My mother would only go to the  laundromat in the shittiest part of town, across the bridge, because their machines took four dimes instead of four quarters. She went in the day after a woman had been abducted from the laundrymat and presumed dead because of the amount of blood left at the scene. My mother said there was still blood spattered on the ceiling, and the ceiling was very high – the building having been converted from some kind of defunct factory. She kept going to that laundrymat, even after that – undeterred by the murder. She brought me along once, not long after that happened, so she could carry even more laundry, thus making the trip even more economical. I couldn’t keep my eyes off that high ceiling, festooned with carcass-encrusted fly paper swaying in the breeze from ancient fans, thinking about the last few moments of someone’s life, and dimes versus quarters.

 
P.J. Sambeaux’s work has previously appeared in such magazines as Maudlin House, Unidentified Funny Objects, Viewfinder, The Broken City, and Typehouse Literary Review. She’s currently working on screenplay that tells the story of teenagers trying to escape the 1980’s crack invasion in rural Ohio. She currently lives in Upstate New York.