Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers, page 4
When he got to the corner, Billy, Jenny, Frank, and Biff were waiting for the bus to take them on a school field trip to a museum in Philadelphia.
“You had to work today?” Biff said.
“More or less,” Walter replied.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Yes, I know.”
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“At least you don’t have to go to some lame-o museum in Philadelphia. That sucks big time.”
“Nice talk,” Water said. “Did they teach you that in school?”
Biff shrugged.
“You might actually learn something, you know.”
“Learn something? It’s Saturday, Mr. S. It’s supposed to be a day off. Anyone with half a brain knows that.”
Walter left the kids at the corner, went home, and poured himself a big glass of chocolate milk. You could solve all the world’s problems with chocolate milk, his mom always said. There was nothing like it. If only they could invent a cow that gave chocolate milk… Of course, whenever his mom said that, his dad would be quick to point out that the invention of chocolate milk cows would put the syrup people out of business and their employees out of work, so that might not be such a good thing.
As Walter gulped down the last of the chocolate milk, he spilled some, leaving a brown splotch on his shirt. That reminded him that Saturday was laundry day. He looked at the clock. He was hours behind schedule. Normally, he went to the Laundromat first thing on Saturdays because he hated folding his underwear in front of other people. Walter couldn’t understand what people found so interesting about other people’s underpants. It wasn’t like he was airing his dirty laundry in public, but it must have been close enough for them.
It was times like these that caused him to wonder if he had made the wrong decision in not buying his own washer and dryer. When faced with that choice three-and-a-half years ago after he bought his house, he had made the decision on a purely monetary basis. He had calculated the cost of a good washer and dryer, the cost of water and electricity, factored in the average life expectancy of a major appliance and the cost of repairs over its lifetime, and weighed that against pumping quarters over the same period into someone else’s problem. There was no comparison. The initial and projected long-term costs were much less, he never had the inconvenience of a broken washer or dryer, never had a clogged sewer line, and never had a flood in his basement. He had a hamper in the bathroom and a cotton laundry bag that fit inside the hamper perfectly. On laundry days, he simply pulled the drawstring on the bag, lifted it out of the hamper, threw it over his shoulder, and walked to the Laundromat three blocks away. The laundry bag got washed along with his whites, and it was the perfect way to carry clothes back and forth. He had the process down to a science.
After taking a shower and changing, he threw the towel, his chocolate-stained white shirt, the mismatched socks, and his new dark blue socks into the hamper. When he lifted the laundry bag up by the drawstring, it ripped. So, poor Walter Stickle walked to the Laundromat that morning with his broken laundry bag between his arms like a Scottish caber tosser, carrying his bottle of liquid detergent cramped between his fingers because he couldn’t throw the bag over his shoulder as he usually did. When he got to the Laundromat, his arms were sore and the place was packed. He waited an hour for a washer and then another half hour until a second washer was free. All the dryers were taken, and the light over Walter’s Saturday was dimming fast.
He spent the time getting reacquainted with Karen Rosenberg, one of his neighbors who wouldn’t stop talking to him. Karen had mastered the art of cracking air bubbles in her chewing gum at an early age and the habit of chewing with her mouth open sometime thereafter. After all, what good was cracking your chewing gum if no one could hear it? When her laundry was done and she went home, that left Walter with old Bailey and his dog Pelvis. Seventy-six years old and Old Bailey still took his own laundry to the Laundromat and still told the same stories he’d been telling for forty-three years to anyone like Walter who’d listen. That’s how long he’d lived in Pitville. Just ask him, and while you’re at it, ask him why he named his dog Pelvis. That’s good for a few hours. And how could Walter forget the Kelly sisters? They used to dance as a team in grade school recitals and high school talent shows. They even appeared on local TV once, Mavis Kelly dressed in a tux and tails as Fred Astaire and Clara Kelly dressed in a gown as Ginger Rogers. They were the hit of the town. Of course, that was before Walter was born, as they told him while he stared at everyone else’s clothes tumbling in the dryers.
For the longest time, Walter had believed that there was an obvious design flaw in washers and dryers. The person who invented the automatic washer must not have been on speaking terms with the one who invented the dryer. Otherwise, why would it take twice as long and twice as many quarters to dry things as it takes to wash them? Then, one Saturday not too long ago when he ran out of quarters, Walter decided that it was not a flaw at all, but an entirely intentional act on the part of some greedy dryer manufacturers. After all, those extra quarters add up.
Walter didn’t like waiting for a dryer after the wash was done, especially when the person who was hogging the dryer put extra quarters in it and abandoned the Laundromat for something more productive than waiting for their clothes to dry. They were invariably late getting back, and their clothes were always overdone. In his early days of Laundromatting after waiting several frustrating times for a free dryer, Walter decided to follow the sign on the wall that said that it was his inalienable right to remove dry clothes when they were dry and confiscate the machine for his own things. The unused time on the dryer was simply a bonus for his being so diligent, or so he told himself. He had gotten into a few dryer rights arguments in three-and-a-half years, but in the end, either Rule of Laundry Law prevailed or he was long gone before the person returned to the Laundromat.
On this unfortunate Saturday, his wash was done long before any dryers were due to finish, but he had his eye on one in particular, one whose timer was hours beyond what a single quarter would buy. No one had checked it even once and that could mean only one thing — long-term and wanton dryer abandonment. His first casual pass by it confirmed what he already knew — the clothes belonged to a woman. In his experience, a man almost never abandoned his laundry. He either sat around smoking and talking or remained in his plastic chair fidgeting and playing games on his cell phone while he waited. A woman, on the other hand, was more likely than not to guess how long she had before her clothes would be done and attempt, usually unsuccessfully, to run an errand in the time left before her clothes were dry.
After waiting a good fifteen minutes more, Walter decided to give the clothes a quick dryness check. The important thing in any dryness check is not to look guilty, not to look like you have no right to gaze upon the unmentionables within, and definitely not to look embarrassed by what you find, no matter how pink or flowery or lacey it might be. Walter opened the dryer and waited until it stopped spinning. The clothes were Sahara dry, so he loaded them into one of the basket carts and filled the dryer with both of his washer loads. He had waited that long.
At that point, the rules of the Laundromat dictated one of three options: (a) leave the clothes in a pile in the basket cart — this was acceptable, and a definite statement of sorts, but the least kind of the options; (b) remove the clothes from the basket and place them on the counter so someone else could use the cart — this was a kinder, gentler option; or (c) after removing the items from the basket cart, make some effort to stack them neatly on the counter so they wouldn’t get too wrinkled — this was the nicest option. Walter, on the other hand, had his own option. He was the superhero of the Laundromat. Whenever faced with a case of dire laundry abandonment, he took option (c) to places far beyond the realm of mortal men. He folded and stacked every last piece of the abandoned laundry.
It was as he was folding the abandoned clothes that he noticed a bright green sock among the others, but not just any green sock. It was the green sock, the one to which he had the mate, and after rummaging through the rest of the clothes, he found his missing dark blue sock. “Aha!” he said, and turning around, he bumped headfirst into a woman who had come up behind him without his noticing, knocking her glasses onto the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“No, it was my fault,” said the woman, bending over to pick up the glasses that were as thick as Coke bottle bottoms. When she looked up at him, it was with the most beautiful eyes Walter had ever seen. One was a pale blue like the sky on a day when you have nothing better to do than lie on your back in the yard watching the clouds roll by, and the other, when the light caught it just right, was a pale green that reminded Walter of his favorite shooter in his marble collection.
He couldn’t help but stare.
She put her Coke bottle glasses back on and blushed. The thick lenses made her look like a bug. “I know,” she said. “They’re weird.”
“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours — different colors, I mean.”
“It’s called heterochromia. It’s a genetic defect.”
“Wow, they’re beautiful.” Walter quickly apologized, “I’m sorry. That was way out of line. You don’t even know me.”
She shrugged. “I also have tritanopia, which means I’m blue-green color blind.”
“Let’s make this official,” he said, extending his hand. “Hi, I’m Walter. Nice to meet you.”
She took his hand and shook it. “I’m Vivien. It’s nice to meet you too, Walter.” She pointed to the pile of clothes behind him. “That’s my laundry.”
“Really? What a coincidence. I was just folding it. It was dry, well, really dry, and…”
“I understand. You needed the dryer, and I was delayed getting back. Thank you for folding my clothes. I guess I can take it from here,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” His eyes traveled to the mismatched socks on the counter. “Wait, let me get your other sock out of the dryer.”
“My other sock?”
Walter retrieved the other still-wet green sock. “It’s a little damp, but nothing that hanging it on the shower curtain won’t fix.”
Vivien seemed puzzled. “Why do I have three green socks?”
“You don’t. That one is blue,” he pointed, “and it’s mine.”
“It is?”
“Oh,” he said. “You can’t tell the difference because of your…”
“Tritanopia.”
“Right, tritanopia, but if you look at the ribbing you can see that it’s a totally different pattern.”
She examined the sock. “I suppose it is. How did you get my sock?” she asked. “And why do I have yours?”
“Well, good question,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Walter remembered that he had fallen asleep on the bench outside the Laundromat the previous Saturday and had awakened to find his laundry stacked haphazardly on the counter. It was a half-hearted attempt at option (c) of the Laundromat rules that he hadn’t been too happy about at the time.
“Were you here last Saturday?” he asked.
“I might have been.”
“It must have been you that folded my laundry. I guess that’s how I got your sock by mistake. Such a weird coincidence,” he said, shaking his head.
“What?” said Vivien, who had retrieved her laundry basket and begun packing her clothes into it.
“Well, I must have twenty pairs of good socks. Half are black. The other half are blue. What are the odds that I would put a mismatched pair in my drawer without noticing, then pick out that same pair from my sock drawer, again without noticing, then put them on without realizing they didn’t match, and then meet the person who did it, you, that is? Must be a bazillion to one.”
“The odds are 16,852,456,087 to one.”
Walter stared open-mouthed at her. “Really?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“How do you calculate something like that?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I guess I’m just lucky,” Walter shrugged.
“Maybe it’s fate.” Vivien smiled and pushed her bug glasses higher up on her nose. “It was nice to meet you, Walter.”
“You, too,” he said, and as she walked out the door, he added, “Hey, thanks for folding my things last week. I appreciate it.”
With fifteen minutes left on the dryer, Walter sat on a plastic chair and fidgeted until his clothes were done. Walter didn’t particularly believe in fate, or karma, or destiny, or in beating the odds when they were sixteen trillion to one. He believed in keeping things on an even keel, predictable and sane, but something about the past two days told him that all that was about to change.
Chapter 4
When Walter’s alarm began to buzz at 6:03 a.m. the next morning something had changed. He sat up in bed, staring at the floodlights and listening to the ringing that had been a bicycle bell in his dream. Putting on his slippers and robe, he slogged into the hall and down the stairs to the telephone.
“Hello?” he said in a voice so deep and hoarse that it made him wonder if he should volunteer to sing in the choir that morning at church. They could always use a few more basses.
“Mr. Walter Stickle?” said a woman at the other end.
“Yes?”
“This is South Jersey Dish calling.”
“The TV people?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“We’re doing equipment upgrades in your area today.”
“It six o’clock in the morning, and it’s Sunday.”
“And, as a courtesy to you, we just wanted to let you know that our technician will be there this morning.”
“Today?”
“Yes, sir. The new equipment will improve your reception and give you an additional twenty free channels, including the new sci-fi channel.”
“Sci-fi channel? I have church this morning. Can’t we schedule this for some other time?”
“You don’t have to be present, Mr. Stickle. All the work is done outside. This is just a courtesy call.”
“Oh, okay. Just be careful of my neighbor’s flowers. He’s very picky about them even though they’re actually in my yard.”
Though excited about the prospect of a new science fiction channel, Walter hung up the phone feeling sorry for the customer service representative and the poor technician who had to work on Sunday, but that was the way the world was going. For many, Saturdays weren’t days to catch up on chores around the house anymore and Sundays weren’t days of rest. They were just two more days to make enough money to get that second car or that boat or that house at the shore, or maybe just to make ends meet.
He wandered around the kitchen in a haze, putting away the dishes that he’d washed the previous night and left to air-dry in the drainboard because it was more sanitary than using a germ-ridden towel. He started coffee and made a bowl of cereal. When the Sunday newspaper thunked against the screen door, he realized that he wasn’t dressed, it was 6:30 a.m., and he was going to be late for church. So, Walter brought the paper in, washed out his cereal bowl, and went back upstairs to try again.
By the time he got to church, Mass had already begun. You would think that they would have fixed that squeak in the sanctuary door, the one that had been squeaking for years, but they hadn’t. Everyone including his parents turned around as they stood up for the first hymn to watch Walter slinking into an empty pew in the back of the church. He picked up a hymnal, hid his face behind it, joined in the singing a full octave below the parishioners around him, and everyone forgot about Walker. He prayed that morning that God would bless his family, his town, his country, and his world. He prayed, too, for the strength to endure the unexpected and not-normal bumps in life’s road that made him a better man.
Walter realized at some point later in the service that he should also have prayed for a better memory. Everyone else was dressed in jeans, shorts, or work clothes, and there he was in his suit, and when he followed the crowd into the fellowship hall after Mass where the deacons were passing out trash bags and rakes, he remembered why. They were cleaning up the railroad right-of-way south of Broadway that day. A year’s worth of old tires, broken shopping carts, candy bar wrappers, and undelivered flyers — that was his church’s designated clean-up spot, and that Sunday was the Sunday every year that they cleaned it up.
“Forgot, didn’t you?” his father said.
Walter’s father, a man in his fifties, was not a particularly successful man by modern standards. He wasn’t rich. He only had one car, one TV, and had held the same job at the glass factory ever since Walter could remember. He didn’t make enough money to take his family on vacations any farther away than the Jersey shore, he was strict to a fault and quick with punishment, but in Walter’s eyes, Chuck Stickle was a hero. He never let him down, he was always there for him when he needed him despite the sacrifice to himself, and that Sunday morning he had a brown shopping bag under his arm with work clothes in it for Walter.
“I thought you might need these,” he said. “Your mom found them in your old room. I hope the sneakers still fit.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Walter’s mother came over with trash bags, handing them each one. “Walter, we’re grilling today. Betty Ann and Tommy are bringing the kids. Would you like to come over?”
“Sure, Mom. What time?”
“Any time after three.”
“Can I bring anything?”
“Only if you want something other than hamburgers and hot dogs.”
Walter had always loved his vegetables, even as a kid, and was happy to have his brothers and sisters slip him theirs on the sly in exchange for his serving of meat when his parents weren’t looking. He wasn’t opposed to eating meat. He wasn’t a vegetarian. He ate the occasional hamburger or hot dog and enjoyed it. Mostly, he was just indifferent to it. That often made backyard barbeques at the Stickle’s an exercise for Walter in creative kebabery.
