BIRDLAND JOURNAL

Celebrating Northern California Voices

Little Deaths by Joyce Roschinger

Prosperity Laundry and Cleaners owned by Mr. and Mrs. Chin, a place where men take their white shirts to be washed, starched, and pressed and women take their skirts and jackets to be dry cleaned. Jeans, t-shirts, socks wrapped in blue paper bundles and tied with string on the counter waiting to be picked up. The Chin children help out on Saturdays, the little girl takes tickets with numbers from people picking up their clothes, presses the button that starts the machine that makes the clothes go round and round and the boy, older, rings up the amount on the cash register. Piles of red and yellow laundry bags on the floor, jackets, and slacks and dresses in plastic on hangers held together with a green rubber band. Mr. Chin says have a nice day, and women and men know they will because their clothes are pressed, washed, folded, in bundles and this happens every week, every month, every year. The cleaners and laundry is a box longer than it is wide, warm in winter, hot in spring and summer.

A sign on the window of Prosperity Cleaners and Laundry thanks customers for years of loyal support but due to a high rent increase and the diminished need for clothes, and cleaners and laundries, Mr. and Mrs. Chin moved.

Hill Top corner grocery store, blue and yellow striped awning, wooden boxes of apples, oranges, potatoes, onions along the sidewalk, daily newspapers folded on wire stands weighed down by a brick. Small cartons of milk, cream, and yogurt, expiration dates facing forward in refrigerators with shiny glass doors. Bottles of wine in the back of the store, cheeses, boxes of crackers and made to order sandwiches. Rows of glazed donuts on trays and freshly brewed coffee. She- a woman in her forties, blond hair and blue eyes, from Texas, unlocks the door, pushes back the steel gate, turns on the light, carries out buckets of sun flowers, waves to neighbors walking down hill to the underground Muni train. He- dark eyed, black hair, from Iran, reads the newspaper in between customers, asks how the kids are, the grandparents, remembers names of pets, sells single cigarettes to customers trying to quit. Have a good day, he says, and they know their day will be good and the next day and the day after that as they walk down hill with their coffee, and donut and newspaper.

A sign in the window of Hill Top grocery store thanks customers for years of loyal support but due to a rent increase and home delivery food services, and hand crafted coffee in paper cups with bright logos, and long white buses waiting for riders to board with their cellphones, laptops and bicycles, Hill Top grocery store closed.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joyce Roschinger was born in Germany and grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Her work has appeared in The Writers Studio at 30 Fiction and Poetry from the First 30 Years of the Landmark School of Creative Writing and Thinking. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and is currently working on a novel.

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