Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

“Oh,” he said, remembering the bright flash of light that had momentarily blinded him as he was shinnying down the column. He’d thought it was just a distant lightning flash, reflecting off the low clouds. “Shit.”

“Right. I’m about to lose my job, aren’t I.”

“Of course you aren’t. Listen, I’m heading in now. Be there in five.”

“The mayor wants to see you.”

“Lovely.”

“You’d better come up with a good story.”

“I’ll tell him I got struck by lightning.”

“Too far-fetched.”

“It’s true. I was struck by lightning.” Okay, not on her porch, but he might’ve been if he hadn’t climbed down. “Now there’s something wrong with me.” Seared into the palm of his hand, where he’d grabbed the florist’s card, was the perfect image of the staple used to attach it to the green cellophane. He’d tried his best to scrub it off in the shower but managed only to inflame the spot. Now it itched as if there were, just below the skin, a real staple. “Something else wrong with me,” he corrected.

“Like what?”

“I feel…funny.”

“Funny odd or funny ha-ha?”

“There’s this constant buzzing in my ears. And I’m having strange thoughts.”

“For instance.”

Like, maybe I’m in love with you? He couldn’t say that, of course. He tried to think of another example, something odd but not so deeply bizarre that she’d conclude he’d lost his marbles completely.

Before he could come up with anything, she asked, “Is someone with you? Your voice sounded weird just then. I mean, apart from what you said.”

Wait, had he spoken out loud? Actually told Charice he was in love with her? Just a few minutes earlier Mr. Hynes accused him of talking to himself. Could it be true? “Umm…that’s the other thing,” he admitted. “These random thoughts that are just there in my head? Apparently I say some of them out loud.”

“I’ma add that to my list,” she said. “All this weird shit. In fact, I’m doin’ it right now ’fore I forget. Chief says…he’s in love with me. ”

“You left out the word ‘maybe.’ ”

“You write it down your way, I —”

“You’re doing it again, Charice,” he said.

“Doing what?”

“Using that black voice.”

“I’ma write that down, too.”

“Last night you—”

“You were different last night, too,” she said, all trace of the dialect now gone.

Suddenly their evening together, which had begun so well and ended so catastrophically, was with him again. He’d promised himself to put it out of his mind, but here he was thinking about it anyway, awash in humiliation. “Can I ask?” he said. “What happened?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Charice.”

“That phone call I got? Was from Jerome. Asking me to take him to the hospital. He thought he was having a heart attack.”

“Is he okay?”

“They kept him overnight for observation. A panic attack, they think. He’s had them before.”

A car went by, tooting its horn at Mr. Hynes. When Raymer looked up, a man was just coming out the back door of Gert’s Tavern with a bag of trash in each hand. A car was parked next to the Dumpster where the Mustang was vandalized yesterday. From where Raymer sat, only one taillight and a section of fender was visible, not enough to identify the make or model. From where Mr. Hynes was sitting, though, the whole car would be in view, and it came to Raymer again that he might well have seen whoever keyed the ’Stang.

“Charice?” he said, returning to the matter at hand. “I thought you were mad at me about the lamb chops.”

“Say again?”

“I ate all your lamb chops. I was a pig.”

“Of course you ate my lamb chops. You were invited for dinner. Jerome would’ve ate ’em all. I’d’ve been lucky to get one.”

“I guzzled your expensive wine and fell asleep.”

“Shows what you know, if you think that swill was expensive.”

“So you’re not really mad at me?”

“Of course I’m not.”

“Then why’d you lock me out on the porch?”

“Lock you out?”

“The door was locked.”

“No, it just sticks when it’s humid. You have to lift up at the same time you push or pull.”

Now that she mentioned it, he remembered that when she first let them out onto the porch, she’d not only lifted the handle but kicked the bottom of the door.

“I left you a note,” she said.

“You did?”

“Put on the table right in front of you. Said I didn’t know how long I’d be, but to wait if you wanted to.”

“It must’ve blown away,” he said, recalling how still it had been when he dozed off, how the breeze had come up by the time he awoke. “The kitchen was all dark.”

“The bugs were swarming. Like a hundred of them on the screen.”

“God, I’m such an idiot. Go ahead and write that down, too, if you want.”

“Already did.”

He knew she hadn’t, though. Was she writing any of it down? Or was this list of hers just a running gag, like the Heinz one he shared with Mr. Hynes?

“Charice?” he said. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“What? I’m black, so I have to be superstitious?”

“Charice.”

“No.”

“No to which?”

“No, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Because Becka visited me last night. Twice.”

“Your dead wife visited you.”

“Out on your porch, the first time. She came to me in a dream.”

“How does you dreaming about Becka make her a ghost?”

“Later, in the cemetery, she tried to kill me.” He’d been wondering what a statement like this would sound like out in the open air. Now he knew. Batshit.

“What do you mean, ‘later, in the cemetery’? What were you doing out there?”

“I went to apologize.”

“To a dead woman. In the middle of the night.”

“You make it sound kind of crazy.”

“Where you were struck by lightning. Even if you were, how’s that Becka?”

He sighed. “I really have lost my mind, haven’t I.”

A quick negative response would’ve been welcome, but none was forthcoming. Finally she said, “You had a bad day.”

“Today’s going to be another. Should I go visit Jerome?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Absolutely not.”

“He still thinks I keyed his car?”

“Probably. When he gets like this…” In the silence that followed, he could hear her concern.

Nor did he blame her. He’d never seen anyone come quite so unglued as Jerome had. He remembered the relief he felt turning away from him and heading back to the Morrison Arms, even if it meant coming face-to-face with a cobra. Raymer replayed the short journey again, stepped off the curb and heard screeching brakes, the animal-control vehicle rocking mere inches from his left knee, again saw the people milling around in the parking lot. Roy Purdy had been among them, he recalled. It wasn’t just the neck brace that had made him stand out, or even that he’d been working so hard to blend in. It was that, for a brief moment, everyone else in the crowd was facing the Arms. Roy was looking at Gert’s, then spun away when he saw Raymer.

All at once the buzzing in his ears was gone. Got him, said Dougie.

“Got who?” Charice said.

Raymer ignored her. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Charice?”

She hesitated before answering. “Like what?”

“Does the mayor want Jerome to run against me for chief of police, because—”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“What’s it like?”

“Thing is, I’m not supposed to know. Nobody’s supposed to.”