Bill Jones closed the lid of the washer, dropped in his quarters, and picked up a three-year-old copy of Reader’s Digest.

He read the jokes first. “Humor In Uniform”: “But Sarge, it’s only a toothbrush!” “All In A Day’s Work”: “A little before noon, the boss called me into his office...”

Outside the Laundromat at the intersection of Market and Castro, a trolley bus had stalled and traffic was stopped dead. Inside the front window, a black guy with a purple Afro drank from a bottle in a brown paper bag. Next to him, a bag lady with a shopping cart dozed in the sun against a paint-peeled wall.

Bill had never had a very high opinion of Reader’s Digest. But he was hardly ever brave enough to tackle the horrors on the front page of the Chronicle, so Reader’s Digest it had to be. “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.”

“Billy,” the story read, “was a strapping, young lad from North Carolina, a big left-hander who perched the mound like an eagle on a crag.”

It was his own name, of course—Bill, or Billy as he used to be called—and he’d played some baseball himself in high school and college. He’d even been a pitcher like this allegedly unforgettable fellow, and although he was neither left-handed, nor a North Carolinian, Bill settled in beside the churning washer for a good read.

The unforgettable Bill—Billy, the eagle on the crag—seemed to be pitching in some unnamed bush league. It was the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, all that, and, to make matters worse, Billy couldn’t throw a strike to save his life.

“Ball two,” the umpire cried.

The catcher asked for time and trotted out to the mound—the crag where the eagle stood. The Unforgettable One kicked at the dirt while the catcher, a stocky Italian from Hoboken, asked him what the hell the trouble was.

“Nothin’,” the strapping North Carolinian drawled. “I swallered my gum, is all. Throws my rhythm off, not havin’ any Juicy Fruit to chew on. You got any gum, Frosty?”

Frosty, Bill Jones thought. The pitcher called the catcher Frosty.
In the story, Frosty fished through the back pocket of an ill-fitting uniform, searching for gum, but came up empty.

“Don’t got none,” Frosty said.

In college, where Bill had done his best pitching, he’d once dated a big-haired sociology major who was nicknamed Frosty, and Frosty, he remembered, fancied herself a writer: poems about death, snow, lost cats, and her father’s chicken ranch in Petaluma.

Now, in the little morality play of the diamond, Billy’s manager, a crusty, ex-big league second baseman, joined the meeting on the mound.

“What the hell’s the friggin’ problem?”

Frosty said, “Billy’s got no gum.”

“So he ain’t got no gum?”

“Throws off my rhythm,” Billy said. “I can’t stride right without my Juicy Fruit.”

Bill Jones turned back to the front page of the piece and looked at the name of the author, C. J. Krebs. Carolyn Janine Krebs. Good God, it was her—chicken feathers, big hair and all.

Leaving his laundry unguarded, he marched to the pay phone, up near the front window where the purple Afro drank his Tokay and the shopping cart lady, awake now, peeled a hard-boiled egg.

“Got any mayonnaise?” she asked Bill.

He punched up Information, and Information being, like the Laundromat itself, a miracle of modern technology, not only came up with a C.J. Krebs, but put him straight through. After he’d desposited seventy-five cents, that is.

“Frosty?” he said when a woman answered.

“Yes?”

“This is Bill.”

“Who?”

“Bill... Bill Jones.”

“Oh my God, Billy Jones? It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, I'll say. But I'm Bill now. Or even William,” he added, despite the fact that, for all his efforts, the only person who actually called him William was his mother. “But anyway, Frosty—look, I've been reading this old copy of Reader’s Digest I found.”

“So?”

“So, you see, there’s this story in it, and, well, it looks like it’s about me.”

“Good God, Billy, I wrote that a couple of years ago. I don’t know, three or four maybe. Why bring it up now?”

“Well, I just saw it, you see, in a Laundromat down on Market Street. By Castro. You should have told me about it.”

“You’re not going to ask me out or anything are you?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want, Billy?”

“Well, I guess I don’t like being written about behind my back, as it were.”

“It’s just a story.”

“But it’s not true.”

“Of course it’s not. It’s a story.”

“But it’s supposed to be a true story.”

“So sue me,” Frosty said.

“You made me look like an idiot.”

“No, I made you unforgettable. That’s why it’s called ‘The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.’ I made you immortal, Billy. You should thank me.”

A guy wearing a multi-zippered leather jacket, a policeman’s cap, and mirrored sunglasses, like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, tapped him on the shoulder.

“Mind if I use the phone?”

“I’ll be done in a second.”

“But this is important.”

“So’s this,” Bill said. He showed Marlon the Reader’s Digest.

Frosty said, “Billy, who are you talking to?”

“It’s about me,” Bill told Marlon.

 

“What is?”

“The ‘Most Unforgettable Character.’”

“Billy? What’s going on there?”

Marlon looked at the magazine. “Really? You’re a ‘Most Unforgettable Character’?”

“Well, yes. I suppose I am.”

“Damn it, Billy,” Frosty said. “You never listen to me. That was always your problem.”

Before he could tell her that was not his problem, the phone asked for more money and Marlon snatched the Reader's Digest away from him.

“You’re from North Carolina? Hey, I’m from Raleigh. God, what a pit. Couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’ll buy you a beer when you’re done.”

“I’m not really from North Carolina,” Bill said.

“That’s funny,” Marlon told him. “You look like you’re from North Carolina.”

“I do not,” Bill said.

“Billy?” Frosty started up again. “Billy? Are you still there?”

“Of course, I’m still here, where else would I be?”

Without permission, Marlon took the Reader’s Digest over to a young woman who was sitting by the dryers. Bill called to him, but Marlon didn’t pay any attention.

“See that guy?” Marlon asked the girl. “He couldn’t pitch because he’d swallowed his gum.”

“What gum?” the young woman said. Pretty and blonde, she was, and wearing a yellow sun dress.

Frosty said, “Look, I’m not interested, okay? We had some fun, once, but I’ve got a boyfriend. And I don’t want to get anything started.”

“I’m not trying to get anything started,” Bill said.

“Then what is it you want from me? Money? It didn't pay hardly anything.”

“I don't know what I want, exactly.” Money was, indeed, a temptation, but that wasn't the point. “I guess I don't like going into a Laundromat, picking up a Reader's Digest and reading a phony story about myself,” he said. “An apology, maybe. Maybe that's what I want. An apology.”

“All right,” Frosty said. “I’m sorry, Billy. I’m sorry I made you immortal. There. Satisfied?”

He tried to think, but the telephone wanted more money again, and Bill was all out of change.

“Can I call you back?” he asked Frosty. She hung up.

Marlon waved at him from over by the dryers.

“Hey, this is really cool. You’re a pitcher, eh?”

“Well, yes,” Bill said.

The blonde was slender, boyish almost, and as fresh as a daisy. Bill ambled on over.

“Yeah,” he said. “I played a little ball. Pitched, mostly. Stood out there on the mound. You know, a lone eagle outlined against the sky and all.”

The blonde smiled. “And you couldn’t throw strikes unless you were chewing Juicy Fruit?”

“Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, I suppose. Poetic license, you know.”

“I think it’s sweet,” she said.

Marlon called to the guy with the purple Afro and the Tokay. “Hey, look at this.”

The purple Afro came over.

“So, the manager yells to the guys in the dugout,” Marlon told him, “and they all go through their pockets, and everybody’s got gum, like Doublemint and all, but nobody’s got Juicy Fruit.”

“You can’t chew gum and pitch at the same time?” the purple Afro asked Bill, apparently confused.

“Well, no, other way around,” Bill told him. “I couldn’t throw strikes unless I was chewing gum. It threw my rhythm off, you see, at least in the story.”

“Juicy Fruit,” the blonde said. Her teeth, in front, were a bit crooked, but, then again, nobody was perfect.

“Actually Dentyne,” Bill said. “Dentyne was really my favorite.”

She extended her hand to him. “My name’s Stevie.”

Her eyes were blue. Her lips were thin and straight. Her cheekbones were high and sculpted. Her grip was firm—very, very firm.

“You’re sure you don’t want a beer?”

Bill looked down—square and thick, her hand was—and her fingers weren’t pointed and delicate, either. Then his eyes fell to the line of her hips, under the sun dress.

“Well, no,” Bill said, taking his hand from hers. “I’ve got my laundry and all. But thanks, anyway.”

“You’re sure?” Stevie said.

“I got a date later.” Bill lied. “With that girl on the phone.”

He went back towards the washers where his load was finishing. He sat back down again, opened the Reader’s Digest once more, and reread the ending of Frosty’s story—the players on the bench searched their pockets for Juicy Fruit, the umpire came out to the mound to move the game along.

“Sure, I got Juicy Fruit,” the umpire said.

It was a nice story, Bill thought, and not all that far-fetched, either. He had pitched, after all, and he had struck guys out. Plenty of guys. And it made him feel special to be in Reader’s Digest. Unforgettable, in fact.

He was an unforgettable, valuable, individual human being in the great misadventure that was life in a world of Laundromats, purple Afros, good looking transvestites, and telephones that demanded money.

A fellow couldn’t quit, Bill thought, that was all. Like the pitcher in the story. If you swallow your gum, you get some more. A fellow had to improvise. A fellow had to go with the flow. But mostly, Bill thought, a fellow had to keep a sense of humor.

He closed the Reader’s Digest, opened the lid of the washer and discovered that sometime—maybe between the rinse and the spin cycles—someone, the shopping cart lady perhaps, had stolen all his clothes.