The Guangzhou Twins of Guangdong

The man in the hat stood facing Lords Laundry, the lamplight flickering on and on and off. He dare not step foot inside as he owed the proprietor 27 cents for two laundered shirts, a blue one and a pinstriped one. The blue shirt he wore on Thursdays and Fridays, the pinstriped one Mondays, Tuesdays and every other Saturday. On Sundays and Wednesdays he wore a sweater, knit for him by a woman with whom he was presently unacquainted. The woman who knit his sweater, with whom he was currently unacquainted, was wed to one Albert Simms, an ashen fleshed man with bitten down fingernails.

He wore a whores’-breath nosegay in his jacket lapel and a pair of down-at-the -heel shoes, much to his wife’s moroseness. When Albert Simms was a boy his mamma told him that bad boys go to hell and good boys get to go to the moving picture show. He disliked his mamma, preferring candy allsorts, which he stole from the convenience shop on the corner of 5th and Seventeen. The man in the hat, his hat cradled in his lap, sat next to a man whom he believed to be a bicycle thief. The man was carrying a pair of wire-snips and a can of clean all, for scrubbing away telltale fingerprints, or so the man in the hat believed.

The Oost-Vlaanderen brothers of Sint-Niklaas made saltboxes, one per person, two if you could argue them to the ground. The Guangzhou twins of Guangdong lived off whatever they could salvage from the dustbins behind the Guangdong Grocery, the eldest foraging for scrap paper, as he fancied himself a poet. The Bayern triplets of Munich were, all three, skilled at ball the jack, playing the game wherever they found themselves to be. The Brno sisters of Jihomoravsky Kraj lived off the avails of whoring, all four sisters well versed at knavery and giving men what they desired. No one knows what they desire until it hits them in the face, the men of Jihomoravsky Kraj being no exception. Dejesus, on one of his many treks outside the outside, met the Brno sisters when visiting a sick aunt who lived, and perished, in Jihomoravsky Kraj. Availing himself of the sisters travails, Dejesus found what he desired, Jihomoravsky thighs jiggling on top of his smiling face.

The sun broke through the clouds like a thief through a locked door, filling the blue morning sky with a fiery fieriness. The man in the hat sat facing Lords Laundry, daring himself to retrieve his newly laundered shirts, a blue one and a pinstriped one. The proprietor of the laundry, a fat man with fat fingers, sat behind the counter chewing his cud, his face starched stiff, his thoughts hoodwinked with uneasiness and sad reverie. ‘…never underestimate the power of bare…’ said the proprietor to his assistant, a courteous young lad with pockmarked skin and a French moustache. ‘…don’t you mean prayer…?’ inquired the assistant, his moustache twitching. ‘…prayer is for ninnies…’ said the proprietor, his voice booming. The assistant crept to the door leading to the back of the shop and slid unnoticed into the back room, the proprietor quibbling with himself about too much starch and too little bleach.