Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

“Here comes your burger now,” Sully said as the door to the kitchen swung open and Janey emerged. She set Rub’s plate of food in front of him, along with a fork and knife wrapped in a paper napkin.

“You again,” she said, regarding Sully.

“Me again,” Sully agreed.

“Spreading cheer wherever you go.”

Which meant she’d been privy to the whole business with Spinmatics Joe. By the time he arrived at Hattie’s in the morning, Ruth would know all about it. On the other hand, there was no law that he had to go there. Hadn’t Ruth given him full permission to stay away just a few hours ago? “I try,” he told Janey weakly, but she was already bustling back into the kitchen.

“Try harder,” she suggested, the kitchen door swinging shut behind her.

She had a point. Today, he’d goaded two profoundly ignorant men to within an inch of violence. Both dickheads but the point remained: for what? Had he succeeded in getting them to lose their tempers, they’d have made short work of him. He was too old for bar fights, but even if he weren’t, what had he been trying to accomplish? Each time the urge had been pressing enough to suggest a purpose, but now, once his dander settled, he couldn’t imagine what it might’ve been.

Next to him, Rub sighed. His burger sat before him untouched.

“What’s the matter now?” Sully said.

“There’s no buh-buh-buh—”

“Bacon?”

“Bacon,” Rub repeated flawlessly.

Next to Rub, Jocko was chuckling. “Weird,” he said. “He’s really got a thing about that word.”

“ ‘Bacon’?” Sully said, assuming he must be talking about Rub.

“No, Joe,” he explained. “ ‘Hispanics.’ Poor bastard just can’t say it.”

“Hispanics,” Rub repeated clearly, even though he’d decided, as he always did in the end, to make the best of things and taken a big bite of burger. “That’s not so fuh-fuh-fuh—”

“So fuckin’ hard to say?” Sully suggested.

“Fuckin’ hard to say,” Rub agreed.

Sully couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, when Rub’s mood improved, Sully’s often did, too, as if their emotions were wired in parallel.

“Because he could just say ‘spics,’ ” Jocko continued. “That would solve the problem.”

“Or one of them,” Sully offered.

Rub apparently agreed, too, because he thumped his tail on the floor.

RAYMER AWOKE TO a sensation he remembered both vividly and fondly, Becka running her fingers lightly through his thinning hair, barely touching his scalp, mere proximity causing the hair to lift in yearning toward her touch. He smiled, enjoying the feeling, unwilling to open his eyes. There’s something I need to tell you, she murmured.

I know, he told her. I’m going bald.

Because this had been her favorite thing to inform him about in moments of intimacy back when they were still in love, as if the shower drain hadn’t already eloquently confirmed that diagnosis. How am I going to do this when you don’t have hair?

There’ll be plenty on the sides, he always assured her. I’ll comb it over.

You will not.

I’ll get implants.

Negative.

Then you’ll just have to—

Find another man — this one with hair. Yes, that’s what I’ll have to do.

This was how he expected the conversation to go now, so he was surprised when her tone grew serious. No, something else.

What? he said, and when she didn’t immediately respond, he added, You can tell me.

Then listen.

Of course neither Becka nor anyone else was actually speaking to him. Becka had come down the stairs like a Slinky and was dead. His hair was just stirring in the lovely breeze. When at last he opened his eyes, he saw the truth of this. There was no Becka. He was alone in the dark. Unable to accept this truth, he closed his eyes again, willing her return, because in addition to running her fingers through his hair, she’d whispered something to him, something he hadn’t quite caught but that seemed important.

Whatever she’d wanted him to know, it was gone and so was she. Opening his eyes again, he saw he was being observed by a single red eye, something that, before he could bring it into focus, then closed. Did cobras have red eyes, he wondered. Was it coiled there at the foot of his bed? He realized he should care, but somehow couldn’t rouse any sense of urgency. Had it already bitten him? Was that why he was having so much trouble waking up, its lethal venom already coursing through his veins? Was his death approaching? Was that what Becka had needed him to know? Was that why she’d visited him? If so, fine. All he wanted, really, was to lie here awhile in this delicious breeze. When his hair stirred again, he saw that the snake had reopened its red eye. In fact, a second eye winked open to stare at him until the breeze died and both eyes closed. Then they were open again, glowing a deeper red this time, though when a third eye opened, Raymer came fully awake. He didn’t know much about cobras, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have three eyes.

Then all at once reality returned in a rush of sensory data and memory. In the dream he’d been home in bed, but in reality he was out on Charice’s back porch — it’d been too hot to eat indoors — where he’d fallen asleep when she went inside to fetch dessert. Full of delicious grilled lamb and red wine, he’d meant to just rest his eyes for a minute. God, those lamb chops! How many had he devoured? Seven? Could he really have eaten so many? Why hadn’t he stopped at…Jesus, even four was probably too many. Because they were so delicious. That’s why. There’d been a lovely bottle of red wine as well — no, wait — two bottles. He’d been tipsy even before they’d started to eat.

Dear God, what a day! That afternoon at Gert’s he’d rediscovered beer and now, tonight, red wine. Delicious. As thick and bloody and textured as the lamb. Becka preferred white wine, so they’d drunk that, but red…wow! Why had he stopped drinking red wine? But on this particular evening the better question was, why hadn’t he stopped? Had he swilled an expensive bottle of red wine that was meant to be sipped? How much had the meal cost her? Loin lamb chops, over ten bucks a pound, easy. Why hadn’t he asked Charice to stop at the liquor store on the way so he could contribute something to their feast?

And just that quickly, misgiving morphed into full-blown panic. What had he done? At what point had the whole evening gone south? Idiocy, after the fact, resisted precision. That he’d somehow managed to ruin a perfectly wonderful evening was obvious. Why hadn’t he seen that wreck coming? The overwhelming sense of well-being that had come over him sitting there on a hot summer night in the company of an attractive young woman really should have been a dead giveaway. When in his entire life had such profound contentment ever presaged anything but catastrophe? The very fact that at some point in the evening he’d stopped being scared shitless of Charice should have been a further tip-off. Because Charice was a scary woman. If you weren’t scared of her, you weren’t paying attention.

And speaking of…where was she? What had happened to her? She’d gathered up their greasy plates, his piled high with those little Gothic T-bones — had he actually picked them up with his fingers and gnawed on them? really done that? — and brought them into the kitchen. Had he offered to help, or even stood up to open the screen door? He couldn’t remember, so probably not. No, he’d just sat there like a lump, sated, drunk, beached, his chin glistening. The kitchen phone had rung, he remembered that, and Charice had answered it, taking the receiver on its long cord into the next room. It was her receding voice ( No, it’s okay…listen to me…it’s just like I said…as usual, you’re getting all worked up over nothing ) that had led him to think that it wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes for just a minute. When she returned to the kitchen and hung up the phone, he’d hear her, surely. He’d fallen asleep to the sound of fat bugs pinging against the screen door, the kitchen lights blazing.