Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

Raymer would’ve been more than content to suffer on the periphery of today’s proceedings, but he mistakenly made eye contact with the mayor, who, before he could look away, motioned for him to join the other dignitaries, which he reluctantly did. Yesterday, he’d tried his best to weasel out of this funeral, even going so far as to volunteer Charice, who was growing increasingly desperate to get away from the station house, to attend in his place. He’d explained to Gus that he not only had no particular affection for Barton Flatt but also counted him among the many banes of his existence. But the mayor was having none of it. The judge had been an important man, and Gus expected Raymer not just to attend but to be decked out in his dress blues, heat or no heat.

So here he was under the punishing, unseasonable sun, honoring a man who’d disdained him for the better part of two decades. Not that Raymer was alone in this. Disdain was His Honor’s default mode, and he made no secret that he considered all human beings venal (a term Raymer had to look up) and feckless (another). If he disliked criminals, he was even less fond of lawyers and policemen, who in his opinion were supposed to know better. The very first time Raymer had been summoned to the judge’s chambers, after accidentally discharging his weapon, the judge had fixed him with his trademark baleful stare for what had felt like an eternity before turning his attention to Ollie North, the chief back then. “You know my thoughts on arming morons,” he told Ollie. “You arm one, you have to arm them all. Otherwise it’s not even good sport.” Over the years Raymer had had numerous opportunities to improve the man’s low estimation of him but had managed only to worsen it.

But of course there was another reason Raymer had tried to weasel out of this. He hadn’t been back to Hilldale since Becka’s funeral, and he wasn’t at all sure how he’d react to her proximity. He was pretty sure she was out of his system, but what if the shock and pain of her loss came flooding back and he broke down and started sobbing over the memory of a woman who’d made a complete fool of him? What if legitimate mourners witnessed his blubbering? Wouldn’t his unmanly sorrow make a mockery of their more heartfelt grief?

“You’re late,” Gus said out of the corner of his mouth, when Raymer joined him.

“Sorry,” Raymer replied, out of the opposite corner of his own, though he wasn’t and in this heat he hadn’t the energy to pretend otherwise. “A call came in as I was leaving.”

“And you couldn’t let somebody else handle it?”

Raymer had a ready answer. “I thought you’d want me to handle it myself.”

At this the mayor twitched visibly. “Alice?”

“She’s fine. I brought her back home.”

This was Gus’s batshit wife, who, unless Raymer was mistaken, was off her meds again. Charice had radioed him apologetically, explaining the situation. “Really?” Raymer said, his heart sinking. “Not the phone again?”

“Yes indeedy,” Charice confirmed.

The new cellular telephones, rampant in New York and Albany for more than a year (and gaining traction up the road in Schuyler Springs), still hadn’t really caught on in Bath. Gus had one and was threatening to get one for Raymer, with whom he wanted to be in more or less constant touch. Alice had apparently observed people talking on these and immediately understood their application to her own circumstance. Seeing no reason that the pink phone in her bedroom wouldn’t serve her purposes nicely, she unhooked the receiver from its cord and put the neutered device in her bag. Then, out in public, when she felt the conversational urge, she took it out and began speaking in the manner of someone talking on an actual cell phone and, in the process, totally freaking people out.

“Why don’t you let me take care of this?” Charice had said. “You’ll be late for the funeral.”

But Raymer was reluctant to allow anyone else to confront the poor woman. She was often frightened by uniforms, but she’d been a friend of Becka’s and always recognized him, though his uniform did seem to confuse her.

“No, I’m glad to do it,” Raymer said. He was actually fond of the woman. Most of Bath’s crazies were belligerent, whereas Alice was docile as a lamb. More than anything, she seemed lonely. Becka’s death had hit her hard.

“Maybe another woman—” Charice continued, not unreasonably.

“Thanks, but I need a cool head at HQ,” he told her, his usual line. It happened to be true, though. Charice did have the best head in the station house, including his own.

“What. You think I’m gonna scare the mayor’s wife? Me being black and all?”

“No, Charice,” he assured her. “That thought never crossed my mind.” Though it had, just for an instant, before decency could send it packing. “Where is she?”

“The park,” she said. “I just hope you don’t think you’re fooling anybody.”

“Charice, it really has nothing to do with—”

“You just don’t want to go to that funeral,” she said, wrong-footing him with this new tack.

“It won’t take long,” he said, though in truth he hoped it would.

“Because I could send Miller.”

“Miller,” he repeated. Could she be serious? Miller? “He’s liable to shoot her.”

“He’s standing right here, Chief.”

Raymer sighed, massaging his forehead. “Tell him I’m sorry. That was unkind.”

“I’m kidding. He’s not really standing here.”

“Then I’m not sorry.”

“He could’ve been, is my point. This is how you’re always getting into trouble.”

“I’m always in trouble?”

“I’m not happy until you’re not happy?”

“I asked you not to bring that up, Charice.”

“I’m just saying.”

“I know, Charice. You’re always just saying. I’m asking you to please stop just saying, okay?”

He found Alice sitting on a bench in front of the war memorial. Even in the shade it was blistering hot, though she appeared not to have noticed. She held the pink receiver to her ear. “I could never be so cruel to a friend,” she said to whomever she imagined she was talking to.

“Hello, Mrs. Moynihan,” Raymer said, sitting down next to her. At some point in her life Alice had apparently been a hippie, and now, in her late fifties, had become one again. She’d stuck a dandelion in her long, graying hair and wasn’t, he noticed, wearing a bra. Charice had been right. Again. He should’ve let her handle this, just as she’d suggested. She’d nailed his motive, too. He hadn’t wanted to go to the funeral. “How are you today?”

Alice regarded him strangely, as if stumped by the question, then smiled, having evidently decided that, despite his policeman disguise, he was someone she actually knew. Pressing the spot on the phone where the answer/hang-up button would’ve been if it really was a cellular phone, she slipped it in her bag. “Becka says hello,” she told him, causing a chill to run up Raymer’s spine even as a bead of sweat trickled down. This wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned being in touch with his dead wife.

“Tell her I said hi back.”

Alice sighed and looked away, as if embarrassed. “So many men.”

It took Raymer a moment to realize they weren’t talking about Becka anymore. She was looking at the columns of names on the memorial.

“Boys, most of them,” he said.

“Yes, boys. My son is there.”

Which was untrue. She and Gus were childless. She’d been married before, but his understanding was there’d been no offspring from that marriage either.

“War is a terrible thing.”

“Yes,” he agreed. Three names in the Vietnam grouping belonged to classmates of his.