Comfort Station

3:00 P.M

It was a long time ago that he remembered his mother got the phone call ...

“Excuse me, fella. Do you mind?”

Recalled to the present by these words, Arbogast Smith blinked rapidly and looked about to see a truculent man with wet hands standing in front of him. An attempted pickup? His blood stirring at the thought of a little action after all — why else be recalled to the present? — Arbogast feigned a limp-wristed manner and said, “Did you want me?”

“I want you,” said the truculent man, “to move the hell over so I can get at the paper towels.”

“Oh! I am sorry!”

“Faggot,” muttered the truculent man, as Arbogast stepped to one side. He muttered and mumbled to himself while drying his hands, then rounded on Arbogast again to declare, “Why don’t you faggots go back to Russia?”

Arbogast considered showing his badge and explaining to the truculent man what he really was and why he was really here, but of course that was known as “blowing one’s cover,” which might simply confirm the truculent man in his misunderstanding. Arbogast decided to say nothing, to swallow his pride for the good of the job he was here to do. Or would that also be misconstruable by the truculent man?

Hands at last dry, the truculent man made his departure, in the process stepping quite severely on Arbogast’s left foot. It had been done deliberately, of course, there was no question about that in Arbogast’s mind. But try to prove it in a court of law. What the general public — and the Supreme Court — failed to understand was the actual real-life problem of the actual real-life cop on the beat. (Another unfortunate phrase under the circumstances, that one.)

Oh, well. The truculent man was now gone, and a sort of waiting-for-Godot silence had returned to the Bryant Park Comfort Station, the unlikely setting for Arbogast Smith’s attempt to make a name for himself in the ranks of New York’s finest.

He briefly reconsidered the janitor, the fellow who spent most of his time in the closet and who had made some sort of oddball overture a couple of hours ago. Put the nab on him after all? It wasn’t as though the janitor — custodian, they liked to be called, as he remembered — didn’t have a legitimate right to be here. But on the other hand, think of the psychological implications: why would a man choose a job in a place like this?

Arbogast cleared his throat with a sudden uneasiness, remembering that he too had opted for a job that had led him here.

All right, he’d leave the custodian alone for now. But if nothing else came up in the course of the day, it might not be a bad idea to put the nab on the custodian just to show the people downtown — at headquarters — that he, Arbogast Smith, was actually doing something around here.

In the meantime, he took a little walk around the area, counting shoes. There were still no more than two to be seen under the door of any stall. Unfortunate.

But the regulars were still here. He remembered them well, having observed each of them as he had entered his stall, keeping a mental file of their appearance in case he should ever need to know what any of them looked like. It was a cop kind of thing to do.

In Stall Number 1 was a nervous, middle-aged, balding sort of fellow with a satchel, an accountant type. He’d been in there since around nine o’clock this morning.

In Stall Number 2 was some kind of long-haired hippie with a valpack. He’d been there since around ten.

And in Stall Number 5 was a stocky foreign-looking fellow with a pencil moustache, who’d showed up a little before lunch.

It was awful to have bowel problems. Arbogast knew; they ran in his family. He shook his head with sympathy for the three sufferers in the stalls.

But each of the three was still alone, and therefore not Arbogast Smith’s official concern. Turning away, he ambled slowly toward the sinks, his mind turning to thoughts of the long trail that had led him, from his mother’s knee, to this very spot.

It was a long time ago that he remembered his mother got the phone call ...