Friday, October 13, 2006

Sidney looked up to see an older Indian man looking down at him from behind the counter. He was slightly heavyset, with a round bulge protruding beneath his shirt. Sidney supposed that he was the owner or a manager of the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat. For a moment, he debated about whether or not he should ask about the sweeper in the aisles, but thought better of it. After all, if she was the man's daughter, he probably wouldn't look too kindly on some random customer who took an interest in her.

"I wouldn't exactly call it a rough night." Sidney said carefully.

"I have just the thing." The man took a tray and a disposable paper bowl and plate from beneath the front counter and placed it on the counter behind him. From one of the steamers on the counter, he set out two small, white circular things and then ladled some sort of reddish-brown soup into the bowl.

"Sorry, but I don't have any money. I won't be able to pay--" He stood up in protest.

"Don't worry about it. You can pay me back later." This place really was amazing. It actually allowed people to have tabs. Not to mention, it was a great way to make sure people came back.

Upon smelling the hot and mildly sour steam rising from the bowl of soup, Sidney remembered how hungry he was. The little white cakes were spongy but at the same time denser than they appeared when he squeezed them in his fingers. He dipped one of them in the soup and took a bite. The steamed cake had become fluffier as it absorbed the spicy liquid. The thick soup or curry or whatever it was was a bit sour like it had some lemon in it and spicy from all of the varied spices whose names Sidney did not know.

It was delicious.

As opposed to following his gut instinct of shoveling it all down in one fell swoop as he had often done with the dorm food not so much out of sheer hunger as the fact that the food was inedible, Sidney took his time eating the light food. He felt warm past his stomach all the way down to his shoes even as he sat in the larger, more open space of the theater. It seemed so simple in concept, but complex in the execution of the numerous ingredients. He could not pick any particular flavor out any more than he could pick anyone thought he had on any particular day.

"Thank you so much. I'll make sure to come back, not just to pay you back, but to get more." Sidney looked up to find that the man had walked over to a small refridgerator to refill it with some glass bottles of non-corporate-looking soda. "What is this anyway?"

"Idli sambhar, steamed rice cakes and lentil curry," the man explained. "Where I come from, people sell this in stalls on the street at any time of the day."

"It's very good." Sidney said, taking another bite of the rice cake.

"Thank you."

Sidney was curious about this generous man and the food items he sold. He looked down at the glass counter to see tiers of various snack items, many of them spicy salty snacks in bags like the usual potato chips or cheese curls, but with a different language printed on the plastic. He noticed that he had dripped a little on the counter. Sheepish, he took a napkin and attempted to dab at it. Most of it came off, but left a slightly greasy streak on the glass. Sidney continued eating after the man behind the counter finished refilling the beverages in the refrigerator.

Once he had scooped the last drops of the soup from the bowl, an odd sense of disappointment set in followed by the realization that he was surprisingly full despite wanting more. Sidney stretched out on the barstool with a revived sense of satisfaction. He was definitely glad he came here, if not for the reason he had originally intended.

There was still the matter of the mysterious floor sweeper. Sidney couldn't help but wonder if the image of a girl in simple jeans and a t-shirt would haunt his mind forever. Even after the rather enlightening meal, he still felt no sense of clarity as to why he was looking for her in the first place. Nor did he find himself any closer to finding her either for that matter.

"I apologize, but I gotta go get my clothes out of the dryer and try to make the bus back," Sidney looked at his watch again. If he was smarter, he would have brought his backpack so he could study for his midterm, but at this point, he was lucky that he even remembered laundry detergent.

"I understand." The man nodded. "Make sure you come back. I don't think I'd mind it so much that you didn't pay me back, but you still owe me your story."

"My story?" Sidney raised his eyebrow. He thought he understood perfectly what the man meant, but it was still odd to him nonetheless that someone would want to know everything about him.

"Yes, I collect stories." He explained. "Sometimes when someone can't pay for a meal here and they're just passing through town and won't be back again, they pay me with a story. Then I put it into this book."

The man took a thick, cloth-bound book out. He opened it to a random page, and scrawled on lines were two dates followed by flowing paragraphs of script. Sidney chose not to read any of them but rather skim the pages to see how far along the man had gotten in completing his collection. It then occurred to Sidney that this probably wasn't the sort of collection that could ever be completed, nor was it likely that it was the type of collection that was ever meant to be completed. At first, he cringed at the thought of the hipsters finding this to be a "quaint exercise in futility" or something, but at the same time, he wondered how many of them opened up to this man with his notebook.

"Is it like an ethnography project?" Sidney asked, closing the book and sliding it back across the counter.

"Not exactly." He re-opened to book and glanced at somewhere around the middle. "I did not go to college, drifted around this country holding various jobs like the usual convenience store clerk or factory work. Then one day, I decided to just settle here with my family and get a loan to open this place."

"What made you do that?" Sidney always thought that it took a great amount of risk and money to do something like start a business.

"I met a man while waiting tables one night who did the same thing I do now. He told me that he was a writer." The man peered at him as if trying to skim through Sidney's pages. "He told me that everyone has a story, that you can learn more by just listening to people than reading books. I thought the idea was so fascinating that I started doing it at work. Of course, this got me fired for being too nosy about the customers, so I figured that the best thing I could do was open my own restaurant where I would be free to be able to do as I pleased."

The pieces seemed to start coming together. "So, does this mean that you're going to write a book with all of these stories?"

"Oh, no." He shook his head.

"Why not? You'd think that somewhere in that book of random experiences there'd be at least one good idea for a story there." Sidney gestured at the book as if was someone trying to speak and the man he was with was continually "shush"-ing him.

"Many of these are very personal. I am always amazed as to what people are willing to disclose to a complete stranger." He explained. "I try to take what I can from the lessons these other people have made and try to make the lives of others a little better. For example, after several stories of relationship mishaps, I was able to figure out what you needed."

Sidney felt mildly indignant at what the man was suggesting, that his was not an isolated incident or anything that could make a person unique. Then again, after hanging around the hipsters for so long, he came to acknowledge that "unique individuality" was just something sold to bored kids with nothing better to do than compete with each other as to how much cooler they were than everyone else.

"For that, I'm definitely grateful, but in all truth, I really was just very hungry and forgot to bring cash outside of my laundry quarters." He asserted.

"Are you sure about that?" The man raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "I was almost certain that there was something you were searching for or maybe someone you were trying to avoid here."

He paused a moment before taking his pen and continuing. "Either way, this is definitely one for the book. I guess sometimes the only cure needed is a serving of warm food."

Sidney felt like a complete jerk now. He realized that he was no better than the people he was trying to avoid, what with his shallow attempt at building this facade, not so much of "being cool," but "being ok."

"Wait." Something about the fact that this blatant fabrication would be put down on paper, recorded for the ages even if only one person would set eyes on it made him feel even worse. "You were right about how the the food definitely helped improve my mood, but that wasn't really what was bothering me."

A look of pleased contentment spread upon the man's face. "Ah, so I was right?"

"Yes." He looked down at the glass counter again and saw his reflection. He definitely needed a shave.

"Is it about a girl?" It seemed like the most logical conclusion to draw, after all.

"In a way, yes." Sidney conceded slightly, "But not in the way you'd think."

"Ah, then I think that this really is one for the book." Sidney could hear the fountain pen scratching against the thick paper.

"I was just afraid that you'd think I was crazy." This whole thing oddly reminded him of the one time he talked to the school psychologist his freshman year of high school when they were evaluating everyone to make sure they weren't going to blow up the school building or something. However, he felt much more comfortable in this case since he knew that he wasn't being judged or evaluated in any way. The man just seemed genuinely interested in listening, even if the story was mundane or otherwise as commonplace as a "boy loses girl" story.

"You want to talk crazy?" The man stopped writing for a moment. "The way I picked this town was by throwing a dart at the state highway map. Where it landed was where I decided that I was meant to open my restaurant."

"But it seems to be working." Sidney glanced at all of the college kids milling about the main floor. "For one thing, I don't think any restaurant I've ever been into doubled as a laundromat."

The man smiled. "My wife suggested that. She figured with the college campus in town, the kids would get hungry while doing laundry."

"It's also a really good idea to use the lobby as a more formal setting for actual meals and not just snacks." Sidney felt like he was writing a food review, but he really did feel like this man deserved as much credit as possible for making such a strange idea work.

"Yes, it's true." He nodded thoughtfully. "Sometimes the strangest combinations turn out to be the best. I know that a lot of Americans aren't used to the idea of food being both sweet and spicy, but I noticed that chai has caught on at your coffeehouses."

Ah yes, chai. Sidney recalled many of his friends had raved about the drink. He wasn't entirely crazy about it for the very same reason they liked it. Then again, maybe what he had had was just the Americanized, over-sweetened version of something that was originally good. Maybe the postmodernists were right about how there really were no new ideas. For once, Sidney could almost see why the hipsters tried to borrow so heavily from the mods, punks and everyone else who had come before his generation. Then again, it didn't necessarily mean that he liked it. If nothing was new, that was a really depressing thought, but at the same time, he loved this new place that he had randomly come across "because of a girl."

"So, what you're saying is that innovation really is just a matter of re-using pre-existing ideas and combining them in unexpected ways to create something completely different?"

The man laughed, a full straight-from-the-belly laugh. "The way you put it makes it sound so complicated. I'm just saying that it shouldn't matter if something is new or old as long as it's something people genuinely enjoy. I know that this building is much older than I am and may even stand long after I'm dead. What I think matters is that I can use it now to help other people find what they are looking for."

"I see." A rare moment of perfect clarity had occurred to the point where Sidney really meant those two words. What bothered him so much about the hipsters wasn't so much their pretension but the fact that they themselves didn't seem to get anything out of it, thus rendering whatever action or inaction they took to be completely futile. Well, ok, it was still most likely the pretension and posturing that bothered Sidney, but at least he understood the other unknown factor that had eluded him.

"At any rate, this isn't about me." The man looked down at his book again, chuckling. "I originally meant to get your story. I enjoy being able to share my story, but what I really want are the stories of others. For now though, I'll let you go get your laundry and we can do this another time."

Oh yes, one of the original reasons he had come was to wash his clothes, even if all he had was one load since he had done laundry just a couple of days ago. It was sort of funny how that worked out where some random cute girl in the cafeteria not only convinced him to do his laundry more than once a month, but also to do it somewhere outside the dorms.

"Sure, I'll be sure to come back another time." He would definitely return, if only to learn more about this man who so eagerly collected the stories of others but was just as free in sharing his own.

"Goodbye, and thank you." The man nodded just as another customer walked up to the counter.

Even if it meant having to go back into the tank of sharks known as "the hipster world," he wasn't as disgusted or nervous about it as he had been earlier. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, Sidney did not feel like eyes were constantly fixed on him as he walked back to where he had done his laundry. He fished his clothes out and tossed them into his mesh bag, wrinkled and still slightly damp since he had neglected to put enough money in the machine. By this point, Aimee was long gone, which was probably for the best.

As for the mysterious floor sweeper, Sidney figured that that mystery could wait another time, just like sharing his story or hearing more about the owner of the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat. He lingered a bit by the lobby door, scanning the odd labyrinth of off-white washers and dryers spinning and humming for signs of life. Many people had already cleared out with their fresh-scented and static-free garments. He recalled even seeing some guy with a garment bag in which he could hang his blazers after he had put them in permanent press.

Even when it came to something as mundane as doing laundry, everyone has a story. Sidney remembered how his mother first showed him how to measure out the detergent and fabric softener and which cycles to use them in the first floor laundromat when he was in middle school. Even that place had an odd retro charm about it since it had been open since the seventies. In comparison, even though the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat had only been open for less than a year, there was still a sense of antiquity just in the building itself. Old and new combined in a way people could enjoy.

Sidney pushed the double-hinged door. There was an entirely new set of people in the restaurant area. The table in the center was unoccupied. Spices whose names he did not know continued to float through the air like so many random thoughts. Sidney hefted the half-filled bag of clean laundry over his shoulder and made his way into the cool, spice-free air. It was refreshing considering how warm it had been inside the Phoenix. The air even smelled a bit sweeter from the dead leaves, but not overly sweet and decaying.

Glancing at his watch again, he realized that he still had a few minutes before the next Blue line bus would pass through. Sidney sat on the bus stop bench beneath the overly-bright streetlamp and looked at his feet. His shoes were coming apart at the seam between the upper and the sole. He wondered if this was something a little superglue or duct tape could fix since they were his favorite shoes. For some reason, he wasn't able to find them anymore at any of the stores he had been to here.

Even if he couldn't fix them, he'd probably just keep them anyway, sort of like how people bronze their children's first shoes as a memento. This could be a memento of his college years, or even just the first time he ever went to the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat. Maybe he could give them to the guy at the counter to put on a wall or in a case somewhere as an odd seemingly-mundane museum piece to go as a visual aid to the notebook. Sidney couldn't help but laugh at how silly that idea was. Then again, after everything he had learned that night, sometimes silly ideas just work. Maybe he'd even find the girl with the broom and get her to take off her headphones and talk.