Nobody's Fool

by Richard Russo

  “You smell good, anyway,” Ruth said, finally sliding into the booth.

  “So do you,” Sully said, grinning at her. “I’ve always liked the smell of pizza.”

  Ruth just sat there, nodding and smiling at him, that rather knowing, unpleasant smile she had, the one that never boded well. Still, she looked good to Sully, and he found himself hoping they’d quarrel sooner rather than later, get it over with quickly, because he had missed her company.

  “Youth,” she told him now, “is what you like the smell of.”

  This was a strange remark, even by Ruth’s standards, and Sully found himself squinting at it, trying to get a handle. True, Ruth was twelve years younger than Sully, but he had a pretty good idea from her tone of voice that Ruth was not referring to herself.

  “So,” she continued after a moment’s awkward silence. “How was work?”

  “Hard.”

  “It got hard today, did it?” Ruth’s knowing smile had become a malicious grin now. She was enjoying herself, watching him squirm and squint at her.

  “Is there any way I can get in on this conversation?” Sully asked. “The one you’re having without me?”

  “Hey,” Ruth said. “I just wondered how your day went. I thought maybe you struck up an old acquaintance. I take that back. A young acquaintance.”

  Now it all fell into place. Someone had seen Toby Roebuck give him a lift downtown and reported it to Ruth, who, just before he’d quit working for Carl in August and enrolled at the college, had accused him of having a crush on Carl’s wife. It had been true, of course, but that hadn’t made the accusation any less surprising, and Sully had wondered, as he sometimes did, if Ruth might be gifted with ESP. He’d even accused her of prescience once or twice, though Ruth had replied that nobody needed any extra senses to figure Sully out.

  “Do you realize,” Sully said, “that you and I have been together so long the town gossips treat us like we’re married. They used to talk about you and me to Zack. Now they report my activities to you. Just out of curiosity, what were you told?”

  “It’s a kinky relationship, apparently,” she went on. “Involving mud wrestling by way of foreplay.”

  Sully smiled at her. “I’m too goddamned tired even for foreplay, Ruth.”

  “I’m glad,” Ruth said seriously. “I don’t think I’d take it very well if you threw me over for a cheerleader. You want something to eat?”

  “Linguine,” Vince’s voice sang out from the kitchen. Vince’s hearing was legend. He’d been known to come out of the steamy kitchen, stalk across the floor of his raucous restaurant, elbowing among his clientele of screaming teens, and break up a fight before the first punch was thrown, explaining afterward that he’d been listening to the conversation. “He wants linguine and clams. I throw away two goddamn dozen cherrystones a week so he can have linguine the once a month he comes in.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I might want something else once?” Sully shouted at the kitchen door. “Just because I let you sell me half a dozen spoiled clams five years ago doesn’t mean I have to keep ordering linguine forever.”

  “Wasn’t for you, I’d never have to order a single goddamn clam, you ingrate,” Vince bellowed. “Order whatever you want. Less work for me. I was going to have to pick through the trash for the clams anyhow.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll have,” Sully said. “If it’ll cause you extra work, I’ll eat poison.”

  “The life of Don Sullivan in a nutshell. Don’t run off when you finish,” Ruth said, looking serious again.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Not really.” Ruth nodded in the direction of the closed kitchen door, which meant that whatever this was about, she didn’t want to discuss it in the field of Vince’s radar. Which worried Sully, since there wasn’t much Ruth wouldn’t discuss in front of Vince.

  Sully’d eaten about half his linguine when Wirf came in, stood in the center of the room, pivoted on his prosthetic limb, and was about to leave when he spotted Sully off by himself in the dark, closed section of the restaurant. “What the hell are you doing back here?” he wanted to know as he slid uncertainly onto the bench, red-eyed. Wirf was about half in the bag, from the look of him.

  “Trying to eat my dinner in peace for once,” Sully said.

  Wirf nodded sympathetically, secure in his apparent belief that Sully’s observation in no way pertained to himself. He took off his gloves and scarf, put them next to the rubber plant on the ledge. “I saw you peek in at The Horse, but then you disappeared. I bet I been up and down this street half a dozen times trying to figure where you went.”

  Sully twirled a forkful of linguine. “You should have given up, Wirf.”

  “I was afraid you might be thinking black thoughts, after yesterday,” Wirf said. He was watching like an expectant dog as Sully raised the pasta to his mouth. Wirf, his brain permanently fogged by alcohol, forgot all sorts of things. Often he forgot to eat. Food seldom appealed to him except when he saw it actually being consumed. Then longing entered his expression, as if he’d suddenly recollected a lost love.

  “Help me eat some of this,” Sully told him. The booth was set up for two and Ruth hadn’t bothered to clear away the other silver, so all Wirf needed was a plate. Since Sully had finished his salad, he pushed the bowl toward Wirf, who emptied the dregs of the oil and vinegar into the nearby rubber plant. With fork and spoon he transferred exactly half the remaining linguine into the bowl. “You ate all the clams?” he said, peering at the stack Sully’d made of the empty shells.

  “I wasn’t expecting you, Wirf,” Sully said.

  “All I wanted was one,” Wirf said. “I hate the slimy bastards, but I keep thinking I’ll be surprised someday and like them.”

  “I’m glad there aren’t any left then. I like them every time I eat them,” Sully said, pushing the breadbasket toward Wirf.

  “Don’t be stingy,” Wirf said, pointing his fork at Sully. “Don’t go through life stingy.”

  “Okay,” Sully said.

  “A clam’s a small thing,” Wirf explained. “But there’s a principle.”

  “I could order you some clams,” Sully offered. He had no intention of doing that, but Wirf was easy to shame with gestures.

  “This goddamn kitchen is closed!” Vince bellowed.

  “Old radar ears,” Wirf said. “The government should put him on top of a mountain and make him listen to sounds from deep space.”

  “That would be the place for him, all right,” Sully agreed.

  Nothing from the kitchen. In a minute Ruth came by and set a clam in front of Wirf. It was uncooked and clamped tight.

  “How can you put up with this untrustworthy son of a bitch?” Wirf asked her.

  “Easy,” Ruth said. “I never see him.”

  “So,” Wirf said when she was gone, “I’m hearing you went back to work.”

  Sully pushed his plate toward the center of the table. “I didn’t do too bad either, you’ll be pleased to know. I enjoy it more than talking to judges.”

  Wirf made a face. “Yesterday was no good,” he admitted, in reference to their most recent day in court, “but we’ll wear the bastards down. There’s a zillion things we haven’t even tried yet, and one of these days we’re going to get a judge who’s actually done an honest day’s work at some point in his worthless life. Then we’re home free.”

  “By then I’ll be seventy and already dead for five years.”

  “See,” Wirf pointed the fork again. “These are black thoughts. I thought we’d agreed you’d stay in school and wait this out. Be smart for once. Bide your time. They ever find out you’re working, and we’re really fucked.”

  “That’s a black thought, Wirf,” Sully pointed out.

  Wirf sighed, shook his head. “Why do I even try with you?”

  “Now there’s a question. Go home and think about that.”

  They were grinning at each other now. “Jesus,” Wirf said.

  �
��Right,” Sully agreed.

  “Carl paying you under the table?”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Just don’t go on the fucking books. Anywhere,” Wirf advised solemnly.

  “listen. You don’t have to tell me to work under the table,” Sully reminded him. “The only time I ever worked on the up and up I got hurt.”

  This was not literally true, but pretty near. One of Sully’s myriad financial headaches was that he’d done so little work on the books and paid so little FICA that his Social Security at retirement was going to be a drop in the bucket. His service pension was going to be the other drop. Which meant he’d be eligible for welfare and food stamps. The trouble with that was that he knew too many people on the public dole and he didn’t want to be one of them. You had to stand in too many lines and fill out too many forms, and Sully had a low opinion of both. He’d made up his mind in the army that if he ever lived through the war he’d never stand in another line. That was one of the reasons he’d returned to Bath, a town pretty much devoid of queues. Besides, welfare was begging, and he’d been saying for years that when the time came that he couldn’t be useful enough to earn what little he needed to live on he’d shoot himself, a promise two or three people he could think of would hold him to if they could.

  “Work a little if you gotta, but remember our strategy,” Wirf was saying. “Keep ’em busy with paperwork, keep documenting the deterioration of that knee. Sooner or later they’ll see it’s costing them by not settling one or two of these claims. The court’s already starting to get pissed. You hear the judge yesterday?”

  “He sounded pissed at you, Wirf.”

  “Only ’cause he knows I won’t go away,” Wirf explained.

  “I know how he feels,” Sully said.

  Wirf didn’t rise to the bait. He pushed his salad bowl to the center of the table. “When they start getting bent out of shape, then you know you’re getting somewhere. Intro Law 101.”

  “You ever take 102?”

  Wirf dropped his fork, looked hurt.

  “I just wondered,” Sully grinned.

  “I can’t do this without you,” Wirf implored. “I’m way the fuck out on a limb here, and all I can hear is you sawing away.”

  “I been telling you to quit for months,” Sully reminded him. “I’m tired of watching you get beat up. I can’t pay you what I owe you now.”

  “Have I asked you for anything?”

  “Yes. Just now. You ate half my linguine.”

  “I never asked for that. You offered.”

  “I can’t stand to see you look starved. I wish you’d go away and do something profitable. If guys like you and me could beat insurance companies there wouldn’t be any insurance companies. Common Sense 101.”

  Wirf waved his hand at Sully in disgust, then picked up the clam in the center of the table and made a pretense of braining Sully with it. “I guess it’s true,” he said. “A little knowledge is a dangerous fucking thing. Who’d have guessed you could learn anything at Schuyler Springs Community College? I liked you better when you were completely stupid.”

  Ruth reappeared and began to bus their dishes. “Vince says to take this discussion upstreet to The Horse. It’s almost Thanksgiving, and if you leave he’ll have the one thing to be thankful for.” She balanced the stack of dishes against her chest. “He also wants to know what makes you think Sully isn’t completely stupid.”

  “Call it a hunch,” Wirf told her, then to Sully, “Come have a beer with me.”

  “There’s no such thing as one beer with you,” Sully said.

  “That’s true,” Wirf admitted. “So what?”

  “So I’m working tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

  “I heard that somewhere.”

  Wirf gave up, slid out of the booth, located his scarf and gloves. “Listen to me. Don’t drop your classes officially. That would fuck us. Take incompletes. That gives us until spring, maybe fall. With any luck by then we’ll be able to prove you’re a complete cripple. It’s time for another X ray, too, and photos of that knee, so get in and get that done.”

  Sully agreed to all this so Wirf would go away. X rays were not cheap, but if he mentioned this, Wirf would start pushing money at him.

  “Come have a beer with me,” Wirf said.

  “No. Don’t you understand no?”

  “And next time save me a clam,” Wirf called over his shoulder.

  “You didn’t eat the one you got,” Sully reminded him. It was still sitting in the middle of the table.

  When Wirf was gone, Ruth returned and slid quietly into the booth behind Sully. Kneeling there, she gave his shoulders a rub over the back of the booth. “How’s Peter?” she wondered.

  Sully relaxed into the massage, too tired to try to figure out how she knew his son was in town. “Is there anything about my day you don’t know?”

  “Yup,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t know why you jumped out of his car and ran across the parking lot of the IGA.”

  “I thought Wednesday was your day off,” he said. Her day job was as a cashier at the IGA, which meant she must have seen him out the window.

  “Not since the end of September,” she told him. “You used to keep better track of my days off.”

  “Well, I know my memory stinks, but I do seem to recall you were the one who wanted to cool it for a while.”

  They’d agreed to this back in August when Gregory, Ruth’s youngest, now a senior at Bath High, had seen them together coming out of The Horse late one night. Having lied about his own plans for the evening, the boy was in no position to accuse his mother, and in fact he’d said nothing about seeing her with Sully, but their eyes had met across the nearly deserted street, and Ruth had seen the look on his face when the realization dawned on him. She’d told Sully right then that they were going to have to be good for a while.

  And so, since August, they’d been good, Ruth working her two jobs, Sully going to school and spending his evenings at The Horse with Wirf and the other regulars, often until closing. In truth, their being good every now and then had always been part of the rhythm of their relationship, and Sully sometimes thought that had they been able to marry, as they’d once wanted to, by now they’d have succeeded in making each other miserable. Being good was often just what they needed, provided they weren’t good too long.

  Because their sporadic abstinence was imposed upon them by periods of heightened suspicion in Ruth’s husband, they’d never had to face the possibility that they enjoyed being good nearly as much as being bad. Lately their periodic seasons of virtue had grown gradually longer, and this, though Sully didn’t dare admit it to Ruth, suited him fine. Adultery, like full-court basketball, was a younger man’s sport, and engaging in it these last few years had made Sully feel a little foolish and undignified. Over twenty years now he and Ruth had been lovers, and they were unable to decide, together or separately, whether to be proud or ashamed of their relationship, just as they had been unable to explain the ebb and flow of their need for each other. It was far easier to acknowledge the need when it was upon them than to admit its absence later, and their bitterest arguments tended to be over who it was that decided to be good for a while, who was responsible for their lapse into virtue, who had been avoiding and ignoring whom. Sully could feel one of these arguments coming on now, and he also sensed that he was going to lose it.

  “So you’re saying that when I said ‘a while,’ you thought I meant three months,” Ruth said, her thumbs digging deeper now between Sully’s shoulder blades, skillfully crossing the boundary between pleasure and pain.

  “No,” Sully countered. “I thought you meant seven. I thought you wanted Gregory graduated and away at college.”

  An indirect hit, apparently, since Ruth’s thumbs returned a little closer to affection mode. “Well, you didn’t have to go along so agreeably.”

  “I’m not a mind reader,” he said, deciding to press his luck a little further
, a tactic that seldom reaped dividends with Ruth. “You have to let me know what you want.”

  Ruth stopped the massage and did not answer immediately. “What I want,” she finally said, “is for you to want. I think I could be reasonably content if I were sure you couldn’t get through the day without thinking about me. If I knew you picked up the phone half a dozen times just to tell me different things. That’s what I’d like, Sully.”

  “You’d be happy if you knew I was miserable?” Sully paraphrased her position.

  “You got it.”

  “How about if I just tell you I’ve missed you?”

  Ruth resumed the massage. “I guess I’d settle for that and an explanation of why your son was chasing you across the IGA parking lot.”

  So Sully explained how his grandson had cracked his bad knee with Dr. Seuss, mentioning also that he’d received an invitation to stop by Vera’s tomorrow. Ruth always felt bad about the holidays Sully spent alone, but she also harbored a deep distrust of Sully’s ex-wife that he’d never been able to account for until Ruth confessed to him one day that she always feared they’d end up remarried, an irrational fear that persisted even though Vera was already remarried to someone else. “Are you going to go?”

  “I may drop by when I finish up work,” Sully said without much enthusiasm. “I promised Dummy I’d sheetrock a house for him tomorrow.”

  “On Thanksgiving?”

  Sully shrugged. “Why not?”

  There were so many reasons why a sane man would not want to sheetrock a house in the freezing cold on Thanksgiving that Ruth declined to select among them. When Sully asked why not, he didn’t mean that he couldn’t think of any reasons. He meant that he’d decided in advance not to accept their validity. Ruth quit the massage for good and slid into the booth feeing him. “Will it take all day?”