It was the day after graduation. She had just finished loading the laundry and was considering what shape and form her life would take. It was an act of will, a heroic effort, not to be lured away from her linear thoughts by the hypnotic spin of the washing machine; to focus her mind on a non-circular concept. She could see her face caught in the concave lens window of the washing machine; as the water swished about to and fro her drawn Saturday morning face with its tired Saturday morning eyes seemed to be coming from the bottom of a lake. She could imagine herself as some ancient Spirit of the Lake emerging from the depths to deliver its message to the lake dwellers above if only she ignored the multitude of multicolored bras and panties flailing about just behind her reflection. Of course the soapsuds posed a problem too, but that could be reconciled as fanfare to herald the appearance of the deity. Subaquatic thunder and lightening, so to speak. So much for the soapsuds.
Perhaps my bras and panties ae minor intelligences, she thought. You know, like seraphim and cherubim accompanying the subaquatic fanfare. Then, noticing the polychromatic nature of the shuffle of lingerie--she was very much a partisan of colorful underwear--she reconsidered. Orange, indigo, violet, yellow, red and blue and green, she thought, perhaps I am really the Spirit of the Rainbow. Or perhaps I am after all the Spirit of the Lake only the Rainbow is in the lake. Or perhaps--who knows?--I am the Spirit of them both. On the other hand you know perhaps the Lake and the Rainbow are really in me and they are both the Spirit of me. Or else only the Lake is in me and is my Spirit but the Rainbow is in the Lake and is the Spirit of the Lake. In which case wouldn't the Rainbow be my spirit too? even though it's only reflected in the Lake, which may or may not be in me, or which I may or may not be reflected in?
As she caught herself reflecting on these circular reflections, she shrugged drearily. Who knows? Another fantasy destroyed by the ambiguity of ramifying possibilities. It is, after all, only a damn washing machine, and I'm doing the wash, and it's time to reflect on what shape and form my life will take...She saw her drawn, dreary face change in the Wurlitzer window as all these possibilities, reflections and ramifications whirled through her, and on an impulse, she touched the window--or lens, or surface of the lake--with her palm extended flat, just to be certain. She felt its flat, impermeable smoothness. Gently she traced the circular metallic frame of the lens, lid or lake. Yes, it was most definitely metal, neither reeds nor soil nor grass--nothing even remotely lakey about the whole grisly business.
Well, I'll be damned, she thought, somewhat irked. So it really is a washing machine after all and that must be my underwear tumbling around inside with the Ivory Liquid bubbling like a witches' cauldron. Bubble bubble toil and trouble, she thought, if my face is inside of it--and it was, her face was unequivocally reflected inside the cauldron or Wurlitzer or ex-lake--I wonder if I'm eye of newt or just a witch watching from above the cauldron...but then again...
I want to be somewhere else, she thought, catching herself in the nick of time. She waited for the light to go on so she could put in fabric softener. I don't want to have to put in fabric softener just because a light goes on and ruins a perfectly good cyclical cauldron. I don't want to have to do anything that is less than 360 degrees. I want no more of washing machines, only washing machine windows. No boxes, no rectangles, no angles, no straight lines. And no window rims made of metal like this one, unless they're wide enough to see my reflection in which this one isn't. It only reminds me it's a window rim. Fucking straight line masquerading as a circle. Christ, I want to be somewhere else.
She knelt down on the floor before the machine and peered very closely into the rim, to see if she couldn't see her reflection in it after all, thus freeing it to be a circle as it should be. But it was too dirty. Probably hadn't been washed in months. Funny how people who run laundromats to clean things should keep their washing machine window rims so dirty, she thought. But she could still see herself in the window if not the rim. The window at least was a circle. So she began to pray to the Spirit of the Washing Machine Window. The Spirit was of course her own reflection, her prayer a mere musing, a musing whose outloudness made it a prayer.
"Oh, Marsha, what shape and form are your life going to take?" (she prayed straight at her reflection). "What on earth are you going to do tomorrow with a BA in Comp Lit and a minor in math and an utter lack of interest in anything around you? Whatever form it takes will surely be under 360 degrees. It probably won't even hit 180. And who needs an angular life? Grad schools and business and families and gravestones and oh Christ I want to be somewhere else!"
"Cain Ay ask you vot you're doink? queried the kind old Jew who tended the laundromat. She looked up at him from the floor. He looked down at her from the ceiling--or so it seemed from her floor-based perspective. She spoke to his ceiling-based face.
"Well, you see, just last night after I shitted, I mean shat," she said nastily, "I had this nice long conversation with the Tidy Bowl Man. Pleasant fellow." Pause. "I'd been watching TV, which is natural," she said, "and so I felt I had to take a shit which is natural too. But anyway it was real comforting to find a little man inside my shit since I'd been feeling kinda lonely. So I decided to see if maybe there wasn't a Tidy Wurlitzer man too, inside my underwear, which, even though I don't usually shit in it, is also dirty."
He gazed at her archly.
"It seemed to make sense," she continued, "dirty underwear, dirty shit, little man. You see, I'm an animist. I believe that things have souls and souls have things," all the time thinking, ask a stupid question...And she was about to go on about how especially she believed things had souls if they were round and wet and tried to clean up dirt, like toilet bowls and washing machines and maybe even herself, too, down there. And she was about to point to just where down there was and embarrass the living daylights out of him, but then she noticed the little numbers tattooed on his hairy wrinkled old veiny arm which was hanging limply between her face and his face with its sleeve rolled up. And feeling a certain empathy toward him, she changed the course of her reply. "Perhaps you don't believe things have souls since you've obviously learned about how people have none. And I understand." Pause. "Believe me, I do understand." Pause again. "But still that's no reason not to respect someone else's religion. I for example respect your former Judaism and your present disgust, even though I'm Jewish and disgusted too--by "too" I mean I'm Jewish and disgusted as well as being an animist--and you know these days it isn't easy for me to respect anything I am. But I respect your religion. And likewise you should respect mine." He stared at her more archly. Losing her patience: "I mean being an animist is really rough, so why don't you please just leave me alone Sir? Can't you see I'm taking a shit? If you can't respect my religion, at least respect my privacy, Christ Almighty!
"Meshugah," he grumbled and ambled on.
"I'm taking a shit. I'm watching TV," she called after him. "215 million Americans and all of them animists. They take shits, they pray to TVs, they think things have souls, just like me. Only they don't even know it. And animism without consciousness is no damn religion in my book. So I have no respect for their religion. Go on, that's right, go on! Report me to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities! There you have grounds and I'll understand. But getting back to your original question--this vot Ay'm doink thing--now that I can't for the life of me understand. I mean it's so fucking obvious and especially with you being a landsman and all...And anyway, it doesn't exactly take a quantum leap of the imagination to see the connection between a TV and a washing machine. But OK just walk away, good for you. Meshugah you say. So OK I'll stop. I'll get up. I'll be good. No more meshugah. Marsha's a good girl. If it makes you happy it makes me happy. But just one more question Sir. Vuldt you mynt telling me vy the hell you have a numbered arm and you're standing here all day day in and day out taking such goddam precious care of all these goddam Kraut washing machines? Meshughah," she screamed. "Meshugah!"
She didn't really say any of those things, of course. Marsha would never say anything like that to anyone, much less to a poor old man with a tattooed arm. What she said in fact was a distracted and sheepish half-mumbled apology, offering no explanations for her behavior, much less any overt manifestations of hostility. And the old man was happy, and she retreated to the benches, where all the other customers were sitting.
But she caught a last sideways glance at the Wurlitzer before she did so. And the Spirit of the Washing Machine must have heard the unspoken communication because she noticed it was grinning somewhat wryly and seemed to think her at once tragic and witty. Unless it was really her own reflection in which case no one had heard at all.
Just look at them, she thought disgustedly, staring at the cold wooden benches before her. And the cold wooden people. And the cold wooden floor. How I hate benches. No place to go. They just end. Cut. Aborted. Kaput. Fini. Just like that. No flow. No cycles. And then they just sit there and look at you all wooden and angular and they're so UGLY because it's all the same, same here same there four corners ninety degrees nowhere to go no imagination. God, how I hate benches! I will not, I refuse to, sit on this bench!" And she stood next to it, watching the endless play of underwear and suds rotating rhythmically across the aisle. The old man passed by with a cartful of wet laundry and shot her a meaningful glance. She sat.
It was awful knowing that if she just looked down she would see the four of them just sitting there, no place to go. So she focused intently on the Wurlitzer. A particularly vivacious pair of panties seemed to be having a wonderful time riding the waves. She watched them climb all the way to the top of the circle and stay there for an instant before they dove gleefully down to the bottom. And it was all the same to them, they hadn't really gone anywhere--in circles all points are the same and the thrill is all in the movement itself, not the destination. They jiggled about orgasmically on the bottom and before you knew it, there they were, right back up on top again, jiggling about some more.
Good for you, she thought, exulting with them in this small triumph. Good for you! Pass O, collect $200. O for go, O for Origin, O for zero, O for 360, O for O, why not? All Monopoly boards ought to be round. How else can you pass O and still be in the exact same race? Right angles just sit. They end and then they sit there. Yesterday I passed go, she thought. Collect a diploma, $200. And here I sit. And it's Park Place and Mortgage and Hotel and straight lines, right angles, box after box after box after box. They want to flatten me out and iron my life and create all the angles that never existed. Suddenly she was aware of a slight fizzling sound beneath her and the smell of singed clothing. Instantly, instinctively, she jumped up off the bench. Panic-stricken, she felt her backside. It was intact. Well that was a close one she thought. They almost got me. Damn bench just sit there why don't you...She would not go back to the bench under any conditions. It had tried to burn her. She looked at the bench, the bench looked at her. Damned ironing board masquerading as a bench. And then as an afterthought: Thank heavens I'm only doing underwear today. I just couldn't see having to go home and iron a whole load of shirts and pants and skirts after going through something like that. Perhaps, she thought, overcome by emotion at having been saved by the skin of her teeth from immolation, perhaps I ought to go and tell that nice old man that I've come pretty close to being cooked myself. Perhaps then he would like me better seeing we've shared common suffering. But perhaps he wouldn't understand at all and he'd go on giving me dirty looks. I mean if he couldn't see the connection between washing machines, toilet bowls and TVs how's he gonna see it between ironing boards, benches, and...oh, that's right, she remembered, I forgot I never really told him any of that. Well perhaps I should have told him after all, perhaps he would have liked me better for it, perhaps...Suddenly from the corner of her eye she noticed an unextinguished cigarette butt sizzling underneath the bench, slowly eating away at a raggedy old sock the someone must have left there. I wish...she thought..I wish...oh, Christ, I mean..I really want to be somewhere else.
Pass O, $200. The pair of panties rode a wave. All at once she loved that panty more than she had ever loved anything in all her life. Just to be near it, she went back to the washing machine. This time she didn't even care about her reflection. The machine was on rinse cycle now and she could always say she was waiting to unload if they asked. Oh how I just love doing the wash, she thought contentedly, leaning against the machine like a cat. She felt its chug chug chugs, its rum rum rums, and its gurgle gurgle gurgles. She soaked up its heat and its soothing vibrations, she heard its washy, peaceful song. I love doing the wash. I like the wash and I like the suds and I like these noises and vibrations and I like the warmth and the water and the smells of detergent and I think I even like that nasty old prick who keeps giving me dirty looks I should have known better than to try and get away from my circles today. To come here with my stupid plans for my stupid future. This is my time, these are my thoughts, this is my wash, these are my waves. And no one can take them away from me. Every Saturday morning like clockwork. It's Saturday, the Lord's day, the day of rest, my rest, just to rest, to do the wash and be an animist, and oh just wash keep passing O the colors fly oh God I really love the wash. It's cleansing, that's what it is, purifying. I feel like I've been baptized. She arched her back and threw her head back and began to gyrate her pelvis in synch with the Wurlitzer's rhythmic undulations. Hot...Warm...Gentle... Flow...Warm.. Hot..Smooth...Oh...Gentle gentle hot slow...Hot...hot... hot...oh...stay here...oh god. Pass O. Colors flying. Stay here. Again. Pass O. Colors flying.Pass O. Again And AGAIN. Colors flying. And AGAIN and AGAIN OH MY GOD COLORS FLYING...The machine and her pelvis both began to palpitate wildly. "O!" she screamed. "Oh! Ooooh! OOOOOOOH!"
"Marsha! Congratulations! Jeannie said you got Magna cum laude. Why the hell didn't you call and tell me?"
"Oh!" she said. "Jesse! Oh!" She straightened out her hair and tried to act completely normal. "Oh Jesse," she said again. "Hi."
He kissed her on the cheek. "Where were you last night? I called you and called you."
"Oh, I, oh..."
"Forget it," he said. "So how does it feel to be out now? Good, I bet."
"Oh, I really can't describe it. Kind of...angular, sort of..."
"Have you been thinking at all about what you're going to do with your life now that you're done with college?"
Him and his stupid questions. Nothing but stupid questions. Day in day out stupid questions. Well, ask a stupid question...She lunged at him ferociously:
"I'm joining the CIA. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be an undercover agent. I'll wear a black overcoat and under it nothing but multicolored underwear. I'm posing undercover as an oceanographer. I'm going undercover on a transatlantic voyage in a two foot bathtub with Thor Heyerdahl. He said I could come. And I'm taking my laundry and I'm washing it the whole time we row around the whole fucking world. But that's not til next year. The tub sails in May. What til I tell you 'bout this year, Jesse! I'm going to be the first Jewish woman on the moon. NASA said I could come. They talked to the math department yesterday and when they found out I could add two and two they got really excited and they said I could come if I count all the craters. Well I thought count all the craters Marsha what a neat idea, go up in a rocket and count all the craters but Stanley Kubrick said it's just their way of saying go fuck yourself Marsha. Rockets, Jesse, craters, you know what I mean? Well I thought Kurbrick oughtta know so I went back and told NASA go fuck your own craters. And ya know what I'm doing instead Jesse? I'm going to New England. That's right Jesse, New England. I'm joining the Shakers and I'm dancing myself to orgasm. And that way no one can tell me to go fuck myself because I'll already be fucking myself. And if you wanna come with me you're gonna have to stand on the other side of the room, Jesse, and you're gonna have to go fuck yourself too. But wait till you hear about two years from now, Jesse. It gets better. Honest it does. Better and better each year. I'm climbing the World Trade Center. Jessica Lange said I could come. She said Faye Wray and King K--that's Kubrick, you know--and me, we're climbing the World Trade Center together. And then we're having dinner with this big tall hairy gorilla. Bananas Jesse ya know what I mean? Bananas Jesse and you can't come not even if you stand on the other side of the other fucking Twin Tower because somehow or other, Jesse, somehow or other, I never told you this but you're always making me go fuck myself. You and NASA both. But Jessica, and Stanley, and Thor, and the Shakers, they said I could come, Jesse, know what I mean? Come, Jesse, come with my washing machine. So you can go count your own damn craters Jesse." Pause. "What am I going to DO with my life Jesse? Really wanna know? I"m doing the wash dammit I'm doing the wash. The wash everyday till I Totestanz myself away to Kingdom Come. I'm Lady Macbeth and I'm doing the wash...bubble bubble Jesse can't you see the cauldron/ Double trouble, see the pretty cauldron? I'm John the Baptist. I'm the Tidy Bowl Lady. Rub a dub dub I'm Marsha in a tub. I'm going to wash myself to death, Jesse, that's what I'm gonna do. So why don't you please just leave me alone Sir, can't you see I'm taking a shit? If you can't respect my religion well at least respect my privacy. GET OUT OF MY LIFE JESSE, I"M DOING THE FUCKING WASH."
She hadn't really said any of those things of course. Marsha would never say anything like that to anyone, much less to Jesse who was always so good to her. Good ol' Jesse yes indeedy. What she'd really said was this:
"Well yeah I've been thinking but I haven't quite decided yet. I was thinking of going on interviews for some bullshit job--you know, any old thing, while I try and decide and in the meantime applying to some grad school. But not in Lit. I'm sick of Lit. And math. So I really don't know what field to apply in or which schools to apply to but if I get some stupid job I figure I'll have time to think more. But then I was thinking well what about the Peace Corps, but I don't know if they'd take me or where they'd send me or if I really want to go. But it would give me more time to decide and it's just as good as grad school since I really don't know if I want to go to grad school. Even though grad school would prepare me for something but I don't know what and the Peace Corps wouldn't but it would give time to decide what I want to prepare for. Unless of course if I could find a job I liked but I doubt I will with only a BA and that's why I think I should go to grad school. But let's say I did find a job I liked, after I applied to the Peace Corps, and let's say they accepted me, the Peace Corps I mean. And the job I liked." Pause. "They wouldn't make me join the Peace Corps, would they? I mean, if I found a job I liked?"
She was sure she'd really said all that. But judging from Jesse's reaction she thought that maybe she might have said all those other things after all because he was standing there stupidly saying "Oh my God oh my God" over and over again. She thought very briefly how she would really have to stop riding all the waves in her mind because apparently her mouth was now riding them too without telling her and if you can't trust your own mouth well who can you trust? And he kept saying "Oh my God Oh my God" til she was sure that she'd said what she thought she'd only thought and not what she'd thought that she'd said. "Jesse" she said or thought she said 'cuz by now she couldn't be too sure, "would mind telling me why you keep saying Oh my God Oh my God over and over like a redundant dunderhead?"
But Jesse's gaze was fixed behind her, on the washing machines. Slowly, she turned her head
And there among the underwear and Ivory Liquid was a diminutive Marsha riding the waves. She was flailing about in the Wurlitzer washer. She was screaming gleefully "I'm doing the wash, Jesse! I'm dong the wash! Whee!" She was holding on tight to one special pair of panties that kept passing O from top to bottom and she was having a wonderful time.
After that she remembered nothing on the laundromat side of the window. But from time to time the Marsha in the washer would see the large face of the Marsha in the laundromat peering perplexedly through the surface of the lake. Marsha in the washer ws sure of course it was only her reflection in the water...
Postscript
since she didn't have much time to ponder the issue, so busy was she she flailing about with the intelligences, fanfare, cauldron, bubbles and really anything she wanted or wants to flail with.
Masha in the laundromat had a pretty easy time of it from thereon in, since now that she was but a mere reflection she was that much more adaptable to a world that is, after all, essentially angular. Reflections are not, as a rule, unhappy--they tend not to introspect too much. She went on to grad school in Journalism and got a fine managerial job with a new program at a major TV network. And as far as can be foreseen, the future looks rosy. Yes, indeedy. She still does the wash every Saturday morning, but she hardly, if ever, looks at her reflection. Reflections tend not to look at their reflections too much. She appeared on TV just last week to discuss network policy and she was just pleased as punch about that. So you see she's quite at home now with right angles.
Jesse has long since dismissed as an hallucination that frightening moment in the laundromat when he thought he saw his girlfriend as a Lilliputian surfer girl in a washing machine. Since he had, at the time of the vision, been high on some dope he had smoked before, this dismissal came rather easily to him.
He has also long since dismissed Marsha from his life, another dismissal which came surprisingly easily to him for all who know him well. He explains that he loved her in their heyday although admittedly she had been somewhat off-balance at times. In retrospect it seems to him he had loved her for those very eccentricities and lapses he used to complain about and well...frankly, after graduation, she just got kind of boring. It must have been those new friends of hers at grad school. At any rate the Marsha he loved in college is NOT the present Marsha. The first Marsha he had known. Like the palm of his hand. This Marsha is someone else. And no, since you ask, I'm not sorry I finally told her to go fuck herself. I tried to work it out and we did the best we could.
If he ever suspects--or dimly peceives--a connection between their break-up and that far-off day in the laundromat, no one knows but him. One thing's for sure, he'll never say so. Jesse would never say anything like that.