“Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly” (1976)

Dennis Etchison’s very short story is more evidence for his way of finding the hubs and spokes of evil in modern life—in freeway rest stops, heavy traffic, spring breaks. In this story it is a 24-hour coin-operated laundromat in a big city neighborhood. It’s easy to be skeptical, noting the vaguely hysterical title, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things in this story that work, and work well. In a way I could stay all night in that laundromat, paradoxically at once a source of comfort (clean laundry, chore done) and anxiety (strange others, disease, night). Our man on the scene, insomniac, is not alone. There’s a woman, “twenty-nine going on forty.” And she’s talking to herself. While handwashing a heavily blood-stained bedsheet. Talking to herself about a murder. Implying she manipulated her own child into doing it, killing her husband, his father. If she is to be believed—if this story is to be believed. Which is not easy, except it’s 3 in the morning, she is a stranger, and Etchison does the smart thing, getting in and out of the story fast. It’s far-fetched but not out of reach. Suppose it was you handwashing a heavily blood-stained bedsheet when someone walks in. One way is to act crazy, go maximum creepy, hoping to chase the person out. And in fact it works well in this case. Our guy takes a powder, quick. I think it’s a stretch for her to say she manipulated her kid to murder. It feels like either she or Etchison—and Etchison seems most likely—is piling on for effect, making her such a heartless, calculating mother. But it could all be a ruse too, she might just be protecting herself to keep strangers at a distance. So there’s wiggle room for interpreting what’s going on. And there’s really not much else to this. It’s not a story of the uncanny at all, more like one more episode in the human comedy, this one straying into a dark area, with laundry. Etchison never lets drop the grim mask, but the brevity and outrageous scenario play more to a tinge of farce. That’s all right too as a kind of palate cleanser in a collection or anthology. He does it better than W.F Harvey anyway (e.g., “August Heat”) if not maybe as well as Saki. This story is much more a mood piece anyway—that laundromat is everything. It is mainly a laundromat story. And that’s enough, especially at this size. A late-night laundromat setting might even sustain something much longer than this little chip. But it’s a little chip that’s sized just right, and it comes off.

Dennis Etchison, The Dark Country
Story not available online.