Kina Encounters Missing Kelvin At Local Pharmacy

Kelvin has owned a dry cleaning business at the corner of our block for the last twenty years. I have taken my shirts and winter coats and quilts to him to be cleaned for as long as I have lived here. He was never particularly friendly to me until Kina was born, after which he gradually became Kina’s corner friend. By the time Kina was in school, she would walk into Kelvin’s every morning on her way to drop-off and say hi to him. She’d wave. He’d wave back. During the lockdown, Kina would ride her scooter up and down the ramp in front of Kelvin’s shop. Hello. Hello. When her Panda stuffie started leaking fluff, she took it to him to be re-stuffed—he did it for free, which I wrote about on February 7, 2021.

You should read that post again today.

A couple of weeks ago, Kelvin’s gates didn’t come up in the morning. The next day, there was a note on the gate with a phone number that you were meant to call if you “want to know what happened”. I didn’t call it, because I was afraid to find out what happened. Yesterday, Kina came home and told us that Kelvin had seen her at Walgreens and tapped her on the shoulder. He told her that he was moving.

I saw Kelvin at his shop today, returning people’s clothes. His lease is up, and the building raised his rent by an astonishing margin. Around the corner, in the same building, is an “exotic treats” store that sells imported Pringles and adulterated weed. It occupies a space that was once a storefront church.

Kelvin told me that he doesn’t actually know if he is moving. He is going to try. He took my phone number and said he’d see if we left any clothes there. Either way, he’ll send me a message when he finds a new spot. I told him that I hoped it would be in the neighborhood. What I didn’t say, but I think we both felt it, was that I hoped it would be in the same corner shop, at the top of the ramp, for as long as Kina can ride a scooter.

I don’t like it when things go away. I like it even less when people do. Kelvin loves Kina. He and I have that much in common.

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