The years have made a cartoon out of Sing Lee. A withered yellow face with
motionless black eyes. Thin fingers that move with lifeless precision.
Slippered feet that shuffle as if Sing Lee were yawning.
A smell of starch, wet linen and steam mingles with an aromatic mustiness.
The day's work is done. Sing Lee sits in his chair behind the counter.
Three walls look down upon him. Laundry packages--yellow paper, white
string--crowd the wall shelves. Chinese letterings dance gayly on the
yellow packages.
Sing Lee, from behind the counter, stares out of the window. The Hyde Park
police station is across the way. People pass and glance up:
Sing Lee, Hand Laundry,
5222 Lake Park Avenue.
Come in. There is something immaculate about Sing Lee. Sing Lee has been
ironing out collars and shirts for thirty-five years. And thirty-five
years have been ironing Sing Lee out. He is like one of the yellow
packages on the shelves. And there is a certain lettering across his face
as indecipherable and strange as the dance of the black hieroglyphs on the
yellow laundry paper.
Something enthralls Sing Lee. It can be seen plainly now as he sits behind
the counter. It can be seen, too, as he works during the day. Sing Lee
works like a man in an empty dream. It is the same to Sing Lee whether he
works or sits still.
The world of collars, cuffs and shirt fronts does not contain Sing Lee. It
contains merely an automaton. The laundry is owned by an automaton named
Sing Lee, by nobody else. Now that the day's work is done he will sit like
this for an hour, two hours, five hours. Time is not a matter of hours to
Sing Lee. Or of days. Or even of years.
The many wilted collars that come under the lifeless hands of Sing Lee
tell him an old story. The story has not varied for thirty-five years. A
solution of water, soap and starch makes the collars clean again and
stiff. They go back and they return, always wilted and soiled. Sing Lee
needs no further corroboration of the fact that the crowds are at work.
Doing what? Soiling their linen. That is as final as anything the crowds
do. Sing Lee's curiosity does not venture beyond finalities.
* * * * *
Sing Lee is a resident of America. But this is a formal statistic and
refers only to the automaton that owns the hand laundry in Lake Park
Avenue. Observe a few more formal facts of Sing Lee's life. He has never
been to a movie or a theater play. He has never ridden in an automobile.
He has never looked at the lake.
Thus it becomes obvious that Sing Lee lives somewhere else. For a man must
go somewhere in thirty-five years. Or do something. There is a story then,
in Sing Lee. Not a particularly long story. Life stories are sometimes no
longer than a single line--a sentence, even a phrase. So if one could find
out where Sing Lee lives one would have a story perhaps a whole sentence
long.
"Mukee kai, Sing Lee."
A nod of the thin head.
"Business good?"
Another nod.
"Pretty tired, washing, ironing all day, eh?"
A nod.
"When are you going to put in a laundry machine?"
A shake of the thin head.
"When are you going to quit, Sing Lee?"
Another shake of the thin head.
"You're not very gabby tonight, Sing."