Slipstream

I stand in Guerneville’s only laundromat, in front of one of those front-load washing machines that promises to get my clothes cleaner and whiter than the kind with the lid on top. I toss in my clothes, lock the door, and insert most of my quarters. Fourteen, to be exact—$3.50 to wash one load.

I step over to the cash machine to retrieve more quarters for the second load. I reach into my pocket for my wallet. My pocket is empty.

I race back to the front-load washer and look through the window at the sudsy water filling the tub. I see my shorts on the top of the pile. I envision my wallet sloshing around in those suds.

I try to open the door but it’s fused shut, so I rush over to the attendant. I ask whether there’s a way to stop the washer once it’s started.

She stares back at me with a look of both indifference and disdain, the kind of look that the bored and frustrated and powerless give those who are momentarily at a disadvantage, the kind of look that provides them with a temporary sense of vindication and superiority, that leaves them feeling something akin to satisfaction.

“No,” she says. “You have to wait.” She looks away before she finishes speaking.

I return to the washer and check how many minutes remain. Sixteen. I look at my shorts longingly. I watch them go round and round. I watch them take my wallet on a Six Flags whitewater river ride.

I step outside to wait out the rinse and spin cycles.

The laundromat sits next door to Guerneville’s only coffee shop. Together they form what constitutes the town center.

Here you’ll find the full spectrum of the town’s finest, residents and visitors alike, patronizing one, both, or neither of the businesses. They lounge in the chairs, hang out at the picnic tables, huddle around on the sidewalks.

Here you’ll find the eighteen-year-old mother with her three children, the aging hippy with her tie-dyed shirt and Birkenstock sandals, the volunteer firefighter from the station across the road, the queer couple celebrating their twentieth anniversary, the wasted teen who’s been smoking weed since ten, the suburban family with their 2.3 golden-haired children, the Silicon Valley bikers who just arrived on their new Harleys, the homeless man who carries his house in a plastic bag, the state-supported, heavily medicated, chronically ill SSI lifetime wards.

I sit down, more toward the coffee shop side of things. Next to me, a guy in his late twenties bums a cigarette from another man. The second one is older and taller and stringier, with circles under his eyes so dark I think he’s been punched in the face.

“I just got out of jail,” the younger one says. “I have no cash.”

The older guy hands him a cigarette. “No problem, man. I won’t ask why you were there. None of my business.”

“Wasn’t so bad.”

“Hope you didn’t murder anyone.”

The younger one shakes his head. “Nothing like that.  Parole violation. Only thirty days.”

“Get yourself straightened out, that’s what you need to do. Figure out your passions and follow them.”

The young man smokes. “I know what I want. I’m gonna be a farmer. I’m gonna raise chickens.”

“Chickens.”

“I can’t wait to eat my first one.”

“A chicken eater,” the black-eyed man says.

“I can’t wait.”

“When you plan to start all this?”

“Already have. My husband and I bought eight acres near Sebastopol.”

Decades ago, Guerneville was a popular family vacation spot—campsites, cabins, canoeing—all in the heart of California’s redwood country, next to a slow-moving bend on the Russian River. The influx of drop-outs in the late sixties and early seventies, along with their carloads of drugs, changed the area forever. The bikers showed up around then too—and not the Silicon Valley kind. Then the queers arrived, with plenty more out-of-control substances. There were also the wine connoisseurs, bouncing from winery to winery, swelling in rank every day.

Throughout all this, the families kept coming.

So what you have now is a bit of everything. That and the aftermath of an area that in the last twenty years has been hit hard by floods and failing economies.

I go back into the laundromat and check the washer. Nine minutes to go. I return outside and take a seat nearest the door. I listen to a man grumble about the state of the economy. He talks to a woman whose got that rich New Ager look, a cross between an astrologist and an heiress, with wavy blonde hair that cascades down to her waist.

The man’s probably in his fifties, with a short, thick body and hair that’s long and matted, dark brown and streaked with gray. At least half of his teeth are missing.

He tells the woman he can’t work because the Mexicans are taking all the jobs. “Try to earn a living,” he says. “Try to get anything done, and they get in the way.”

I take note of his teeth because of a previous visit to Guerneville. Several years ago I spent a few months down here, hanging out, writing, getting to know the region. On more than one occasion, people who lived in the area said, “You must not be from around here. You have all your teeth.”

Such is the nature of meth.

I step into the coffee shop to use the restroom. A sign hangs on the bulletin board in the hallway. It announces a meeting for Guerneville business owners to discuss the growing problem of homelessness in this area. The goal is to bring people together to discuss solutions that everyone can live with.

But the town is facing problems in which homelessness is only one of the symptoms. Many of the businesses have closed, buildings are falling apart, tourists are staying away in record numbers. But drug and alcohol use remains high. So does unemployment.

On the last three evenings, I strolled through town in search of a place to eat. Many of the restaurants were closed, the streets nearly deserted, not unlike a western ghost town in a Gary Cooper movie. Granted it’s the middle of the week, but this is still July, the height of the tourist season. I’ve been here in tourist season before. I know weeknights are slower. But weeknights in July should not be like the dead of winter.

The Safeway is busy, though, at least it was this morning. I stood behind two women in the checkout line. The first dug through her purse as the cashier rang up her groceries. After a furious search, she announced that she couldn’t afford all the food. So she handed back several items—candy bars, salsa, pasta sauce, Cocoa Puffs, a bunch of rhubarb. Once she got the amount down to what she could afford, she paid for the groceries, all the time apologizing for causing any trouble.

The next person in line, the woman in front of me, pushed a cart that carried a baby. All she bought was a tube of Blistex. She paid in cash, took her change, and rolled away. That’s when I noticed the case of blue sports drink in the bottom of the cart, hidden from the cashier by the baby seat.

A lot of the people who hang out in the makeshift town center have nowhere else to go and no money to get there. Jobs are in short supply. Businesses are struggling to survive. Relatively few tourists are coming and those who do come are not spending.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts California’s current unemployment rate at 12.4%, compared to a U.S. average of 9.7%. The state has lost nearly 245,000 jobs this past year.

Yesterday, I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has spent nearly $100 million on her campaign and might be donating another $30 million to the state’s Republican party. As Meg Whitman has discovered, power does not come cheap.

Republicans, not surprisingly, are salivating. Democrats, I’m guessing, are running with their tails between their legs.

I wonder whether any of that money will find its way to Guerneville. I wonder if the people who need the money the most will ever see it.

I return to the laundromat and wait out the last two minutes of the wash cycle. When the warning beep sounds, I open the door, pull out my soaked shorts, pull my soaked wallet out of my shorts, and pull my soaked money out of my wallet.

It might be the only clean cash left in California.