October 02, 2005
Every Planet We Reach is Dead
I love doing stuff in the early morning. Thankfully, L.A.'s not like NYC, where everything is happening at any given moment. Here, it's positively catatonic at times, especially at 5 a.m., when I like to prowl around and run errands without having to deal with mass crowds.
And, of course, all the pictures I took this morning were with my crappy cell-phone camera, because whenever I see something cool or relevant to whatever I'm babbling about that I want to take a picture of, I never have the digicam with me. Whenever I bring the digicam along, there's never anything to take pictures of. I should probably just go ahead and surgically graft it into a Robocop-like compartment in my hand.
So I drove up to the laundromat this morning to go ahead and get the laundry out of the way. Both doors were closed, but the lights were on. I went ahead and parked, turned off the car, grabbed the huge, ungainly bag of laundry that's been taking up space in the corner for the past two weeks, and plodded inside. I gingerly pushed the door, testing to see if some fucking klaxon would sound and the laundromat police would come rappelling down from the roof to tazer me until I lay gurgling in a puddle of my own piss.
It budged open. I walked inside, and the place was bare. Not a single soul.
There were even crickets chirping.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I said, as the crickets played their little serenade. Either way, I had the joint all to myself.
I dumped my laundry into the nearest machines, poured in my detergent, and dropped all my personal effects into the nearest chair. I wandered over to the other entrance and propped open the glass door there to let in some fresh air. Trudging back to the door that I came through, I kicked down the doorstop and pushed it back, only for it to skid back across the ceramic and shut.
"I can never get this stupid thing to work," I exclaimed to no one in particular. Unless you counted the crickets, of course.
Over in the corner stood a lone trash can. Grabbing it, I propped it in front of the door, successfully wedging it open. Pleased with my Neanderthal-like practicality, I scratched my unkempt hair and plopped down in my seat to read for a bit.
Not ten minutes later, I heard the sounds of Iggy Pop's "The Passenger." I turned around to see a grizzled old homeless guy bopping down the sidewalk with a boombox in hand. He must have seen me looking, because he headed towards the door. I thought, "Great. I'm going to have to give him some of my change since I feel like an asshole for gawking now."
He poked his head in.
"I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city’s a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin’ la la la la la-la-la la"
I nodded to him and sort of half-smiled.
"Good song," I quipped.
He grinned back, waved, and immediately turned and left. I sat there dumbstruck for a second, smirked, and said to myself, "Well, I guess he didn't need anything."
Roughly ten minutes later, the people started shuffling in. Tired-looking Mexican madres pushed shopping carts filled with laundry sacks up to the door and dragged them in. A young, pretty Asian girl with a punk-rock hairdo bopped in with a duffel bag in hand and sat down, thumbing through tracks on her iPod before heading towards the washing machine line to start her load. I guess she wanted a good washing soundtrack.
I looked over at my door, and it had somehow shrugged away the trash can and shut itself again. A lanky, elderly Persian man pushed it open and kicked down the doorstop, only for it to skid back across the ceramic and slam shut. He turned, looked at me, chuckled, and said, "I can never get this damn thing to work."
I smiled at him and said, "Yeah, I know how you feel."
Posted by Jake at October 2, 2005 07:47 AM
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