Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Grandpa Sully had done to combat fear, because he sensed that after his grandfather explained what had worked for him, he’d want Will to try it out, and Will already knew he didn’t want to. He doubted sincerely that Grandpa Sully had ever been truly afraid of anything. He could no more imagine his grandfather afraid than he could imagine his brother Wacker merciful. Wacker was a boy without pity. Add pity and he’d no longer be Wacker. He’d be somebody else entirely who looked liked Wacker. They’d have to rename him. Grandpa Sully? Who wasn’t even afraid of a policeman with a gun?

“I used to make a deal with myself,” Grandpa Sully explained. “I’d tell myself I’d be brave for exactly a minute.”

Will frowned, studied his grandfather.

“You could stand being brave for a minute, couldn’t you? You were brave for more than a minute back at the betting place, and a good thing happened. You won money.”

“What happened after the minute?”

“Then I’d let myself be scared again. But at least I could say I’d been brave for a minute. The next time I’d try to be brave for two minutes. That way I’d be getting braver and braver all the time.”

Will continued to study his grandfather, who appeared to be telling the truth. “What were you scared of?”

His grandfather shrugged. “I don’t remember. You won’t either when you’re my age.”

Will looked out the window at his fear. He didn’t believe he’d ever forget what he was afraid of. He didn’t believe his grandfather had forgotten. Which meant he hadn’t been afraid.

“Wait here a minute,” Grandpa Sully said, getting out of the car and limping around to the open rear end of the El Camino. Throwing open the lid to the big toolbox he kept there, Sully rummaged around in it, making a racket. Eventually he must have found whatever he was looking for, because he let the heavy lid of the toolbox fall shut and slid back into the front seat next to Will. “Here,” he said, tossing something heavy and metallic into Will’s lap.

Will caught the thing between his knees, then picked it up and examined it, confused until he identified the object as a stopwatch.

“You can time yourself,” his grandfather explained, showing Will how it worked. “That way you’ll know exactly how long you were brave.”

Will studied the watch dubiously for a minute, then the house more dubiously still, finally his grandfather. Then he took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Good boy.”

They got out of the El Camino and made their way up the rippled walkway, Will watching the second hand make its slow sweep, as if to get straight in his own mind just how long the minute he’d agreed to would be in real time.

Somewhere close by a dog was barking. It sounded to Sully like the dog was right out back of the house, though that was unlikely.

Sully came to a halt where Rub was seated, still sulking, and looked up at the house. There were no sounds of boards being ripped asunder, or any kind of work being accomplished, for that matter. “Where’s Peter?” it occurred to him to wonder.

Wherever the dog was, he barked louder and seemingly nearer now, a bark that had an angry, strangling quality to it.

“That’s what I come out to tell you,” Rub said angrily, “but all you wanted to do was pretend I wasn’t even there. So now I’m not telling nothing.” He looked away again, whether out of anger or because he had tears in his eyes Sully couldn’t tell.

Will looked so worried by Rub’s refusal that Sully gave him a quick wink and a grin. “Rub?” he said.

“What?”

“Where’s Peter?”

“Over to the other house,” Rub said, still pouting but apparently satisfied that he’d held out as long as he could under such fierce interrogation.

“What other house, Rub? There are about five hundred other houses right here in Bath. More if we include the whole state.”

“The other house we’re working on,” Rub said, angrily again.

“Carl’s camp?” Sully said. Had Peter taken a load of hardwood out to the lake?

“No, that one,” Rub said, pointing up the street at the Miles Anderson house. They all turned to look then, just as Peter and another man came out the front door and stood on the porch talking. When they shook hands, Sully frowned and said, “Who’s that with Peter, Rub? And don’t tell me it’s Miles Anderson either, because he said he wasn’t coming up till the first of the year.”

Rub started to open his mouth, then shut it again.

“Who is it, Rub?”

“It’s Miles Fuckin’ Anderson, just like you said. And don’t blame me.”

“Shit,” Sully said. The person he blamed was Carl Roebuck for taking him off the big job to do a little one which would probably cost him the big one. Then again, maybe not. They heard laughter coming from up the block, and Peter and Miles Anderson sauntered down the steps together amiably enough. And when Anderson got into his little car, Peter leaned down and waved in the window. When Anderson did a U-turn and headed back up Main toward the village, Peter watched him go for a second, then crossed the street and started toward them.

Will darted down the steps and up the street toward his father, while Sully took a seat on the porch steps next to Rub, who continued morose. “I wouldn’t sit here too long,” Sully advised. “The tip of your dick’ll freeze to the step.”

Rub glanced down to see if this were possible.

“I forgot,” Sully said. “Yours doesn’t hang down quite that far, does it.”

“Yours don’t either,” Rub said, grinning sheepishly now, too happy to have his friend back to hold a grudge much longer.

“That’s true,” Sully said, nudging Rub hard. “I fold it so it won’t.” Rub slid away, out of easy nudging range.

“You want to know how many times I have to fold it?” Sully said, nudging Rub again, since he hadn’t moved quite far enough to be out of nudging range completely.

“It would hurt if you folded it,” Rub said, imagining.

“Not mine,” Sully assured him. “You know what I like best?”

Rub blushed, wondered if it had to do with ole Toby Roebuck.

“Carnation Milk,” Sully said. “You know why?”

Rub was frowning, trying to recall why. He felt like he knew the answer to this question, though it wouldn’t come.

“No tits to pull, no shit to haul,” Sully explained. “You get any work done in there?”

“Almost all of it. Are we going to stop for lunch?”

“Stop work or stop sitting here freezing our dicks?”

“Work.”

“I suppose.”

“Good,” Rub said. Together they sat and listened to the barking dog.

Will had joined up with his father and they were slowly making their way up the street toward where Sully and Rub were sitting. The boy was talking excitedly, showing his father the money he’d won, the stopwatch Sully had given him. Even a block away, Peter looked less than thrilled.

“Where the hell’s that damn dog I’m hearing?” Sully wondered. “He sounds like he’s inside the house.”

“He’s in the kitchen,” Rub said.

“Who?”

“The dog,” Rub said. He could have sworn they’d been discussing the dog.

“What dog?”

“The one that’s barking. Carl’s,” Rub explained. That had been the second thing he’d been trying to tell Sully when he’d gone out to the car and been sent away for his trouble. There’d been a third thing too, but now Rub couldn’t remember what it was.

Sully opened the front door and stepped inside. From the doorway he could see Rasputin slumped against the kitchen cabinet Carl Roebuck had chained him to. The reason the dog’s bark had a strangling quality to it was that the dog was apparently strangling. Carl had run the animal’s chain through one of the upper kitchen cabinets, which was fine as long as the dog was standing up, because the chain was just long enough. But either the dog had lost his balance and slumped against the cabinets or had tried to lie down of his own volition, only to discover that the chain did not allow this. Spying Sully and Rub in the doorway, the dog tried valiantly to get to its feet, but the linoleum floor did not provide much traction and the stroke-deadened side of its body did not work in concert with the good side, and so the dog quickly gave up and slumped against the cabinets again, his head and neck suspended mere inches from the floor.