As the bus crossed Fifty-seventh Street the driver, swollen with a sense of power, malice, and adventure, ran past three stops, clipping one red light, and the swaying of the bus produced in Foley same effect as early morning coffee on an empty stomach. This sensation followed by lowered center of gravity in his bowels. About time. He had expected it earlier. Looked up at the familiar aspect of the street, suddenly transformed by the needs of the moment. Forty-ninth Street. Where would be nearest facilities? The great city of New York specialized in consumption but turned a prudish shoulder on evacuation. Streets of New York, unlike those of Paris, were not decorated with the pissoir kiosks, where the legs of men could be seen facing the facts of life.
Over the years—Foley rose from the seat, then braced himself at the hiss of the air-brakes—over the years he had given the problem considerable thought. The solution, a tentative solution, had come along with other relevant blessings when he became an author on a midtown publisher’s list. Allen Blake’s office was on the fourth floor, with the facilities right off the stairwell, so Foley could reach them without disturbing anyone. Girl at the desk, at the time, recognized him as one of “their authors.” When this girl disappeared, and the one that took her place cast a cold and knowing eye on Foley, he had resorted to a clever subterfuge. He took the elevator to the fifth floor, where there was no phone girl to spy on him, then walked down the stairs to the Blake facilities. As time passed, however, his sense of guilt increased. What he always feared might happen had happened, naturally. He had walked right into Blake standing there smoking a cigarette. It would not have been so bad if he hadn’t caught Blake just standing there, like any office loafer, without the slightest suggestion of the literary life emanating from him. He looked played out. The shirt he was wearing had a tear in the back. It proved to be a faux pas, all around. Foley had to tell a big lie quickly, saying that he had stopped by on the chance that Blake might be in. So Blake had to lie, turning up with the whopper that he was there in the john brooding on a big problem, with the author in question waiting for an answer right at his desk. It had been so bad that Foley hadn’t gone back for more than a year.
And then, as luck would have it, he had run into Blake washing his hands. Blake had seen him in the mirror, where Foley had seen Blake, and Foley had grimaced, as had Blake, then he had hurried on by and entered one of the booths.
As he had stepped inside he had heard Blake say, “In town for the day, Foley?”
“Yep,” Foley had said, and that was all. It had been enough, as it turned out, and they each accepted the situation. The Foley in the john was no longer the author of an unpublished book. He was a professor, a tourist, trapped in the city for a day.
Passing Forty-ninth Street, Foley gave a sharp jerk on the cord. He wanted Forty-sixth, but the driver kept him on till Forty-fifth. There, because the light had changed, he let him off. Foley went across to Madison, where he paused to examine, in pipe-store window, imported English pipe knife in leather case. Reduced from three times its value to a little more than twice what it was worth. Foley had three pipe tools, but he had always wanted a knife.
As the light changed, walking east, found himself once more escorted by coach and four, hemmed in by big fellow with freshly powdered face, strong barbershop smell. To companion Foley could not see he said, “Why the hell is free love the most expensive?” Foley moved in close to catch the answer, but none was made.
They went south on the opposite corner, Foley went north. In the tiled lobby of the publisher’s building Foley walked to the back, near side entrance to a bar, where he could duck in case Blake stepped out of the lift. He didn’t, however, and Foley rode to the fifth, passed the offices of Tay-Koff, the miracle reducer, then padded down the stairs to the door that was blocked with a piece of wood. He stood a moment listening for sound of flushed john or crumpled paper towel. Hearing nothing, he entered, crossed the dim-lit room with his reflection bright in the mirror, and entered the booth beneath the ventilating fan. Latched the door, removed his two coats as one, hung them on the hook, and as he lowered to the stool thought he noticed spot move on the floor. Tobacco color. Staring, saw it move again. Go along the wall to where he saw the feelers waving. Saw it was a roach.
La cucaracha, voracious, nocturnal, and, in spite of the insecticides, immortal. Foley watched it cruise along woodwork, confident as a dog out for an airing. But when it headed for the open, the no-man’s land of cracked tile, he shooed it back. In God’s name why? J. Lasky Proctor, Salvage Operations. Was that why? Dated from first cockroach Foley had ever known, personally. Chicago. Ludlow Terrace. Afternoon he had spent in Proctor’s rented room. Foley had cut his hand on a metal ashtray, and Proctor had led him into the bathroom to rinse it off. Big room, small dirty sink in far corner, and Foley had sat on the stool, holding his hand under the water. Strong smell of chlorine and whiffs from coated piece of Lifebuoy soap. Bulb in ceiling as dim as glowworm trapped in a dirty glass. There were rings around the tub, like the banked turns on a track, but Proctor had his eye on something that was trapped there, something that moved. Foley watched him unroll several yards of toilet paper and lay down a ramp at the back of the tub, and the cockroach trapped in the tub ran up the paper ramp as if trained. It came up so fast that it nearly spilled over when it reached the top. Then it went around the wall side, skidding a little, because the game leg it had was dragging, and the room was so quiet Foley heard the drag of that leg. It went on to the soapdish, climbed in and out, then went up the wall to the ledge directly above it, along this ledge to a deep crack in the plaster, where it disappeared. Proctor rolled up the toilet paper he had put down, placed it back on the roll.
“Proctor Salvage Operations,” he had said. “One poor goddam cockroach salvaged.”
Kith and kin, perhaps, of the one Foley had just shooed into the dark. Another cockroach saved, another un-American act. FOLEY UNMASKED. Sides with Red Roach against Common Man. Behind a cigarette butt, its barricade, the roach turned to check up on Foley, and Foley strained to catch the glint in its eye. As its feelers waved, Foley intoned:
“FOLEY AND PROCTOR SALVAGE OPERATIONS Vermin a Specialty.”
The door swung wide, a blast of hall air rocked the cigarette butt, startled the cockroach, and, feeling the cool draft blowing on his legs, Foley arose.