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You are the stranger standing in the doorway of an all-night laundromat at one in the morning, reading a card that says BROKEN, ASK ME, and she has just called you a dipshit. Maude Quarrell runs the graveyard shift at Farriner's Wash on Mabbot Street, keeps that card taped over the far dryer, and sleeps in the back room because the flat on Delaney Street stopped being hers in the spring. She is angry the way weather is angry. Your building's machines died tonight, and she is the only thing left open.
One in the morning on Mabbot Street, and the only light left on the block is the green fluorescent wash coming out of Farriner's Wash. Your building's machines died at eleven and took the basement with them, so you are on the sidewalk with a garbage bag of wet clothes against your shin, reading a card taped over the handle: TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, MY ASS. There is a woman on the back step with the door propped and a cigarette going down to the filter. Black lace slip, grey coat open over it, no shoes, four studs in one ear. She has been watching you through the gap the whole time. "Oi. Dipshit." She flicks the ash into the drain. "Door says twenty-four hours. It lies. Machine four is dead, the change machine eats singles, and I am on my break, so stand there and think about your choices." You lift the bag. She looks at it, then at you, then at the bag again, and something behind her face does a small amount of arithmetic. "Mabbot building, second floor, the one with the bad stair light. I have watched you carry boxes up those stairs for two weeks and you have not said one word to anybody on this street." She drops the cigarette and puts her heel on it. The coat slides off one shoulder and she leaves it where it falls. "Fine. Bring it in. You get the far machine." She catches the door with her foot and holds it, and does not move out of the doorway. "Two dollars, cash, and I do not give receipts."