Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

Entering cautiously, he paused before his dresser, the top drawer of which contained his underwear. Amazing, he thought, just how easily a man’s reason could be stampeded. Because, really, the snake had to be long gone, right? Assuming some motorist hadn’t run over it, the thing could have made it all the way to Schuyler Springs by now, though bad news seldom seemed to head in that direction. One of the few places it simply couldn’t be was in a closed sock drawer. For a snake to scale the dresser, pull open the drawer in question without benefit of an opposable thumb (or hand, for that matter), climb in and then — this was the best part — pull the drawer closed again from the inside without the aid of a handle was beyond impossible in the world Raymer knew and navigated on a daily basis. So why did it seem to him at this particular moment that it in fact had managed this feat? And why, before opening the drawer to find out, did he feel the need to rap it smartly with the flashlight and listen for stirring inside? Because he knew from personal experience that the world was rational until it wasn’t, after which all bets were off. When, without warning, the world pivoted, it became in that instant unrecognizable. There you are, cruising along, confident in your knowledge of how things work, until one afternoon you come home early and there’s your beloved wife on the stairs, her forehead seemingly stapled to the bottom step, the whole of her defying gravity. Suddenly you understand how wrong you’ve been about every last fucking thing, and that you have little choice but to adjust to this terrible new reality. What can’t be undeniably is and will be forevermore. Except here, too, you’re wrong. Because gradually, after the shock wears off, the world returns to its familiar old habits, seemingly satisfied to have thrown you for a giant loop and content to await the return of your complacence so it can slip a venomous snake into your damn sock drawer, thereby demonstrating yet again that it, not you, is in charge and always will be, you dumb fuck.

Which was why Raymer, normally calm and rational, slowly inched open the drawer that couldn’t possibly contain a snake and yet might anyway. When nothing stirred or struck, he opened it a little more and then a little more still, leaning back in order to make the cobra’s strike more geometrically challenging, until he could be certain of its contents: undershorts, socks and handkerchiefs. Not even a garter.

Disrobing quickly and kicking his sweaty uniform into the corner (wary of disturbing whatever might be in the hamper), he thought about showering in the dark, then immediately thought better of it. He pulled on a fresh pair of boxers — smiling to think that Charice had correctly intuited his preference for briefs, pleased that a woman her age had given this even a passing thought — and then clean socks, jeans and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt. To avoid having to return later tonight or tomorrow morning, he decided to pack a small bag. That involved getting down on his hands and knees and shining the flashlight under the bed where he kept his gym bag. This he pulled out and shook — for consistency’s sake, because, well, a snake that could access his sock drawer would have no problem unzipping a bag, crawling inside and rezipping it. Into the empty bag he tossed two sets of underclothes and three extra shirts, since he was already sweating through the one he’d just put on.

Passing by the window, he glanced down into the parking lot, empty except for Charice’s Civic, just as its dome light came on and she got out. She was either too hot sitting there or growing impatient with how long he was taking. Something about her posture, how anxiously she surveyed the dark building, suggested a third, albeit remote, possibility: that she was concerned for his well-being. Was it conceivable that what her batshit brother had said that afternoon was true — that Charice was devoted to him? He doubted it. Just as he didn’t believe that Becka had ever once worried about him. At the Academy, all the cadets had been warned about the emotional toll police work can take on marriages. Awakening to sirens at three in the morning, spouses would wonder if tonight was the night they’d get the call they’d been dreading. Your husband’s been shot. He’s in intensive care, stable for now, but you’d better come right away. Of course such nightmare scenarios were mostly urban, and Raymer was unlikely to get shot in Bath. On the other hand, until today the odds of his being bitten by a cobra had seemed considerably long as well. The world was a dangerous place, and Becka must’ve known that on any given day her husband might pull over the wrong car or stop at a convenience store just as some wacked-out dickhead emerged with the contents of the register in his jacket pocket, a Slurpee in one hand and a.45 in the other. Raymer had been prepared to reassure Becka that nothing like that would ever happen to him, but somewhat disappointingly the subject had never come up.

From where he stood now it was too dark and Charice was too far away for him to see the expression on her face, but it was flattering to imagine that it might reveal something other than her usual profound irritation. When she appeared to look in his general direction, he waved, but as he did she looked away again, and he doubted he’d have been visible in an unlit window anyway.

In the bathroom he added his shaving kit to the gym bag, then returned to the front room and paused for a moment, trying to think if there was anything else he’d need at the motel that evening. Strange that it should come home to him so powerfully — with the apartment’s squalor far less obvious in the dark — that Charice was right about the Morrison Arms. That he resided by choice in such a shithole spoke volumes about his state of mind, if not his character. Things hadn’t been right, or even close to right, since Becka. Most days he was borderline deranged with something he didn’t identify as either grief or jealousy but that might be a strange hybrid of the two. But did it really matter what was wrong with him? The important thing was that the time had come to pull himself together. Probably losing that garage-door remote this morning was the best thing that could’ve happened to him. He could see that now. Just let it go. The suspicion, the jealousy, the self-doubt. All of it.

He was thinking he’d do exactly that when he opened his apartment door and ran smack into the backlit man on the other side of it, his fist raised, mid-knock. The sound that emerged from Raymer’s larynx resembled a bleat as he staggered backward, his heart in his throat, his chest leaping violently. Only when his flashlight hit the floor and skittered away, coming to rest between the dark figure’s feet, did he realize he’d dropped it.

“Mr. Hynes,” he said when that gentleman bent down, his ancient bones creaking, retrieved the flashlight and handed it back to him. “What’re you doing here?”

“ Thought I heard somebody,” he said. “You still looking for that reptile?”

“No,” Raymer said, his hand over his heart, which was still thumping wildly. “It’s probably halfway back to India by now.”

“Thought you was a burglar,” the old man said. “Sneaking around here in the dark like that…”

“Yeah, but Mr. Hynes?”

“Uh-huh?”

“If I was a burglar, what was your plan?”

“Get a good look at you,” he said. “ ’Dentify you in the po lice lineup. Send yo’ ass to jail.”

“But…,” Raymer started, then decided against trying to talk him out of good citizenship. “Mr. Hynes? You’re not supposed to be here. That’s what the yellow tape around the building means. Until we remove that, the building isn’t safe. Especially for a man of your years, all alone in the dark. What if you fell and there was nobody around to hear you call for help?”