Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

She was sniffling again. “I was keepin’ it cool for you,” she said, pointing to where she’d wedged it, upright, between two rocks.

“Get it for me,” he said.

“Okay, Roy,” she said, but before she could haul her fat ass over there, a small wave, probably from some motorboat, lapped up against the shoreline and knocked the can over, the beer foaming out.

“Bring it here,” he told her.

“It spilled, Roy.”

“Bring it here, I said.”

When she did, he flung the can out into the lake, and it hit not far from where his ear had landed, bobbing there.

“Bring me another.”

She did. “I’m sorry I do things wrong, Roy,” she said, her lip quivering.

He popped the fresh beer, drank it half down, then sat on the end of the dock, looking out at the still-bobbing beer can. “Don’t just stand there looking dumb,” he told her. “Sit your ass down.”

She sat next to him, warily. “You don’t have to pay me back,” she said.

“I know I don’t.”

“I’m real sorry about your ear.”

“Me too.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“Hell yes, I’m mad at you,” he said, though he wasn’t, or not as mad as he’d been earlier. For some reason his rage had leaked away with all that blood. At least she’d quit mouthing him.

“I try,” she told him. “I try real hard.”

He just shrugged. He was seeing the whole ear business more clearly now. “Ain’t none of this your doin’,” he admitted. That’s what ole Bullwhip would say if he was here. It was Roy’s own damn fault for letting an old cripple like Sully sneak up on him. Cora might be dumb as a rock, but she wasn’t the one who hit him with a fucking skillet, and it wasn’t her fault the fucking drugstore didn’t have the right clips. They probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. What he’d needed to do was to get the fucking ear sewed back on, but that hadn’t been an option, and that wasn’t her fault, either. Okay, the Cheetos were her fault. She should’ve gotten Pringles like he fucking told her, but even there she had a point. It was her money.

They sat quietly for a while until Cora said, “Is it real nice in there?”

“In the camp?” he said, finishing his beer. He was going to have to pace himself, he realized, if he hoped to make it through the day. Both the beer and the painkillers he had left. What he meant to do later was gradually becoming clear to him. “Pretty nice, I guess. Go take a look, if you want. You see something you like, take it.”

“I’d rather just sit here with you, real quiet,” she said, putting her hand on top of his. Roy didn’t like to be touched by ugly women and normally wouldn’t have permitted this, but for some reason he did now. “I can imagine all the nice things they got. I always like things the way they are in my head, you know?”

Actually, he had no fucking idea what she was talking about, though it did call to mind his old man, who’d always maintained that wanting things was a waste of time. To him, though, it wasn’t so much that you’d be disappointed when you didn’t get what you wanted as that you would be when you did. Roy remembered the day his father made sure that message was plain as could be. They were driving home from somewhere and stopped at a diner, taking seats at the counter. The menus they were given had pictures of the food: majestic bacon-and-turkey club sandwiches, enormous meatball heroes, turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes slathered in gravy, an open-faced steak sandwich on triangles of toast. At twelve Roy was always starved. “Can I—?” he began, but his old man had noticed where he was looking.

“No,” he said. “Order off the kids’ menu.” Because stuff there was cheaper, Roy knew. A boiled hot dog. A thin grilled-cheese sandwich that would come burned. Kiddie spaghetti.

As a rule Roy didn’t argue, because that just got him cuffed or worse. Out in public, though, he could sometimes lodge a small protest, so when the waitress came over to take their order he said, just loud enough for her to hear, “I think I’m too old for the kids’ menu.”

“How old are you?” she said, giving Roy a wink to let him know she was on his side, though his father noticed.

“Ten,” he answered before Roy could. Because that’s what it said on the menu: kids ten and under.

“He looks older,” the waitress said.

Roy saw his old man stiffen and give the woman a long, dark look. Down the counter, though, were some guys dressed in button-down shirts and ties, the kind of men his father always steered clear of, as if he suspected they were judges and one day he’d have to stand before them in court, and Roy saw him register their presence now. He’d make no scene here, Roy realized. “You gonna tell this young lady what you want,” his father said, “or make her guess?”

“What can I have?” Roy said.

The waitress was older than his father but apparently liked being referred to as “young” and had decided to be playful. “Yeah, Dad. What can he have?”

His father seemed to decide something on the spot. “Whatever he wants,” he said, loud enough for the men down the counter to hear.

“Really?” Roy said, incredulous. Never before had he been given such freedom.

“Just don’t order more than you can eat.”

The open-faced steak sandwich, as pictured, was thick and red in the center and served with a mountain of thin crispy-looking fries. “Even this?” he said, pointing at it, the most expensive item on the menu.

“Why not?” his father said, though Roy noticed his smile didn’t sit quite right on his face, as if it were masking another emotion entirely. “But you gotta eat it all. Every last bite.”

“Looks like he’s just the man for the job,” said one of the guys in ties, grinning and jovial. Roy himself shared the man’s confidence. Like he was indeed just the boy to tuck away a man-size steak.

When the food came, though, it was a different cut of meat from the one on the menu. Worse, it was cooked gray all the way through, tough as shoe leather, and the thick, crinkle-cut fries were doughy and cold. Roy immediately wished he’d ordered a cheeseburger, like his father, but he knew better than to say so, or that the steak wasn’t at all like the one in the picture. He kept hoping his father would notice the difference and complain about it, but he didn’t. When he finished his burger, he pushed the plate away, then pretended to read a section of newspaper somebody had left on the counter. Roy could tell he was watching him, though, out of the corner of his eye. “Every last bite,” his old man repeated under his breath when Roy showed signs of slowing down.

“There’s gristle.”

“That too,” he said, the forced smile gone now, the menace in his voice unmistakable. Maybe it was this that drew the waitress back down the counter. From the look on her face, she’d met men like his father before and hadn’t enjoyed it.

“Hey, good job!” she said, whisking the plate away — who’d want to eat those last few pieces of gristle? — before his father could object. “How about a hot-fudge sundae?”

“Sure,” his father said before Roy could say he was too full. “And make sure he gets a cherry on top.” He rose, then, and sauntered back to the restrooms.

The sundae was huge. Roy managed to choke down a couple bites, including the cherry, though through all the sweetness he could still taste the sour meat, and soon realized he was finished. There was simply no more room in his stomach. When his father came back and saw the waste, there’d be trouble. Maybe not here in the restaurant, but later, in the car, or maybe at home, the belt. What was keeping him? Roy wondered. He leaned back on his stool, expecting to see him come out of the lavatory, but he didn’t.