Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

“Me and the dark is old friends,” he said. “Go way back. Before you was born, even.”

“Didn’t they give you a coupon, Mr. Hynes? So you could stay out at the Holiday Inn tonight? Have dinner at Applebee’s? Paid for by the town of Bath?”

“How my gonna get my ass out yonder?”

“I can get somebody to give you a lift,” Raymer assured him. “Hell, I’ll take you out there right now.” Charice wouldn’t mind a short detour.

The old man shook his head. “Too late. Already had my dinner. Old people got poor digestion. Eat early. Pass my bedtime, too.”

Raymer sighed. “Mr. Hynes?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You like doing things your own way, don’t you?”

“Eighty-some-odd years I been at it.”

“If I let you stay here, are you gonna tell on me? If that snake crawls into your bed and bites you, are you gonna throw me under the bus? Tell people I said you could stay?”

“Snake’s halfway back to India by now,” said Mr. Hynes. “You said so your own self.”

“That’s true, I did, but I’m wrong about a lot. When I say the snake’s gone, I mean probably. I mean it’s gone unless it isn’t. If I’m wrong, it’s you that gets bit, not me. So why don’t you let me give you a ride out to the Holiday Inn? It’d make me feel a whole lot better.”

“Thank you. I ’preciate it, but I’ll take my chances. You can come check up on me in the mornin’. See if I’m dead or alive. If I’m dead, you can say I toad you so.”

To Raymer that sounded like the last word, so he pulled the apartment door shut behind him, and together they started down the stairs, Mr. Hynes clutching the railing with one hand and Raymer’s elbow with the other, his fingers like talons, his grip fierce. “Somebody been peeing in here,” he observed, sniffing the air. “White man.”

“You can tell?”

“Yup. A whitey for sure.”

“How?”

“ ’Cause the only black person livin’ here is me, and I use my own facility.”

Odd, Raymer thought as they descended, how the human touch could serve to banish fear. In the company of this frail old man, there was suddenly no reason to fear some cobra. Outside, a horn tooted. At the bottom of the stairs, Raymer said, “You sure you’re going to be okay here?”

“Be fine. Goin’ to bed. That a black gal I see you with out there?”

So he’d watched them pull in, then. Saw Charice under the Honda’s dome light when he got out of the car. He hadn’t climbed the stairs because he thought Raymer was a burglar. No, he was curious, just as he’d been about Jerome that afternoon. “You don’t miss much, Mr. Hynes.”

“Wish I was younger,” he said. “Give you a run for your money.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea. She works for me,” he explained. “Plus I’m ten years older than she is. More.”

“So what?”

“Also, she could do a lot better,” he added, thinking again of Becka, who’d evidently come to that same conclusion.

“So what?” the old man repeated. “Every woman I been lucky with coulda done better than me. When it comes to men, gals ain’t always thinkin’ straight. A man do well to remain alert to the possibility.”

“She doesn’t even like me, Mr. Hynes. She’s keeping a list of all the things I do wrong so she can sue me later.”

“Could be love.”

“I don’t think so.”

The man shrugged. “Pass my bedtime,” he repeated.

“I’ll have somebody come by and check on you in the morning,” Raymer promised.

“Have her do it. Maybe she got a thing for old men. You never know,” he cackled, waving goodbye. “Get me a good night’s sleep, just in case.”

Raymer watched as Mr. Hynes shuffled down the dark corridor, one hand along the wall to steady himself. He tried to imagine his days, sitting outside in a lawn chair, hour upon hour, waving a little American flag at passersby. He recalled what Jerome had said earlier at Gert’s — that taking the time to talk to a lonely old man really was what police work was all about. He would’ve liked to believe Jerome was right, though a better policeman wouldn’t have allowed Mr. Hynes to remain at the Morrison Arms tonight. He’d have ignored his preference and made the man safe.

“I was about to go in there after you,” Charice said when he emerged from the building. “What took you so long?”

“I packed a bag,” he said, holding it up.

When they got into the car, she left her door open so the dome light stayed on and arched an eyebrow at him. “You think you’re stayin’ over? You think lamb chops is just the first course?”

“God no, Charice,” he said, feeling himself flush.

Her eyebrow elevated even farther now. “What do you mean, ‘ God no’? Like you wouldn’t think of staying, even if you got invited? Is that what ‘God no’ means?”

“No, Charice,” he said. “All I meant was…”

She was grinning at him now, which meant she’d been toying with him again, as with the fake menu of fried chicken and collard greens.

“I just wish you wouldn’t be so mean to me,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I wish I wouldn’t, too. I just can’t help myself, I guess.”

“Please try.”

“I know one thing,” she said, turning the key in the ignition and closing the door. “Next time I’m coming in with you. No more sitting out in the parking lot, wondering if you’re lying snakebit on the floor in there.”

He looked over at her, but with the light out it was impossible to read her expression. It would have been nice to believe that maybe this was the beginning of a friendship, but how could you be friends with a woman if you never knew when she was making fun of you? At least with Becka, he told himself, then stopped. Had he completed the thought, it would’ve been: he’d known where he stood. But that wasn’t true. He hadn’t known where he stood with Becka. He’d just imagined he did.

“There might not be a next time,” he told Charice, something like an intention forming in the part of his skull where his headache had been earlier. Until that moment he hadn’t even been aware that it was gone. “I’m thinking about moving.”

On, he thought. He was thinking about moving on.

FOR A WEEKDAY NIGHT, the White Horse was busy, its booths all occupied by out-of-towners, half of whom were talking on cellular telephones. Where most were headed — Lakes George, Placid, Schroon and Champlain — they’d have no service. Those headed up the interstate to Montreal wouldn’t have reception for a good three hours. So many downstaters heading north this early in the season should’ve been good news for Birdie, whose sweat equity made her co-owner of the establishment, but in fact she looked like someone who was about to burn her half to the ground. Weird how every single woman Sully knew — Ruth, Janey, Bootsie and now Birdie — was on the warpath, as if they’d all received the same gender-coded message on the wind. “Perfect,” Birdie said, glancing up and watching Sully and the two Rubs come inside. “Now my night is complete.”

Sully slid onto the only vacant stool, right next to Jocko, who was still wearing his Rexall pharmacy smock, and slapped a couple twenties on the bar to ensure his welcome. “Is it me,” Sully said, “or is she happier to see us in the winter, after all the rich tourists have split?”

“Actually,” Jocko said, “I’ve never felt particularly welcome here in any season.”

“Sit, Rub,” Sully said, and the dog curled up beneath his stool.

“Where?” said Rub, realizing as he did that he had fallen for the joke yet again.

“What can I get you, Rub?” Birdie asked.