1988, San Francisco, North Beach, 9 PM. My college roommate and I realized our laundry situation was desperate. We set out on foot lugging overfilled duffels and baskets. Each laundromat we walked to was closed, until we finally found a 24 hour one in Chinatown.
It was packed and noisy. We had brought a chess set to pass the time, even though neither of us was any good at chess, so we started playing while we waited for machines to come available. Immediately a crowd gathered around us, yelling in various dialects of Chinese about the moves we should make, scoffing at our wrong choices, and actually placing bets. We were mortified by our poor showing and put it away after one game. Eventually everyone else finished their laundry, leaving the two of us alone.
Around 1 AM, we got our clothes into the dryers. Shortly after, a man barged in violently. He looked like a merc from the movies: six foot, blonde buzz cut, khaki BDUs, jump boots, carrying a large suitcase with SFO airport tags. He grabbed the pay phone handset and started yelling about some deal gone wrong, ending with “I got to get a gun!” He turned and stormed out… leaving the suitcase behind.
We sat there quietly shitting ourselves for a minute, then we decided to leave. We pulled our still-wet clothes and bedding out of the dryers and hauled ass. A few blocks later we stopped to breathe. It occurred to me that the guy had not put any coins in the pay phone. Did he even dial? Was he just a wacko? Either way, did he go back for the suitcase, with a gun? We bickered over it for a while, and I convinced him we should go back and look. Scouting, I didn’t see the guy or anyone, and the suitcase was still there. I ran in and picked it up. I could feel that it was empty, so I dropped it and dashed.
We shuffled home with our damp burdens. On the way, we passed a parked pickup truck, no driver, with its bed piled very high with empty suitcases, all of them with SFO tags. My best guess is that the merc and the truck were part of a luggage theft operation. But we never did find out.
