The boy in the laundry cupboard

2 February 2023

We are being put up in a nice, small bungalow, with a handy porch for the car to live in. Driving is everything – my routine is car-based. There aren’t even pavements in the neighbourhood where our airB&B is based. There’s an open kitchen-livingroom and three bedrooms. When I arrived Tim was in one, but now I’m on my own – working in the days and having a few hours every evening to cook dinner, wash, catch up with emails and read or watch a bit of telly.

Two nights ago I was also doing my clothes washing when I got the fright of my life! The big washing machine and dryer (everything is bigger in America) are housed in a room next to the car porch, which you can only access from outside. I’d managed to lock this door accidentally last time I did the washing and the key isn’t in the house, so I had to call out the people who manage the property to get them to unlock it – finally now I could do my washing!

It was 11pm and I was in my pyjamas when I grabbed the torch and went outside in the dark to fetch my nice clean washing. I opened the door with my eyes down and there in front of me was a mobile phone – it wasnt’ mine, and in my confusion I thought it must have belonged to the handyman. Strange – I picked it up and reached to open the door of the dryer. As I brought the light up I suddenly noticed there was somebody curled up on top of the dyer! A sudden fright – with 100 things passing through my head at once… then a doubletake. There was definitely someone sleeping on the dryer. They were crunched up awkwardly, using a box of fabric softener as a pillow.

‘Errrr, hello?’

Shining my super-bright torch into the space in front of me, the details of what I could see started to emerge. A curled up youngish man in a light blue jumper, matching trousers and multi-coloured silvery trainers – the whites of his eyes opening reluctantly, and a white spittle in the corner of his mouth.

‘Hello? Are you OK? Can I help?’

It took a while before he answered – with a murmer. His eyes were circling and his tiredness was clearly fighting to keep him asleep. I offered him some water, and told him that I’d just found his phone on the floor, which roused him. I brought in the water and I noticed the sour smell of someone who hasn’t changed their clothes for a long time and has been sleeping in corners. He was clearly scared, but didn’t want to go anywhere else, and was saying that his phone was dead and he hadn’t been able to charge it. Then I offered him some food and he said yes – he hadn’t had anything to eat since the morning.

I went back in to the house to heat up some pasta in the microwave – and had a moment to assess what the hell was going on. After the initial jolt of fear I recognised that this boy had possibly been more scared of me with my bright bright torchlight and my strange accent. I’m in America, so he could have a gun… but I guessed that if he was going to hold me up or steal something he wouldn’t be just crashing out in the washing cupboard. Anyway, I went back to him with the pasta and handed it to him. As he started to figure out the food, sitting on the washing machine, I started to get a sense that he was just really in need. I had to face up to my prejudices – could I really invite this random person in to the house? Would he steal everything? There’s an iPad in there…. Etc.

But what else could I do – I felt mean awkwardly standing there watching him eat while hunched over, sitting on the dryer. Calling the cops in this context could literally be a death sentence! I considered making a comfy space on the laundry room floor for him – but there are two spare bedrooms in the house. It began to dawn on me that I might be about to offer him a bed. At the very least I could let him inside to eat.

I told him he could come and eat at the table, but that he would need to respect my stuff. He agreed to come in. He was really hungy. While he was eating he told me that he had been thrown out by his mum. ‘I shoulda seen it coming’ he said a few times. He told me his name was Chris, and that he was 23. He was thrown out 8 days ago. I don’t think we was on drugs – he’d just been left out in the cold, wandering the neighbourhood and his mobile was completely out of battery.

When I told Chris I was here to build a Pianodrome he said ‘I was kinda in to that kinda thing at school’. Instead it turned out, he works in a ‘sub’ shop making sandwiches, and he was working there tomorrow. To prove it he showed me his cap. ‘I can’t see this being my career’ - ‘my manager is happy with it, but it doesn’t work for me.’ I noticed a tatooo on the back of his right hand – I asked him to show me and he pulled up his sleeve: ‘Self-made’ he said, showing me the black cursive lettering across the back of his hand. He has four siblings, a couple of them older, with families and a younger brother just starting college. It sounds like his mum had just got fed up with him still living in the house and had kicked him out finally.

He wolfed down the pasta, which he complimented, especially the ‘cheesy bits’ and then suddenly got strong stomach cramps. At that point, cliutching his stomach he looked scared, until I reminded him that if you don’t eat for a while and then eat quickly that’s what happens. Maybe he thought for a moment that I had poisoned him? Of course he just needed to lie down and digest.

I started to realised that I was going to offer him a bed – there is space in the bungalow, and why not? I didn’t feel threatened, but it did keep my mind occupied throughout the night. I offered him a shower and a bed – but he was clearly uncomfotable and just sat on the sofa. I told him to lie down, which he did – and closed his eyes, and then in a short moment he was asleep. I covered him in a blanket and went to bed – not until after I had gathered a few valuables and taken them in to my room for the night. I told him I’d be getting up early to go to work, so we’d be leaving the house at 8.

The next morning he was on the phone when I arose – to his 2 year-old daughter and her mother it turned out. She was staying with her mum who was not willing for Chris to stay with them either. I made him some breakfast - bran flakes (in this country they are covered in a film of sugar), he commented about them being the kind of ‘healthy’ food that that his mum eats – then he took something like a 40-minute shower, came out and poured the breakfast into the bin cause it had gone soggy. By this time I was eager to get going to work, and had been trying to get him to wrap things up and leave for an hour or so. I suddenly got a sense for the kind of frustrations his mum might have been challenged with which might have led to him being chucked out.

I got his number, we said good bye and he left the house. I had a good excuse for being later than expected at the workshop.