FOLEY: 6
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.
THE CAPTIVITY: VII
March was fairly quiet, except for Proctor’s plaster cast going up and down the stairs. He proved to be about as pig-headed as Lawrence; he wouldn’t lean on your arm, let you carry his books, or ride across the campus if he had the time to walk. When he rested on the landing of the stairs we could all hear him pant. Then he would lie out on his bed, the sweat drying on his hands and face, and a pretty strong smell emanating from the foot he had in the cast. The dirty toes, with the blackened nails, stuck out at the tip. Lundgren said he showed a fine, promising talent for suffering.
He hobbled out to the tennis courts, on his crutches, every afternoon. If Lawrence wasn’t playing he sat in the stands, reading a book. Lawrence had lost his car for the rest of the semester, and when the tennis team had a match somewhere they let Proctor ride along as a sort of manager. He could sit with the sweaters and keep his eye on the extra balls. Nobody seemed to care much about frosh tennis, and it was generally agreed that Lawrence would get what he had coming when he ran into Crewes.
Crewes was a very tall, pimply-faced boy who wore a big white cap, the kind old men wear on winter cruises, and after living for more than ten years in California he was still sallow white. He looked a little underfed and sickly, even out on the court. But he had a game so effortless, and his timing was so perfect, that the head of the racket seemed to contain all the strength he might need. He stroked the ball with the same power from both sides. His ground game was so deadly he seldom had to trouble with his overhead. That looked a little sloppy, he was so tall, and his long legs looked awkward, but everything he happened to get his racket on he put aw
ay. Off the court, he hit everything flat, a sort of slapstroke without any top spin, which would skid when it hit, and it always hit inside. The talk had been all Lawrence, in the fall, but in the spring it was all Crewes. He was thin and weak now because he had grown too fast. When he stopped growing and gained a little weight he would be unbeatable. He was that already. He hadn’t lost a set in the last two years.
Early in May, Lundgren vaulted twelve feet in the frosh meet with Redlands, but the following week, trying twelve in practice, he came down the runway and stopped the pole with his nose. It was something he did at least once a year, so he tried to do it early. All the skin peeled off his nose, and after the bandage had been applied, which covered most of his face, you could see that his eyes were turning black. That weekend he couldn’t see well enough to pole-vault, but he thought he could see well enough to drive, so he borrowed his uncle’s car and we all went to Pasadena to see Crewes play.
We sat in the bleachers along the service line. Lawrence had seen the finest players in the world, so watching young Crewes didn’t upset him, but what we saw worried the rest of us. Lawrence was very fine on the court, with something that kept you looking at him, but what you were watching wasn’t the tennis so much as it was Lawrence. But this kid Crewes was just the other way around. He was nothing at all, but his tennis was wonderful. He had arms like a girl, but everything he hit was like a cannonball. He was still so awkward, and young, that he didn’t like to run. Watching him play, you had the feeling that there must be something wrong with his competition. This was not what you felt about Lawrence. His competition often looked pretty good. But he just went on and beat it anyway. That afternoon this gawky kid Crewes won two love sets in about twenty minutes from the fellow who had taken eight games from Lawrence the week before. There were no rallies to speak of, no volleys, and when the kid served his last ball, a nice clean ace, there was no applause. It looked too easy. We didn’t talk about it on the drive back.
In my own mind Lawrence’s goose was cooked. I’m not sure, either, that knowing that gave me much pain. I think we all had the feeling that it would do him a lot of good.
He didn’t meet Crewes till the Conference finals, late in May. They each headed a bracket, and came through to the finals without much trouble, although Lawrence was carried to 7-5 in a pair of sets. Proctor told me he had hoped that three days of tennis would be hard on Crewes. He was not at all strong, but there was no one in the league to get him tired. They gave him just enough exercise to keep him from getting stiff. There was nothing insolent in his game, he ran around and picked up all his own balls, and often seemed surprised that the match had ended so soon. Nobody could wish a kid like that bad luck. He simply had what it took, and there was nothing to do but admire it. Lawrence had something too, but I don’t think we felt it was going to be tennis. There was a limit to what you could do with that sort of will.
We had the singles finals on Friday, but there were no more than thirty people, including the players, around to see Lawrence brushed off. Four or five months before, half the boys in college would have walked over to Cucamonga, or into Pasadena, and paid money to see Lawrence get what was coming to him. But it had been coming to him too long. Everybody knew he was going to get it, and that was enough. They didn’t hate him bad enough to stick around and watch it take place.
I sat with Proctor at the top of the bleachers, where we got the sun. Lundgren came along a little later, wearing his sweat pants and carrying his track shoes, a bright fresh bandage over his healing nose. The bags under his eyes were still curdled blue-black. We were there because we were still solid, and when the slaughter was over we had agreed that we would stand up and yell for Lawrence. It was just about the most we could do, and we were going through with it.
The warm-up before the match was very strange. You can’t warm up with a man who never lets a ball bounce. But Crewes didn’t seem to know that, and for three or four minutes we had some of the sweetest tennis anybody had ever seen. Lawrence stood at the net, and Crewes stroked those beautiful drives at him. They stopped right when they were sharp, Crewes spun his heavy racket, Lawrence called it and got the serve. He took the down-slope side, since he was not very tall and it helped his slice. But when he walked back to the base line and bounced one ball, his back turned to the bleachers, I felt exactly the same as the first morning I had seen him on the court. He was out there alone. Just Lawrence, the court, and the ball. For ten or twelve seconds I thought we had it all wrong and that it wouldn’t really matter who Lawrence was playing or whether, in the long run, Crewes was the better player or not. Lawrence was out there alone. He was playing against himself. The only game he knew was between him and the ball.
But I didn’t feel that way long. In the first game he served just five times, every one of them sharp, well-placed, flat serves, and four of them came back just a little flatter, and right at his feet. He volleyed three of them out. He hit one into the net. He put away one of them but it looked like pure luck. Then he took two points on Crewes’ first service, but lost the next four in a row, two of them aces that his racket didn’t touch. He won only one point in the next game. After just about twelve minutes of play he was down 4-love. It was really better tennis than it looked, but it looked bad for Lawrence. The kid just had it. He stroked the ball and it worked. The worst of it was that Lawrence’s serve, a ball that gave other players so much trouble, seemed to be made to order for Crewes’ flat, slapping drive. He put it out of play before Lawrence could move into the court. Crewes won the first set 6-love, and they changed courts.
Since Crewes was stroking the ball so well, any player in his right mind would have modified his serve or tried something else. But not Lawrence. It was not like him to change. He went right on, robot-like, hitting the sharp, flat, skidding serve that Crewes would slap out of play in Lawrence’s court. He couldn’t seem to learn. It was clear to everybody how stupid he had been. Everything we had admired about Lawrence began to look like something simple-minded, a flaw in him, really, and not something admirable. A granitelike, subhuman pig-headedness. I think we all felt grateful to Crewes for clearing that point up. Lawrence was just plain dumb. Somehow we had all overlooked it. I even began to feel that I owed this kid Crewes a personal debt. He had opened my eyes. He had broken the spell Lawrence had over us. I thought I might even write Crewes some sort of letter, anonymous of course, telling him how much this little lesson had meant to all of us. I asked Proctor what the score was, and he said love-5. I wondered what I’d do when it was over and I had to yell for Lawrence.
Starting the last game, Crewes asked for some new balls. That was perfectly natural. It seemed more than that only in retrospect. It was Crewes’ serve and he would naturally like to use some new balls. His first serve was a clean ace—Lawrence didn’t even lean his body toward it, he just walked soberly over to the other court. When I studied his face I didn’t remark anything. He looked just as cool, deadpan, and confident as he had at the start. But about half the crowd in the bleachers got up from their seats after that ace; they didn’t want to be around when Crewes finished him off. They hurried off without glancing at the rest of us. Lundgren asked me what time it was, as if he had remembered a date himself, squeezed through the boards at the back of the seats, hung down by his arms, and dropped to the ground. I heard him go off at a trot through the dry brush. Proctor didn’t budge, and the two of us watched Lawrence take Crewes’ next serve, slap it back at his feet, then come in on the volley and put it away. It didn’t seem important to me at the time, but I happened to notice, on that volley, that Crewes’ racket turned a little in his hand. The volley wasn’t quite clean, and Lawrence slapped it out of play.
As Crewes tossed up the next ball and served it, another five or six people got up and left, leaving about the same number in the stands. They were careful not to look at Lawrence as they walked off. They missed, that is, the turning point of the match. Not that we knew it at the time, but I was watching when L
awrence took the serve and stroked it back just as he had all afternoon. All afternoon that ball had been smashed back at his feet. It was not harder hit or better placed, but it was cleanly hit, very flat, and when the kid reached for it his racket turned in his hand. He took the ball on the wood and watched it float into the net.
There was nothing very unusual about that. It merely made you wonder why it hadn’t happened more before. The racket was heavy, and Crewes was not very strong. Everything was the timing, the way he could take the ball just right. I had never seen the kid miss a shot, then stand there like a dubber looking at his racket, but after that miss he stood there a moment, strumming on the gut. Then he came to the net and wiped his sweaty hand on the towel. When he tossed the towel back on the post I saw him glance up, just for a second, at the player in the opposite court. Lawrence was standing at his ease, one hand on his hip. He was glistening with sweat, the band at his forehead had turned a wet, doughish color, but he had the same old look of poise and cool arrogance. No human being could believe he was down 5-love, in the second love set. And Crewes was human. I could see he couldn’t believe that himself.
The Huge Season Page 12