Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

Nor had the cardiologist disagreed. But given his age and condition, there was also a distinct chance he could have a major stroke and not die. Spend the rest of his days unable to talk, feed himself or shit of his own volition. Though this could also happen if he didn’t have the surgery, the man had added.

“If you’re telling me what I should do,” Sully said, “I’m not hearing it.”

The doctor shrugged. “Most people want the defibrillator. Or their kids do. Or their wives. Are you married, Mr. Sullivan?”

No. An ex-wife, Vera, no longer in the picture. No longer even in her own picture, really. Poor woman, her grip on sanity had always been relaxed. A couple years ago she’d slipped into dementia and now resided in the county home. Her second husband, Ralph, already lived there, having suffered a catastrophic nervous breakdown years earlier, so it would have been a reunion of sorts had Vera recognized him, but she swore she’d never laid eyes on the man before and certainly wouldn’t have married anyone who looked like that. Afterward her decline had been swift. In a matter of months she no longer recognized Peter, her son, or Will, her grandson. Confident she wouldn’t recognize him either, Sully’d paid her a visit, but when she saw him her eyes immediately narrowed, and she began muttering profanities under her breath, looking right at him the whole time. According to the nurses, this was a whole new madness, one he shouldn’t take personally. “You probably just remind her of someone,” one nurse speculated, to which Sully replied, “Yeah, but the person I remind her of is me.”

So, no. No wife to please.

His son, then? His grandson? the cardiologist had inquired. Wouldn’t they want him to do the procedure?

“You’re going to tell them?”

“You’re not?”

Probably not. He hadn’t made up his mind completely, but no, he doubted he would. Definitely not Will. No reason to burden the boy, who was off to college in the fall. His son? No real reason to burden him either. If he told anyone it would be Ruth. He’d started to half-a-dozen times, then decided against it. Studying his landlady’s newspaper photo, he wondered if he’d have told her if she were still around.

“Question,” said a familiar voice at his elbow, making Sully just about jump out of his skin. Attired in his customary Ralph Lauren polo shirt — pink today — and light cotton slacks and cream-colored canvas shoes, Carl Roebuck looked, as always, like the owner of an automobile dealership who was late for his tee time. That Sully had been so deep in thought that a man like Carl could sneak up on him was unnerving, and he quickly scanned the room for other potential threats. Carl himself wasn’t dangerous, but whenever he entered the room you did well to check if his appearance had tipped over the edge some otherwise rational person — a woman he’d recently jilted, perhaps, or that woman’s husband, or somebody he owed money to, or maybe just somebody who’d gotten fed up with his never-ending bullshit. With this latter group Sully felt particular sympathy.

“On average,” Carl said, fixing Sully seriously, “how often would you say you think about sex?”

Ruth was on her way down the counter now, coffeepot in hand. “I’m curious how he’ll answer this myself,” she admitted, putting a mug in front of Carl. She and Sully had been lovers on and off for more than twenty years, but for the last decade just friends, an arrangement Ruth seemed to resent, even though it had been her idea. His mistake, as near as Sully could make out, was that he hadn’t put up enough of a fight at the time or expressed sufficient regret since. Though she was unlikely to scald him until he answered the question, Ruth, armed with a hot coffeepot, inspired caution, and he instinctively leaned back until she finished filling Carl’s cup and set the pot down on the counter. Only then did he give the other man his complete attention. “He’s not here,” Sully said.

“Who’s not here?” Carl said.

“Rub,” Sully said. “The person you’re looking for.”

“Says who?”

“Fine,” Sully said. “We’ll change the subject. What’s this yellow slime I’m hearing about over at the mill?”

“What yellow slime?” Carl said, and anyone who didn’t know better would have testified his innocence was genuine.

Sully did know better. “The lake of gunk you found yesterday. On top of which all those rich assholes are going to be living.”

At this Carl released a deep sigh. “You shouldn’t listen to rumors.”

“Okay,” Sully said agreeably. “But I have no idea where Rub is.” Actually Sully expected him any minute now. Fridays were half days out at Hilldale, and he generally hitched a ride into town and came looking for Sully, hoping to get him to spring for a cheeseburger, then listen to him talk well into the evening, tough duty, given his worsening stammer.

“Forget Rub,” Carl insisted. “I didn’t even mention him. I asked you a simple question.”

“Ruth,” Sully said, pointing at the clock above the counter, “it’s 11:07. Let’s see how long it is before he wants to know where Rub is.”

“A simple question you haven’t answered.”

The bell over the door jingled then as Roy Purdy, Sully’s least-favorite person in all of Bath, came in. Unlike Carl, Roy Purdy looked exactly like what he was. Newly released from a downstate medium-security prison, Roy was a poster-boy ex-con: skinny, cheaply tattooed, sallow skinned, stubbled, fidgety, stupid. To hear him tell it, good behavior was the reason given for not making him serve his full sentence, which made Sully wonder what that standard must be in the joint if Roy, who’d proven incapable of good behavior his entire life, could qualify. “What question was that?” he asked Carl.

Carl sighed mightily. “I know it’s hard, but try to pay attention. I’m asking how often you think about sex. Once a day? Once a month?”

“Not as often as I think about murder,” Sully admitted, regarding Carl meaningfully before allowing Roy, who’d settled onto a stool at the far end of the counter, to come into focus. Though he hadn’t looked in his direction, Sully felt certain that Roy was keenly aware of his presence. Ruth, who had even less use for Roy than Sully, nevertheless grabbed the coffeepot and a clean mug, then headed back toward him.

“How’s our girl?” Roy asked as she poured the coffee they both knew he wouldn’t pay for.

“You mean my daughter?”

“I mean my wife.”

“Your ex-wife. She didn’t marry you again, did she?”

“Not yet,” Roy said.

“No, I imagine not,” Ruth went on. “Especially if it’s true what we heard.”

“What you heard?”

“That you’re shacked up with a woman named Cora over at the Morrison Arms?”

“I’m sleeping on her couch is all. Till I got the scratch for my own place. She ain’t nothing to me, Cora ain’t.”

“You tell her that, Roy? Is that how she understands it?”

“I can’t help what other people think,” he said, eyeing the pastries on the back counter. Ruth wouldn’t offer him free food, but before long he’d figure out how to ask her for some. She’d give him a hard time at first, though in the end she’d cave. Where her ex-son-in-law was concerned, Ruth seemed committed to a doomed policy of appeasement, which was why, since Roy reappeared in Bath two weeks earlier, Sully’d been mulling over an alternative course of action modeled more on George Patton than Neville Chamberlain.

When she returned to their end of the counter, Ruth noted where Sully’s dark gaze had settled and snapped her fingers in front of his face, causing him to lean back on his stool again. “I hope you don’t think what’s going on down there is any business of yours,” she noted.