rugs to myself.
"What was she looking at?" I asked, reaching down to tie my boots.
"I don't know," she said, flipping on the light. "There's nothing in here --
wait! Oh Jesus." She sounded disgusted.
"Now what?" I looked at the boots doubtfully. There was some serious wear around
the backs; I figured by the end of the week I'd need a new pair and wondered if
we had the money. Out of that same paycheck would have to come Dolly's alimony
payment. With a name like that you'd think I would have known better.
"I think we've got cockroaches."
I got up and went to the bathroom door. "Where? Did you see one?" The room
looked clean to me -- too clean. That's the effect when you use too much white,
like in a hospital. Personally I always went for blue.
"I think so -- I mean I saw something. It ran under the bathtub."
We had one of those old-fashioned clawfoot tubs, the kind with about four or
five inches of space under it. I got down on my knees and peered underneath, but
it was too dark to see anything. That was another thing that went against the
place: one stupid fluorescent light in the bathroom. I hated fluorescent lights
and my list of grievances was growing longer. There was something way in the
back, but I wasn't sure; maybe just a hole in the plaster around the baseboard
-- the building wasn't exactly in great shape. I stuck an arm under the tub and
groped around for a few seconds, knowing that no cockroach on this earth is
going to let me catch it. I've lived in worse places and roaches were old
territory to me.
Something bit me on the forefinger.
I mean really bit me -- fire spread up my finger and through the palm even
before I could yank my arm out from beneath the tub. "Son of a bitch!" I
screamed, jerking up from the floor and grabbing for the faucet. Garbled
thoughts of scorpions under the tub ran through my head.
"What happened? John, are you okay?" Maggie thought she was frantic, she
should've had the feeling of burning napalm going through her hand like I did.
While the icy water cooled the stinging, the water pressure made it throb
nastily. Being a stonemason has gotten me a few fingers sandwiched between slabs
of granite, but man, I've never hurt this bad. Air hissed in and out from
between my teeth and I'll give Maggie one thing: she knows when to keep her
mouth shut. When I didn't answer, she just stood there and waited, working her
hands together nervously.
After a few minutes, the water seemed to do the trick and I turned it off so we
could examine my finger. The only thing we found were two tiny, swollen places,
one on each side just under the edge of the nail -- maybe that's why it hurt so
much -- where minute chunks of skin were gone. But they weren't even bleeding,
or if they had the water had washed it away. While I still didn't know what had
done it, I was relieved. Visions of mice and rats swirled in my brain; I didn't
know if mice carried rabies or not, but with no teeth marks on my hand I
wouldn't have to worry about it.
"Do cockroaches bite?" Maggie asked doubtfully as she dabbed PolysporinЁ on the
wound and wrapped it with a Band-AidЁ.
"I've never had one bit me before," I answered. "Though I have read that in
places where there are major infestations, like in housing projects, they'll eat
the eyelashes off of sleeping babies." She gaped at me and I realized I'd made a
mistake.
