NYCMidnight Finals: Gentrified Chivalry

Ty picked at the deadened red slit of the coin slot. The dark screen of the Ms. Pac-Man game was more of a table now than anything; it hadn’t worked for as long as the nine-year-old boy could recall. Still, someone had tried to play it recently, managing to leave a quarter behind for anyone dedicated enough to dig it out. While poking for the coin, Ty’s feet scuffed along a tile floor thick with stains from thirty years of moms, kids, vagrants, and who knew what else. Yet the smell of warm clothes and bleach gave the illusion of sanitized safety.

“It aint comin’ out,” Lea said as she looked on with bored annoyance. “Ya gonna waste all the time before we gotta fold more clothes.”

Ty looked up. Long, straight waves of black hair framed a round face rich with indignation; indignation amplified by her slight edge in height over Ty and how quickly she now seemed to lose interest in all the games they’d played over the years. For as long as Ty and his mom had come to the mat on 5th and Trinity, so had Lea and the older sister who raised her.

The Laundromat wasn’t much to look at: two walls with three dryers each connected by a back wall of eight washers, only five that worked. A little room in the back right corner served as both bathroom and storage closet.

“I can get it,” Ty insisted. He didn’t look up at her, didn’t want to see if she believed or not. “Just give me a second. You said you wanted a gumball, and this is the easiest way.”

“Jus’ ask yer mom,” Lea sighed. She nodded to where Ty’s mother sat in a row of faded orange plastic chairs welded to the floor. Her eyes were closed for now, but his mother would pop them open the moment the washer stopped.

Ty’s nails turned white from being pulled away from the ebony tips of his fingers just before he lost his tenuous grip on the coin yet again. He shook his head and mumbled a curse. “She won’t give it to me, and I don’t want to ask.”

“Why not? She lets ya get stuff now and then. I seen it. Least when Ray aint around. I’d ask my sister, but who knows when she’ll be back.”

Ty shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell Lea how his mother’s description of her and her sister had gone from ‘Caribbean white’ to ‘white enough to fit in’ as the new buildings had gone up the last year. Buildings that had changed the neighborhood, bringing pockets of new families while others he had always known disappeared. His stepfather Ray actually liked the changes, but that only led to fights Ty didn’t want to think about, too distracting. “I want to do it myself.”

“Why?” she asked. “All ya gotta do is ask. Jus’ say it’s for you.”

He expected to meet a stern, I’m-the-one-making-sense glare, but a little smile greeted him. The ever-present flicker of the florescent lights let the smile dance a bit into her amber eyes. His feet scuffed the floor a little more quickly. Recently she always seemed a step ahead of him—another thing that annoyed him.

“King Arthur,” he said.

“What?” Her smile slipped away.

“My uncle teaches this class, and he told me about this guy, King Arthur.”

“I know who King Arthur is,” she scolded.

“Anyway,” Ty said. “King Arthur has everything—money, a cool house, and the hottest girl. But when the girl wants anything, he sends some other guy.”

“Like Richard Gere in that movie,” she nodded.

“Um, okay, Lancelot is what my uncle calls him.” Ty lowered his voice a bit as his mother shifted.

“Right, Richard Gere. It’s a kinda old movie, but you should watch it sometime.”

“And who ends up with the respect and the queen?”

“In the movie they all jus’ sorta get in trouble.”

“In the story my uncle tells, Lancelot saves the day again and again because he’s the one who does stuff?”

Her smile returned, but more mischievous. “So all ya wanna be is a white knight?”

Ty stuck his tongue out at her, eliciting a laugh from both. A slight stir and cluck from his mother subdued the two into more whispered giggles.

“I have an idea,” Ty said, standing up and walking to the bathroom. He shuffled around in the contents of an old wooden toolbox before puling out an old hammer with a splintering handle that he had to carry in both hands. “Perfect.”

“You are not going to try and break it open!” Lea pleaded in a hushed voice as he came back to the arcade console.

“No, this should be easy.” He placed the prongs of the hammer’s head near the coin slot’s edge. Slipping in the metal prongs as best he could, Ty pulled hard.

At first nothing happened.

Lea grinned a bit. “Why don’t ya let me try?”

Ty frowned and pulled again, every bit of determination going into his thin wrists. He slowly felt something give, and in anticipated triumph, wrenched the hammer with all his might.

The little plastic bit popped out and the quarter with it. Lea’s excited squeal woke up Ty’s mom, who cocked her head at the boy. He answered with a shrug, not breaking eye contact once as Lea retrieved the quarter, gave him a peck on the cheek, and skedaddled out the door with a ring of the bell.

“Boy, what was that all about?” his mom asked with that voice of hers that always left him wondering how much she knew and for how long.

“I was about to fix it momma, just needed to get the quarter out for Lea.”

“You better fix it before them clothes dry. You get used to it right now that you can break all the hearts you want, ‘cept your momma’s.”