HE’S BACK

‘You’re back,’ I said surprised when he appeared in front of me at the washer coming from behind my left shoulder.
‘I told you it wouldn’t work out,’ said Godmother from over by the folding table.
‘Why’d you come back? I asked him when there was only the two of us in the laundry.
‘Too many people and too much racism,’ he said.
He said more, ‘there’d be a queue for the dryers, people’d be down here when it wasn’t their turn.
‘Then the last time I was there - the last time because I didn’t want to be there anymore after - a Somali woman came in, her time it was, and this man from number whatever said, “I want this time why don’t you fuck off back home and do it in the basin like you used to, go on fuck off.”’
‘That’s horrible,’ I said.
‘Yeh, he had a go at her then had a go at me when I stuck up for her.’