Linder

i had to get my best suit cleaned
a friend was getting married in a small burnt out factory town
four hours away in indiana
where the land is as flat as the yellowed linoleum
on the kitchenette floor of a doublewide doing service as a meth lab
vacant fields rolling by forever on route 37
we rode the 17 downtown together for my 3-11 shift
me and my charity thrift store suit
after my afternoon classes were over
(i had to explain to a prof that the dress shirt she always saw me in
was in fact my uniform
and not a manifestation of some affinity for dresswear)
i keycarded my way into the cold fluorescence of the hotel kitchen
past the huge stainless steel dishtable steaming with suds and garbage
waited for the encrusted elevator with a refugee housekeeper from Sierra Leone
who will not make eye contact with me
ever
i have read about the genocide committed there
but her english is terrible and i dont want to ask
damn elevator always was slow as hell
original from when the place was built in the 50's
i ascend to the cavernous and dim 3rd floor
the bowels of the 22-floor building
where all the immense mechanical systems lay sputtering and groaning
where Linder's office was tucked
underneath massive vibrating furnace ducts covered in grease-stained silver insulation
just off the laundry room
which she was in charge of
"Howdy, Miss Linder. Got a suit here needs cleaned."
"Alrighty" she says
rifling through her beige steel desk for a dry cleaning slip
employees get half off rates
best deal in town
i pay her for the dry cleaning and she
launches into a sermon about how they need a new union steward in the bellstand
wants me to take the office apparently
i am proud to work at a union hotel
and the union's presence is why i was not put out in the cold last winter
when our clientele up and vanished leaving no trace
i know this for a fact
and i love unions
beleaguered as they are
in this day and time of neoliberalist cutbacks
my old man's union paid for my glasses for a decade and a half
and the braces that corrected my severe overbite
old Linder rattles on and on
she is no longer looking at me
distracted by virulent memories of employers' abuses
over the decades
and how much she wants the union to fight for us
i have no idea what she is talking about at this point
and i hate this job
only kept it so i could read on the clock
the last thing i want is to be more invested in this place
i promise her i'll think about it
bid her good day
and shuffle off
past the cobwebbed smoking area
enclosed in chain-link fencing despite the fact that we are indoors
to the employee cafeteria down the hall
where a four-foot-nine housekeeper is standing on a chair
screaming clownishly at a six-foot-eight musclebound maintenance man
'What mothafucka? What? You aint got shit to say now!"
the gaggle of housekeepers around her laugh uproariously clapping and stomping
Wheel of Fortune blares over the tv mounted in the cement block wall
someone buys an m
yes there are three m's
applause
i scan the salad bar
iceberg lettuce salad with a few stray cherry tomatoes
ranch dressing
stale crutons on ice
an eerie soup boils and bubbles in the steamtable
better than nothin i reckon