ONE STRIKE YOU'RE OUT!

Fluorescent lamps of the Empire State Laundry cast a gloomy, blue-tint over the grinding motors of the laundry’s giant folding machines. The odor of starch, and soap penetrated this modern day Dante’s Inferno, where an army of workers toiled.

A calendar, with large bold letters, read, THURSDAY AUGUST 14, 1969.  It hung near an antiquated time clock. Its face was covered with steam from numerous vats and pressing machines, and barely exhibited the time . . . eleven-fifty one.

Gray haired, lean, once lanky Charlie Fader, attired in loose, worn coveralls, brushed a pile of scraps and coils of dust onto a cardboard shirt-backing and dumped it into a barrel. He rested upon his broom and gazed at the floor he had tended for years.

In one movement, Charlie withdrew a gray handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his brow then brought it back behind his wrinkled neck. Charlie’s eyes caught the all to familiar exit door, whose blown light bulb had not been replaced for weeks. Then like a convict serving a long prison sentence, he thought to himself, ‘Six--ten--twelve years--how many? What difference does it make? What good does it do to keep track? Maybe I ought to quit he laughed derisively and continued thinking to himself, ‘I can barely make it now--no savings--no family--no friends.’ He stuffed his sweat soaked hanky back into his rear pocket and withdrew a pint of bourbon from his hip pocket--took a swig then lifted his broom and ambled across the floor heading to his ill-lit alcove retreat.

“Hey, Charlie!” called an obese black woman in a flowered smock, “When the hell y’ goin’ t’ sweep us this mess?”

“I’ll bet he’s pawned his broom for a bottle!” chided another ethnic worker.

The statement brought a roar of laughter from that area of the laundry, as the noon whistle blew signaling the start of lunch hour.

A thin Spanish woman called shrilly across the stifling room, “Sophie . . . are y’ eating out?”

A lazy response came, “Naw, I brought m’ lunch.”

“Me, too--c’mon over!”

The aisles filled with men and women heading noisily toward the exits, brushing against the stooped, slow moving custodian. “Hey! Mirra, mirra! He’s drunk again.”

The workers tapped Charlie’s rear and playfully disheveled his hair as he made his way through the mob.

Belittling and destroying the character of a ‘Honky!’ although he was at least seventy, was one of the few releases they had to escape their oppressive existence.

“Hey, Charlie! Y’ thirsty?” asked a male T-shirted black.  He grabbed Charlie’s cap and hid it behind his back.

Frustrated and angry, Charlie demanded, “Give it here, and damn you! Give it here!”

The black moved away as Charlie tried to reach behind his tormentor’s back, without success. The man tossed the cap to another male who held it as Charlie reached for it, it was tossed back to the first man.

“Damn you sons of bitches! Quit fucking with me! Quit it!”

The workers roared as the cap was finally tossed at Charlie’s feet. They finally quit their game and headed for and disappeared through the exit door. Painfully, Charlie leaned over and lifted his cap, and placed it on his head. He shrugged his head in frustration and eyed the dark concrete floor, as if regretting the life he was now living.

Charlie rounded a corner and approached a blind, stout, rusty-haired teen-ager. The young man was sitting upon a high stool. “Howdy, son.” Charlie greeted Ty Keller. “Some scorcher!”

“I heard them riding you again. I wish they’d lay off!”

“Don’t bother me none, big boy.  I lost my rabbit ears long before you were born.”  Charlie drawled in his now faint southern accent.

“Got your lunch?”

“Naw, I’m still on my liquid diet.”