American Harem

A short story

The young woman pushed open the door with her backside, balancing an overflowing laundry basket on one arm and a toddler on the other. She held the door open with her bare foot and twisted around, gently setting the basket on a chair, careful to keep the laundry from spilling over, then dropped the toddler to the floor. The place smelled of bleach and hot pennies. A hand-lettered sign over the change machine read “NO REFUNDS” in faded red, the edges curling on themselves, taped up too many summers ago.

Two children attacked the glass door behind her. The girl, slightly taller than the boy, braced herself in the entrance and stretched across the doorway to block the path, while the boy turned, planted his feet firmly on the ground, bent over slightly, and began pushing the girl with all his might till she gave way.

“Mama, Bubba pushed me!”

“She wouldn’t let me in!”

“Un uh, I was only standin’ here then he started pushin’ me!”

“Liar, liar pants on fire!”

The woman ignored them, and presently the children gave up their struggle and scampered through the building, running over to the Coke machine in the corner, banging on it and checking for forgotten change. The toddler chewed a lipstick-stained cigarette butt from the ashtray.

“I see you got your hands full today, Marcella,” another woman commented. “Where’s Larry?”

“I figger he’s off somewhere takin’ a beer break,” Marcella said. “You know how exhaustin’ it can be pickin’ up that unemployment check.” She thumbed four quarters into her palm, counted them twice—then once more, rent money in her mind—before pushing them into the machine.

“I hear ya, girl,” a third woman interjected as she closed the door of a Maytag across the aisle. “If you ask me, men ain’t worth spit. Men, shoot...there ain’t no real men left anymore. All’s they do is git drunk in some bar, while we’re here warshin’ their drawers and takin’ care of their kids. Then they take up with some hot little number and leave us.

“And what happens to that woman? She ends up warshin’ his drawers and takin’ care of more kids, while he’s back in the bar gittin’ drunk.”

“Serves her right,” the second woman said with a snort.

The others nodded in agreement.

Marcella opened the lids of four washing machines and began systematically stuffing clothes in, the whites in the first machine, brights and spandex in the second, darks and jeans in the third, and towels in the fourth. She quickly poured a cup of detergent from a large blue jug into each and filled the coin slots with quarters. When she finished, she hopped on an empty Maytag, crossed her legs, and brushed dryer lint dust from her feet.

“You know what John Tom actually told me last night?” the second woman asked. “He was flippin’ through the channels between The Bachelor and 90 Day Fiancé and said that if he was to go over there to Saudi Arabia, he’d git hisself a harem. I says to him, ‘How could you take care of a harem? You cain’t even take care of the family you got now.’ Then he says he’s got it all figgered out. He’d put all the women to work Door Dashin’ or somethin’ like that, then pool their money and he wouldn’t even have to work, just sit on his butt all day watchin’ reality TV and eatin’ Little Debbie’s—like I do, he said.”

“American men cain’t have harems,” Marcella observed.

“Humph!” the third snorted.

The second continued, “I says to him, ‘Those women ain’t that dumb. ‘Sides, you wouldn’t be hangin’ round Mar-a-Lago where harem women would be waitin’ to meet billionaires.”’

“Where do they meet billionaires?” Marcella asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” the woman said, staring off in the distance; then she straightened as if enlightened and stated, “But I do know this: it ain’t the Jalapeño Tree.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” the third woman chirped excitedly, “Did y’all hear that Nikki caught her husband with that little redhead that works at the Jalapeño Tree?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Marcella said. “How many times does this make it?”

“A lot,” the second woman answered. “I thought he had learned his lesson after the last time when she got after him with that baseball bat. She said he had to sit with an ice pack in his lap for a week,” she laughed, then added, “That’ll learn ‘em, dern ‘em.”

“She shoulda used a butcher knife,” the third added.

“I heard Nikki was pregnant again,” Clementine said.

“When is she not pregnant?” the second replied. “That woman’s had more buns in the oven than Mrs. Baird’s Bakery.”

“Another good reason to use that butcher knife,” the third added.

“How did she catch him?” Marcella inquired.

“Evidently, she came home from work early and there they were in her very own trailer!”

“I guess nothing’s sacred anymore,” the second woman stated flatly.

Marcella carried an armload of wet clothes over to the dryers on the far wall, stopping once to disentangle the boy and girl from their eternal brawl.

“Mama, Bubba chewed up all the gum, and I only got one piece!” the little girl whined.

“Tattle-tale!” the boy screamed at his sister.

“I ain’t no tattle-tale!” she screamed back. “Mama, Bubba said I was a tattle-tale!”

“I swear!” Marcella exclaimed as she started the drying cycle, “Cain’t y’all quit y’all’s fussin’ and fightin’ and just give me a break?”

“Look,” the second woman said as she veiled her face with an orange and yellow striped dishcloth, “how would I look as a harem woman?” She jutted her chin out from shoulder to shoulder as she danced around the laundromat like a dime-store belly dancer.

“Honestly, I think I’d like to be a harem woman,” the third woman said. “At least there’d be someone around to help with the chores. Gawd knows Joe ain’t gonna do it. Plus, I saw in a movie oncet that the first wife in a harem doesn’t have to do anything ‘cept eat grapes fed to her by some beefy hunk while all the other wives fan her and do all the work. And she doesn’t have to do one single Booster Club bake sale.”

“Well,” Marcella began, “I don’t think I’d like it much. I’d git too jealous. I like to have my man all to myself. I don’t think I could share him with anybody.” She pictured for half a second a cool room, a plate of grapes, somebody else mopping, somebody else begging the landlord for one more week. Then she snapped the lid on the washer like she’d slammed a door on a stray thought.

“Lord, I could,” the third woman exclaimed. “Last night Joe came home after bowlin’, went to the bathroom, then came sashayin’ in the bedroom wearing nothin’ but holey Fruit of the Looms and a MAGA hat. He said he read in a girly magazine that women liked to see men in their skivvies. Said it made them wanna make love. I said it made me wanna throw up. Most pitiful thing I ever saw.”

“By the way,” the second woman said, turning her attention back to the younger woman, “when are you gonna git Larry to settle down and marry you?”

“Well,” Marcella said, “he’s still havin’ trouble with Sheila. She’s tryin’ to take him to the cleaners!”

“If you ask me,” the third stated, “You’re better off not marryin’ him. Shoot, you’re young and pretty and deserve more than that. If I’s young again, there ain’t no way I’d git married. Hell, I can be broke on my own, I don’t need a man to help me along.”

“Yeah,” the second agreed. “But it’s like my Mama always said: ‘Too late smart, too soon dead.”’

Marcella folded the clothes, placing them in the basket, “Larry says that marriage ain’t important if we really love each other. That we’re married in our own minds, so what’s the point of a piece of paper?”

Marcella kept folding. To her, paper was never vows or roses. It was fines, tabs, and deeds that bent sideways the second his name hit ink.

“I wonder how many women he’s used that line on?” the third woman whispered to the second.

“Anyway, I gotta git on home and fix supper for Larry. He’ll be hungry when he finishes his TikToks for the day. He’s gonna be an influencer before you know it.”

Marcella’s phone pinged. Larry again: a grainy selfie in the bathroom mirror, #GrindDontStop, three flex emojis, and a link to a Cash App. She swiped it away like a gnat.

“Yeah,” the second woman added as she glanced down at her watch, “Naked and Afraid is just about over, which means John Tom’s attention span is just about over. If I don’t git home soon, he’ll destroy my kitchen.”

“I know what you mean,” the third woman agreed, “It’s amazin’ how a man can go to git hisself a ham samwich and a beer and still manage to splatter grease all over the kitchen.”

“C’mon kids,” Marcella yelled as she balanced her laundry basket on her hip and scooped up the toddler, his body bent double over her other arm, “time to go home.” She didn’t have to look at her son. “Shoes, Bubba. I ain’t payin’ for another tetanus shot ‘cause you wanna feel tough.”

“But I didn’t git much gum!” the girl whined. “Bubba always gets as much as he wants and I git the leftovers! He drank almost all the Coke, too. It ain’t fair!” she said as she stomped out the door. “It just ain’t fair!”

“That’s because I’m the man and I’m MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!” the boy exclaimed as he lifted his chin and puffed out his chest. “That’s how Gawd intended it! Daddy said so.”

Marcella hitched the load higher and swept up the toddler without losing a step. “Then let the universe carry the detergent.”

The boy hooked two fingers under the handle and learned what the universe weighed. The door slammed behind them like a judge’s gavel.

—Carol

The names change, the setting shifts, but the tune remains the same: women carry the load while men dream up harems they couldn’t escape if their lives depended on it. Maybe that’s why stories like this don’t die—they just get washed, rinsed, and worn thin all over again. ©

2025 Carol Countryman. All rights reserved.
This piece is part of Psalm of Lies and the ongoing series Tales from East Texas.
Please share the link, not the text. Reprints, excerpts, or readings by permission only: carolcountryman@gmail.com.