Brandi Wells has a BA in Creative Writing and her fiction appears in or is forthcoming in  Pear Noir, Monkey Bicycle, Decomp, and Vulcan. She has a chapbook forthcoming as part the chapbook collective Fox Force 5, which is being released by Paper Hero Press. She blogs at http://brandiwells.blogspot.com/

To the residents of Willow Way 27, 28, & 29: (August 20, 2009. Issue 8.)

Everyone saw you hanging around the now-defunct laundry mat at the back of the complex. Pretty noticeable, a group of young guys with bleached wife beaters, sagging khakis, and combs and picks stuck in your hair, for decoration I guess.

So when I went to clean the laundry mat and found that every washer had piss in it, I knew it was you guys. Just a little urine in each washer, like you were making sure you had enough to go around. Little dribbles on the side of the machine, dried to a crusty yellow.

I don’t know if you did it because you were mad at Willow Way or if you were mad at me. I mean, you guys saw me clean the place once a week, so you knew I’d be the one to find it. Sometimes you even sat on the front porch smoking weed and drinking a 40 while I was bleaching the floor. My guess is that you held your eviction against me. My name was on the writ so you felt like I was responsible.

But, just so you know, I didn’t clean the laundry mat that day. I don’t plan on cleaning it ever again. And I don’t like evicting people, signing the little yellow slips of paper and giving the clerk a check for $68.00 per evictee. And then you guys come into the office, yelling and threatening me with my stapler? It’s not my fault you didn’t pay your rent. Blame yourself or your shitty boss or your girlfriend or maybe your parents. But I want you to know that I didn’t clean your piss up. When I found it, I hiked my skirt up, squatted and took a long shit, from the entryway door to the back wall.