Steam Laundry

Montana Steam Laundry

71 Montana Steam Laundry —Dawson City, Yukon Territory, September 1902 After the sluice box all day, the men resent the water, lay blame to it, their hands caked in dirt. I watch them, open the door, read the gray hunger of their skin. Where men prospect, women wash the harsh life out of the land, out of men, wring what’s left of their souls from the rough landscape. My hands are still slender, skin rough, reddened from soap, boiling water. Here, everyone struggles. I wring our living out of this frozen dirt, ache, over this old tub. My husband washes it all down in the saloon. Either the gray flask in his coat or the shot glass, speckled gray grime on the bar. He drinks. I take in wash. I knew this marriage was too rough to be smoothed by time and creek water. I walk. Pick smooth stones, rub off the dirt, line them up on the windowsill. I want to wring some meaning out of this life. Instead I wring woolen socks, drawers, shirts gray with labor. The Klondike, my dirty chance to save my boys the roughness of a poorer life. I wanted a baptism, water poured over foreheads, to wash 72 them of pain and fear, wash myself too. Instead, reeking, he wrings my neck in their sight. The river’s water flows west toward the new camp, the gray light of hope. A woman alone has it rough. Some dance, some sing, some dirty themselves with men, so many, so much dirt, but I will be well-off someday, washed away in the tide of money this rough land promises. At the handle, my hands wring out another man’s clothes. Gray suds darken the cooling water. My boys are rough. They can make pay dirt. New camp, new water. My hands washed of him, this gold ring gone before spring’s gray light. ...