Nobody's Fool

by Richard Russo

Rub thought about it. “How come when you’re mad at Peter you’re mean to me?”

  “When my knee feels half decent, I like to walk. When it hurts, I like to ride,” Sully explained. “Being mad at you takes my mind off it entirely. And I’m not mad at Peter. He’s mad at me.”

  On the way, Sully told Rub about Carl Roebuck’s plan to pull up the hardwood floors in the house on Bowdon, lay them again in the lakefront camp that he and Toby owned and seldom used.

  “How come we have to tear up a floor when Carl could just buy new wood?”

  “Hardwood is expensive.”

  “So?” Rub shrugged. “Carl’s rich.”

  Rub had, Sully knew, an imperfect grasp of wealth, of what things cost. To Rub’s way of thinking, some people—Carl Roebuck, for instance—had money, which meant they could afford things that other people—Rub, for instance—could not. What people like Carl Roebuck could afford was everything Rub couldn’t. The central fact of Rub’s existence was what he couldn’t afford, and what he couldn’t afford was nearly everything. Therefore, conversely, what Carl Roebuck could afford must be nearly everything. The idea that people who had money might have money problems was inconceivable to Rub, who saw no reason for them to economize.

  “That’s how people get rich,” Sully explained. “Instead of doing things the expensive way, they save a few bucks here and there. They hire guys like us to make their lives nice.”

  Rub’s face was a thundercloud so dark that only profound stupidity could be at its center. “And then they don’t even pay us,” he said, remembering the trench they’d dug at Carl’s house.

  The two men crossed the street in the middle of the block. Will was right, Sully thought as he looked at his father’s house from the distance of about fifty yards. It did look like it might fall down. “Carl’ll pay us.”

  “He didn’t before.”

  “Once. He’ll pay us this time. He paid us for moving all those blocks you broke, remember?”

  Rub’s anger was instantly replaced by fear, and he slowed down. “It was both of us broke those blocks, not just me.”

  “I know that, Rub,” Sully said, grinning.

  “You were the one hit that pothole, not me.”

  “True.”

  “I never even loaded those blocks.”

  “You’re getting all worked up,” Sully pointed out. In fact, fear had caused Rub’s face to go bright red. “Carl’s not such a bad guy, is all I’m saying. Even if he knew you broke all those blocks, I bet he’d forgive you.”

  “Shhhh,” Rub said. “There he is.”

  Carl Roebuck had come out on the front porch and was watching the two of them approach him. Just as they arrived, Peter returned in the El Camino. When he got out, he refused to meet Sully’s eye, which meant he’d gotten a clearer account of what had transpired from Will. But he fell into step behind Rub as they entered through the gate and proceeded up the walkway together, Carl Roebuck shaking his head at them the whole way. “Sullivan Enterprises,” Carl snorted. “Moe, Larry and Curly.” He held the screen door open. “I don’t suppose any of you has ever laid a hardwood floor?”

  “I was once laid on a hardwood floor,” Sully said.

  “How was it?” Carl wondered.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “It smells like about ten generations of dead Sullivans in here,” Carl observed when they went inside.

  “I don’t smell anything,” Rub said, his brow knit with concentration. Everyone looked at him and grinned. “Well, I don’t,” Rub insisted angrily.

  Carl squatted and ran his thumb along the floor, removing its thick skin of dust. Beneath, the wood still had some of its sheen.

  “How many square feet would you say?”

  “Up and down?”

  Carl nodded. “We’re going to lose one room upstairs to water damage. I don’t suppose you knew there’s a hole in the roof?”

  Sully said he didn’t.

  “How about the furniture?”

  “What furniture?” Sully said.

  “There’s a roomful of furniture, Schmucko,” Carl Roebuck said. “There’s a sofa that’s in better condition than the piece of shit in your own living room. There’s a bed and a dresser. All kinds of shit. You can hardly get the bedroom door open.”

  “Good,” Sully said. He had, in fact, some vague recollection of all this. When his father died, somebody had told him he should have an auction, but he’d declined, at least for the present, and hired a couple boys to shove all the furniture into one of the upstairs bedrooms, telling himself that he’d deal with it all later, which he knew he wouldn’t. And hadn’t.

  Carl Roebuck shook his head. “You could have saved this house,” he said. “You could have rented it. You could have sold it and put the money in your pocket and let someone else take care of it.”

  “I didn’t want the money.”

  Carl turned to Peter. “He didn’t want the money.”

  Peter shrugged. It was clear that he would have liked to disavow any relationship.

  “You know what, Rub?” Carl said.

  Rub started. He was seldom acknowledged in Carl Roebuck’s presence. “What,” Rub said.

  “You aren’t the dumbest man in Bath. Don’t let anybody tell you you are.”

  “Okay,” Rub said.

  “So what are you saying?” Sully said. “Do you want these floors or not?”

  “That depends upon what extortionary amount you have in mind to charge me.”

  “I tell you what,” Sully said. “You can have the wood for free. Just pay us for the labor.”

  “By the hour, I suppose.”

  “Why not?”

  Carl snorted. “If I pay the three of you by the hour, the wood’s not free. You’ll still be working on it in May.”

  “You want me to give you an estimate on a job I haven’t done before, right?” Sully said. “That strikes you as fair?”

  To everyone’s surprise, Peter, who had been examining the baseboards along one wall, spoke up. “A thousand dollars,” he said.

  All three men looked at him.

  “It’ll take three men about a week,” he said. “A day or two to tear up the floors here. We’ll lose about every fourth board even if we’re careful because they splinter. Each board has a side groove that fits into a slot, and you can’t always yank them up without breaking one or the other. Laying them again is slow going. Three days, probably. Then you have to sand and varnish. New wood alone would cost you more than a thousand, though.”

  Carl looked at Sully, and both men shrugged.

  “Leaving only the issue of collateral damage,” Carl said, “the unforeseen destruction sure to occur when somebody’s stupid enough to allow Don Sullivan into his house with a crowbar.” He shook his head wearily. “My camp is liable to end up looking like this before he’s through.”

  “Eleven hundred,” Sully said.

  “What?” Carl said.

  “That insult just cost you a hundred dollars,” Sully said. “And I’ll take six hundred up front, since I’m dealing with you.”

  “I’m going to regret this,” Carl reached into his pants pocket. “I can tell already.”

  He counted out six hundred dollars from a large roll of bills.

  “You’re right,” Sully said. “I am the dumbest man in Bath. If I had any sense I’d hit you over the head with this crowbar, take that wad of money, bury you beneath the floor and see if anybody’d miss you.”

  “You’d miss me, snookums,” Carl Roebuck said confidently, giving Sully a pinch on the cheek.

  To celebrate, lunch at The Horse.

  As usual during the noon hour, the place was crowded with businessmen from up and down the length of Main Street, every table taken. There were three stools at the end of the bar, though, and Sully pointed Rub and Peter in their direction. Clive Jr. and a woman Sully’d never seen before were just getting up from a table near the window. When Clive Jr. saw Sully, his face clouded over and he looked a
t the woman he was with almost fearfully, Sully thought.

  “I got to go talk to that prick,” Carl said when Sully, Peter and Rub headed for the bar.

  “Who? The Bank?”

  “I’m hearing things I don’t want to hear,” Carl said. “That goddamn deal is heading south. I can feel it.”

  “The theme park?”

  “What a putz,” Carl said, eyeing Clive Jr. across the room. “If it’d been me I’d have had that Texas big shot laid and then blown and then back on a plane before the ink was dry on the contract. Dickhead over there is just like his old man. The square of all squares. Can you believe that woman he’s going to marry?”

  “She’s not getting much of a bargain, either,” Sully reminded him. “Go ahead. We’ll send the check over when we’re done.”

  “It’d be just like you,” Carl Roebuck said.

  “Slide down one,” Sully told Rub, indicating the next stool.

  Rub looked reluctant. “How come?”

  “So I can be on the end.”

  “How come?”

  “So you won’t swing around on that stool and bang my knee, like you’re so fond of doing.”

  Rub moved. “How come I’m always the one you boss?” he wondered, settling onto the middle stool.

  Sully moved the stool Rub had vacated so he could stand next to it. “What? You want me to give Peter an order, is that it?”

  Rub shrugged, embarrassed to have instigated open conflict.

  “Well?” Sully said.

  “I just don’t see—”

  Sully held up a hand and Rub stopped. “I just want to know what would make you happy, Rub. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll give Peter a direct order. And if he’s smart he’ll do as he’s told, too.”

  Rub shrugged again, but clearly the idea appealed to him.

  “Are you ready?” Sully said. “Are you paying attention?”

  Rub said he was.

  “Son.”

  “What?” said Peter, who seemed not to be in the mood for such games. He was still half angry about Will, was Sully’s guess.

  “I want you to stay right where you are,” Sully told him. “Don’t get off that fucking stool. That’s an order.”

  Peter surrendered a reluctant grin. “Okay,” he said.

  Sully turned back to Rub. “There,” he said. “You happy now?”

  Rub was not happy, but he knew better than to say so. Blessedly, Birdie came over and was waiting to take their order. “We got a new item,” she told them. “Hot buffalo wings.”

  “I didn’t know buffalos had wings,” said Peter, who for some reason was fond of Birdie, or of her flattery of himself.

  Rub frowned, stared at Peter malevolently. “They don’t,” he said, then checked with Sully to make sure.

  “You had two calls,” Birdie said. “Your ex and Mrs. Roebuck.”

  “Okay,” Sully said dubiously, fishing around in his pants pocket for change. “What’s your mother want to talk to me about?”

  “No clue,” Peter said, insincerely, it seemed to Sully.

  He located two dimes. “She probably wants to inform me I’m not much of a grandfather,” he decided. “Okay if I tell her you already did?”

  “You want to order, at least, before you run off?” Birdie said.

  “A hamburger,” Sully said.

  “You don’t want to try the wings?”

  “All right, suit yourself,” Sully said.

  “Don’t get huffy. I was just asking.”

  “Cheeseburger,” Rub said when Birdie looked at him.

  “Try the wings,” Sully suggested.

  “Okay,” Rub said.

  “How about you, handsome?” Birdie said to Peter.

  “Hamburger. Fries.”

  “Make it easy on yourself,” Sully told her on the way to the pay phone. “Bring us three orders of wings.”

  Since there was no way to guess how long these calls would take, Sully took his bar stool with him and set it up beneath the pay telephone. He had two calls to make. One to the prettiest girl in Bath, who just conceivably might have been calling to extend some invitation, and one from his ex-wife, who’d almost certainly called to read him the riot act about something. Who to call back first?

  “Hi, dolly,” Sully said when Toby Roebuck answered. “Your no-good husband’s down here at The Horse.” Clive Jr. and the woman he was with had left. Carl had joined a table of local businessmen and had begun to tell them what a putz Clive Jr. was, Sully could tell. “He just ordered lunch. I can be there in five minutes.”

  “You talk a good fight over the phone,” she said. It was amazing how she never missed a beat calling his bluffs. In fact, it was probably this that convinced him that he was bluffing. “Besides,” she said. “You couldn’t be here in five minutes. It takes you that long just to climb the stairs.”

  “I bet I could cut my time in half for the right reason,” Sully told her. It was true. He did talk a good fight over the phone. “What the hell’s this I hear about you being knocked up?”

  “Too true,” Toby Roebuck admitted. “Is he still strutting and crowing?”

  “like the little bantam rooster he is.”

  “You gotta love him.”

  “Nope,” Sully said. “You gotta love him.”

  “Anyway,” Toby Roebuck said like a woman who’d enjoyed about as much banter as she could stand. “Here’s the skinny on the house.”

  “What house?”

  “Your house, Sully. Turn the page. We’ve moved on to a new subject.”

  Sully remembered now that Carl had asked her to check on the status of the Bowdon Street house, and he became aware of something like a hope regarding it, a hope that was there before he could banish it.

  “Technically,” she said, “you still own it.”

  “Technically,” Sully repeated, not much caring for the sound of the word.

  “You’re in what’s called a redemption period. You’ve been in it for over a month. You must have gotten a notice.”

  “I must’ve,” Sully agreed.

  Toby Roebuck let that go. “What it means is that somebody has contracted to purchase the house for back taxes. But if you come up with the same money by February first, the property reverts to you.”

  “Who bought it?”

  “I don’t know. The buyers are not required to disclose their identities.”

  Sully considered this. “Well,” he said after a moment, “whoever bought it is in for a big surprise, because I just sold the floors to your husband.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “Who would want it is what I’d like to know,” Sully said, though even as he wondered, it occurred to him that the owners of the Sans Souci might want the tiny postage stamp of property that abutted their land. Maybe they just wanted everything on the north side of Bowdon to be theirs, neat and tidy. Which led to an obvious question. How much did they want it? “What are the back taxes?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “I think so,” Sully said, guessing five thousand dollars.

  “Just over ten thousand.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Sorry.”

  Sully took a deep breath. That settled the matter, anyway. “That’s a lot of money for a house with no floors,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d like to loan it to me?”

  That struck Toby Roebuck as pretty funny. “Oh, Sully,” she sighed before hanging up. “You are a stitch.”

  Vera answered on the first ring.

  “Hi,” Sully said, not bothering to identify himself. With Vera, he always liked to go on the assumption that she’d recognize his voice, even if he hadn’t spoken to her in a year. This much he took as his due, the result of their having been married long enough to have a son. The way he saw it, any woman you married owed you that much, especially if you weren’t going to ask her for anything else. “What’s up?”

  “Who is this?”

  In fact, Sully was tempted to fire the same question b
ack. Unless he’d dialed the wrong number, this had to be Vera, but it didn’t sound like her, the voice lower by several notes. Whoever it was sounded like she’d just awakened from a two-day sleep. “Vera?”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “What do you mean, oh,” he said, already annoyed. “I had a message you called.”

  “Just to say you win.”

  Sully considered this. He couldn’t think of anything he’d won. Certainly not anything concerning Vera. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that you’d won.”

  “Won what, Vera?” he said, but she’d already hung up.

  Sully stared at the phone for a second before hanging up and heading back to the bar where Rub and Peter were eating chicken wings. Since neither of them looked up, he went back to the phone and dialed Vera’s number again. This time the phone rang twenty times before she answered. “What the hell’s going on?” he said. “And don’t hang up on me, either. It’d take me about two minutes to get over there. Don’t think Ralph’ll keep me out either, because he won’t.”

  “I have no illusions about my husband ever standing up for me, Sully,” she said, her voice full of self-pity. “At the moment, he isn’t even here.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Sully told her. The words were out before he could call them back, not that he necessarily would have, had he been able to. When the other end was silent too long, he said, “What’s the matter, Vera? You wouldn’t have called if you didn’t want to tell me.”

  When she spoke this time, he could hear the give in her voice. “It’s just that … I’ve tried … so … hard,” she finally sobbed.

  Sully was suspicious of his ex-wife’s grief, knowing from long experience Vera’s inclination toward theater. With Vera the road to hysteria was short in all situations, large and small.

  “You never tried at all,” she continued, “and you end up with him.”

  “Is it Peter we’re talking about?” Sully said, catching, he thought, a glimmer. He’d been so sure this would be about Will that he couldn’t switch gears.

  “You won,” she said again, “but you didn’t win much.”

  “The hell with you, Vera,” he said, ready himself to hang up.

  “Have him tell you about the foul-mouthed little tramp he’s got in Morgantown.”