The clothesline pole stood in the backyard between the buildings and it held a wire that ran from the kitchen window to the pole and from the pole to the building across the yard. You clipped the clothes to the line with wooden pins and you turned a wheel and the clothes went out over the yard and they dried in the air and they smelled like the sky. The clothesline pole was the most useful piece of infrastructure that nobody remembers.

The clothesline had a schedule. Monday was wash day. That was the law. Every building washed on Monday and the backyard was a forest of sheets and shirts and pants and underwear. The clothesline told you who lived where. The woman with the six kids had a full line. The bachelor had three shirts and a pair of pants. The old man on the top floor hung nothing because he washed his clothes in the sink and dried them on the radiator. The clothesline was a census.

The pulley squeaked. That was the sound of the morning. The pulley squeaking as the woman leaned out the window and sent the clothes across the yard. Every building had its own squeak. The squeak was the building's signature. You knew which building was doing laundry by the sound of the pulley. The clothesline was a communication system disguised as a chore.

I hung my shirts on the clothesline on East Seventh Street and the pigeons sat on the wire and the shirts came back with pigeon marks on the shoulders. That was the deal. You washed the shirts and the pigeons decorated them and you washed them again. The clothesline was a negotiation between you and the birds and the birds always won because the birds did not care about laundry.

The clothesline poles are gone. The backyards are gardens now or parking spots or extensions of the first-floor apartment. The dryer replaced the clothesline and the dryer is faster and the dryer does not care about the weather. But the dryer does not smell like the sky. The dryer smells like chemicals and static. The clothesline gave your shirt to the wind and the wind gave it back clean. The dryer takes your shirt and cooks it. The clothesline was a collaboration with the air. The dryer is a fight with moisture.

See also: Laundry Line, Roof Garden