therefore, were his only protection from a daily dose of friction burns.

  The work clothes were another story. Most of the dark gray denim shirts and pants were so deeply stained with motor oil, grease and sweat, so stiff from coolant, antifreeze and wiper fluid, he should’ve tossed them in the garbage a long time ago. But Josh liked to think of himself as the frugal type, pinching a penny here and there whenever possible. It was a polite way of admitting he was too cheap to buy replacements, but as long as the seams didn’t split and the holes worn in them remained small, he didn’t see any reason to throw away something he still considered usable. A little machine washing, he firmly believed, and they’d be good as new. Well, almost new. Of course, that would require he actually take them to be washed…

  There was no way to put it off any longer. With nothing left to wear but a threadbare Knicks sweatshirt with elbows that had dissolved somewhere along the way, and a pair of corduroy pants he hadn’t squeezed into since the late Nineties, his options were limited to either dragging his procrastinating ass around the corner to the Drip ’n’ Dry Laundromat or showing up for work on Monday morning in his birthday suit. And considering the donuts-and-beer “diet” he’d been on for the last five years, the latter was really no option at all. Not that he gave a fuck what the guys at the shop would say if he walked in all nude and shit. Even with his love handles and beer gut he was still thinner and better looking than all of them combined.

  That wasn’t saying a whole hell of a lot, but still…

  It was the girls in the back office he’d be afraid of facing. Afraid of what they’d say, or how they’d laugh at his doughboy physique and hairy back (hairy everything, to be honest about it; he looked like a regular fuckin’ Star Wars Wookie when he took his shirt off). Marisol, the bookkeeper, would be the one with the most disparaging comments to make. That chica was muy caliente, with an ass that would give J-Lo a run for her money. She also had a tongue that was as sharp as a knife. If anybody was capable of metaphorically cutting off his manhood with just a couple or three words, she was the one. And Josh figured he had enough low self-esteem problems without asking to get sliced up by Marisol’s Ginsu-tongue. Not even in the uncomfortable scenario playing out in his head.

  Still, it took some effort to get off the living room couch. After working ten-hour shifts all week, all he wanted was to grab a couple bottles of Heineken and a few Entenmann mini chocolate donuts, and veg out in front of the TV for a late-night marathon of I Love the Eighties reruns on VH-1. But when the stench from the hamper drifted down the stairs and he began breathing through his mouth so he didn’t have to smell it, he knew laundry day had finally arrived…although, truthfully, at 2:30 on a Sunday morning, it wasn’t exactly a daytime run.

  With a soft groan, he sat up and swung his legs off the couch and onto the carpeted floor; then he used his knuckles to push off from the cushions. Shuffling from the living room in stocking feet, and giving the boys a good scratch as he went, he crossed the narrow main hallway of his house to enter the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it served as a showcase for Josh’s slovenly habits, the theme of this particular room apparently Vintage Frat House, right down to the stacks of empty pizza boxes, Chinese takeout cartons, and beer bottles scattered across the counters. The formerly white tiles on the floor had faded to a dingy yellow, and the sky-blue paint on the ceiling had acquired a few greasy storm clouds, courtesy of the many hamburgers and Spam slices burnt on the stove in offering to the great god Hunger. If his parents, who’d moved down to Ft. Lauderdale back in ’02, ever got a look at the current condition of their once immaculate home, Josh had no doubt they’d disown him.

  Little chance of that coming to pass, though. Albert and Dora had become too comfortable in their retirees’ paradise to bother visiting their only child, even on holidays. It’s too far to drive, Josh, especially with my bad back, Albert told him once. And you know how your mother is about flying. Yeah, he knew; he knew it was a lot of bullshit. So if they’d abandoned him like they had the house, why should he give a fuck how clean it was?

  The only part of the property he paid any real attention to was the rose garden in the backyard. Dora had planted the bushes years before Josh was born, but he had turned out to be the one with the green thumb. On those occasions when he was feeling particularly down on himself, which were often, Josh imagined he was supposed to be the punchline in one of God’s cruel ideas for a joke, one in which he was allowed to grow and nurture just about anything organic—except a relationship. Because when it came to having a love life, he was pretty much Suck Master Numero Uno.

  Well…at least he was good at something, even if it was just plants.

  Josh opened the cabinet under the sink. He rummaged around beyond the paper towels and the bottles of cleaning solutions until his hand closed around a box of black garbage bags that sat all the way in the back. He grabbed one, then fished out a box of laundry detergent and headed for the stairs. As he began the climb, he waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the noxious fumes that wafted down to meet him.

  “Phew,” he muttered. “Smells like somebody died in here.”

  It was while he was transferring the odorous mound to the garbage bag that the ring tumbled out from the bottom of the hamper.

  It wasn’t an expensive one—hell, he would’ve pawned it long ago if it was—or even a
“real” one, for that matter. It was thin and metal, its band painted a bright gold to bring out the color of its setting: a small blue “gem” made of plastic. A toy ring. A prize from one of the Laundromat’s gumball machines, purchased for a couple of quarters last Valentine’s Day as a token of his affection for––

  “Siobhan…” he murmured.

  Josh sighed and shook his head forlornly. He’d really thought she’d be the one––the love of his life, his perfect match, his soul mate. And he was sure she’d felt the same way, although she never came right out and said it. But like the old saying went, some things were just never meant to be, and the possibility of Josh Kosinski settling down with Siobhan Tennant was apparently at the top of that list. Then again, he’d felt the same way about Cindy Speers and Angelica Crichton and Eugenia Rodriguez, and look how those had turned out––exactly the same.

  He shrugged. What could he say? He was a fool for love, a hopeless romantic, setting himself up for a fall time and again then starting the process all over. But he felt neither embarrasssed nor frustrated by his numerous attempts to find Ms. Right. No matter how many short-lived relationships he stumbled through, no matter how disastrous the breakup, he was certain the right girl was still out there, waiting for her prince to sweep her off her feet…even if he was as hairy as the Wolfman.

  But with Siobhan he’d tried, really tried to win her heart, to show her they could be happy together if she’d only give it a shot. Sure, there was a twenty-year gap between them. Sure, they didn’t have a lot of the same things in common. Sure, her parents would have objected if they’d known he was her intended suitor. But none of that mattered to Josh. Age was irrelevant if the two people involved really loved each other. Hell, there were plenty of May/December romances that ultimately worked out, like Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones or Donald Trump and any one of his trophy wives. What was wrong with one more?

  It was the wavy auburn hair that first caught his eye four months back at the Drip ’n’ Dry. He always had a weakness for redheads—natural ones, not the ones who got their color from a bottle of Pantene or whatever—and Siobhan was as natural and straight-out-of-Ireland as they came, right down to the fair complexion and the freckles that dotted her cheeks like sprinkles on a dish of vanilla ice cream. He’d been reading the sports section of the Daily News, catching up on all the details of the Knicks’ latest ass-kicking, courtesy of the Miami Heat, and wishing he hadn’t made that fifty-dollar bet with Humberto, when he saw a flash of red above the top edge of the paper. He glanced around the article in time to see her gliding toward the back of the Laundromat, a pale green summer dress swirling around her knees. He tried to play it cool, though, nodding politely when she turned around to glance at him, but the thousand-watt smile she flashed in response took his breath away—literally. The air caught in his throat, and he fell into a brief coughing fit that made his eyes water and brought an even brighter smile to her lips.

  So much for acting like Joe Cool. Still, his comical reaction gave him the opportunity to strike up a conversation when she walked over to see if he was all right. Things only got better after that…for a while, at least.

  It was all his fault; he eventually came to accept that after they broke up. He’d pushed too hard, tried to move things along too quickly before they’d had enough time to really get to know one another. A recurring problem of his, that boundless enthusiasm, one that had screwed up every relationship he’d been in going all the way back to junior high, yet one he’d never been able to solve. With Siobhan, though, he’d crossed the line. After being venomously rebuked, he’d grabbed her by the arm and given her a good shaking. She responded by kicking him in the sack. He slapped her back—hard—across the face. Matters quickly spiraled out of control after that.

  But even after that dustup he tried to make it up to her. The toy ring was an impulsive—in other words, desperate—last-ditch attempt to win back their relationship. A peace offering that wound up momentarily blinding him when she threw it back in his face and the sharp metal band glanced off his left eyeball.

  “Fuckin’ bitch,” Josh muttered testily. “Who needed your kinda grief anyway?”

  He tossed the ring out through the open bathroom window, into the backyard. There was a faint pinging sound as the tiny prize bounced off the brick patio and tumbled into the garden. He didn’t bother to see where it landed.

  * * *

  Drip ’n’ Dry was a little busier than Josh expected for a graveyard shift. On most late runs like this he had the place to himself, not counting Mrs. Alvarez, who––along with her husband––owned the Laundromat. She was always there, usually stationed behind the counter like she was tonight, making change for the customers so they could use the washers and dryers. Josh couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her old man put in an appearance; he probably only popped in when one of the machines was on the fritz. Not that it would kill him to pay a little more attention to the place. About fifteen of the ceiling tiles were heavily water-stained from the steam pipes above them, and had started sagging in the middle. The blue paint on the wall near the front windows had been scraped off at waist level, thanks to the customers sitting in plastic chairs, waiting for their loads to run their cycles. The strip of decorative wallpaper pasted just below the ceiling border—some kind of desert scene at sunset, with the sand painted a deep red against a pink-and-lavender sky—had peeled away in large swatches along the length of the entire Laundromat. And in the six or seven years Josh had been coming to this place, nobody had ever bothered to correct the sun-faded, misspelled sign taped to the wall above the washers:

  Please

  NO DYING

  Everybody knew what it meant, though: the Alvarezes didn’t want customers dyeing their clothes in the washers, and have them end up ruining the next person’s laundry or crapping up the machines. Of course, it could also mean they didn’t want anybody croaking on the premises (might be bad for business, after all), so if they felt a sudden case of death coming on they should drag their ass somewhere else to deal with it. Josh had never bothered asking which one it was supposed to be.

  About the only things that ever got some kind of regular maintenance were the arcade games in the right-hand corner at the back of the Laundromat, and the gumball machines that sat next to them. And that was because the company that owned them had a guy come in every few months to empty the coin boxes and swap out the games and stale candy for new selections. The Mortal Kombat and driving games he’d seen the last time he stopped by were still around, but Josh noticed that the Superballs, Skittles, and toy jewelry had been replaced with Homies figures, Bratz stickers, and some kind of sweet-and-sour jawbreakers. There wasn’t a metal-and-plastic ring to be found among the bunch, but that was probably for the best. After the trouble with Siobhan, he’d had his fill of cheap reconciliation gifts.

  Mrs. A apparently didn’t need her husband around tonight, for work or companionship, not when she had a small black-and-white TV on the counter and four patrons of the laundry arts to keep her company. Along with Josh, there were a couple of twenty-something hipsters: a guy sporting a shaggy haircut parted in the center and a small soulpatch under his bottom lip, a bottle-blonde girl with dark roots showing everywhere and a silver nose-ring pierced through her right nostril, and some black-haired Hispanic chick with painted-on blue jeans and a tight gray t-shirt knotted in the back to make it even tighter. He caught a flash of a black Playboy bunny logo printed on the front as she turned to dip into a red metal shopping cart for another armful of clothes.

  Josh tilted his head to one side and stared hard at the woman. That mane of shoulder-length hair might be obscuring her face, but there was something awfully familiar about those major league boobs and that J-Lo-competitive ass… Then it hit him.

  “Holy shit,” he croaked, his voice jumping an octave. “Marisol?”

  She undoubtedly heard her name being called, even above the muffled roar of the washer next to her. She tur
ned from the machine she’d been stuffing clothes into to face him. Her light hazel eyes grew wide and she grinned. “Oh, hey, Josh! Wha’cha doin’ here?” she said in that heavily accented Queens voice of hers. It always reminded him of that movie actress Rosie Perez, only nowhere near as gratingly nasal.

  “I live around the block,” he explained as he walked over to join her.

  “Yeah? Me, too!” she said, clearly surprised. “Well, not around the block. Couple’a blocks over.” She gave him a playful little push on his chest. “Shit, I din’ know you was from ’round here! How come you never tol’ me?”

  Josh shrugged. “Never came up. ’Sides, you woulda known about where I live if you just looked at the payroll records. I mean, you’re the one doin’ the accountin’, right?”

  She frowned, clearly annoyed that he’d pointed out that oversight. “Yeah, well, guess I just never paid it no attention.” She gave a little shrug. “No biggie. So, how long you been livin’ in the ’hood?”

  “‘The ‘hood,’ huh? Too fuckin’ long,” he said with a lopsided grin. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the front door. “I’m over in my parents’ house.” He saw her eyebrows start to rise and quickly added, “I mean, I don’t live with ’em. They moved out years ago. Down to Florida. I got the house to myself.”

  “Pobrecito,” she cooed in Spanish. “So you all alone, then? Got nobody t’go home to?” The way she said it, combined with the dismissive look she flashed as she gave him the once-over, didn’t add up to being any part of a seductive come-on. In fact, it seemed a hell of a lot more like she was mocking him.

  “Don’t worry, you ain’t my type,” he replied dryly, somehow managing to avoid gritting his teeth while he said it. “But don’t get all choked up ’bout my situation, sweetheart. I know there’s somebody out there for me. I ain’t gonna be ‘all alone’ forever.”