Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

When Clive Jr. arrived at the small subdivision of the Farm Home subsidy housing Carl Roebuck was building on the edge of Ultimate Escape land, he pulled off onto the gravel road and studied the half-built, no-frills, three-bedroom ranch houses. Now here, he thought, was a Bath-size, small-potatoes, strictly fringe financial venture. Imaginationwise, it was one small step above Squeers Waste. A lot of area small businesses that had made plans contingent upon the existence of the theme park were going to be in serious trouble now. He’d heard a rumor that Carl Roebuck was building these houses not with an eye toward selling them but rather to be compensated for them when he sold the land. If true, they wouldn’t even pass an honest inspection. Of course, for the right price, he could get the right inspection, just as Clive had managed to get a high appraisal on the tract of swampland that was to have been The Ultimate Escape and would now be worthless again, much to the astonishment of the investors. Clive Jr. couldn’t help but smile. He had long wanted to be the most important man in Bath, a man who, like his father, everyone knew. Well, in another week — another few days, probably — he was going to be famous.

Clive Jr. sat with the engine running, visible exhaust billowing from the Continental’s tailpipe. His mother had been right, as usual. There would always be bad locations. And, also in accordance with her prediction, he’d discovered this truth by investing in this one, personally and professionally. Where had he gone wrong? In Texas and Arizona, he had learned about faith and land. D. C. Collins, years ago, had explained it to him, taken him out to the middle of the desert where there was nothing but stone and sand and cactus and sun. That and a promotional billboard announcing Silver Lake Estates. “See the lake?” Collins asked, pointing off at nothing. Clive Jr. had seen no lake and said so. “You’re wrong, though,” Collins had explained. “It’s there because people believe it will be there. If enough people believe there’s going to be a lake, there will be one. It’ll get built somehow. Look at this land.” He offered a sweeping gesture that took in the whole desert, from the ground they were standing on all the way to California. “What’s the first thing you notice?” Before Clive Jr. could speak, Collins answered. “No water. Not a drop. So how come these cities keep growing? Dallas. Phoenix. Tucson. It’s because people believe there will be water. And they’re right. If people keep moving, they’ll pipe water all the way from Antarctica if they have to. Trust me. You come back here in two years, and there’ll be the prettiest little lake you ever saw, right out there, a fountain in the middle of it, shooting water fifty feet in the air. The only thing that can stop it from happening is if about half the people who have already invested their money get cold feet. If that happens, there won’t be enough water out here to support a family of Gila monsters. We’re talking faith here, Clive. Trust that billboard, because it’s the future, sure as shootin’, or if it isn’t we’re all fucked.”

Clive Jr. had learned his lesson, trusted the billboard. The first thing he’d done was put up one of his own, announcing his faith in the future. It had seemed to him that Collins was right and that he himself, Clive Jr., was the man to bring the message home. Bath’s problem, he saw, in light of this revelation, was a lack of faith, a timidity, a small-mindedness. Two hundred years ago the citizens of Bath had not believed in Jedediah Halsey’s Sans Souci, his grand hotel in the wilderness, with its three hundred rooms. Imagine. Scoffing at a man’s faith in the future. No wonder God had allowed their springs to run dry.

From where Clive Jr. sat alongside the road at the entrance to Carl Roebuck’s development, he could see the demonic clown billboard in the distance on the other side of the highway. A couple of months ago he’d overheard two employees at the bank agree that the clown bore a striking resemblance to himself. No doubt they’d soon be referring to the failed project as Clive’s Folly. He adjusted his rearview so that he could see his own reflection, examine his own features “after the fall” to see if he could spot the resemblance. Not much, he decided. Actually, he took after his father, a fact for which he’d often given profound thanks. And yet, it now occurred to him, imagining Clive Sr. the way he’d looked when Clive Jr. was a boy, his father had what could only be described as a pointed head, which was why he always wore a baseball cap, even in the house when Miss Beryl would let him. Clive Sr. had seemed to understand that when he took it off, with his virtuous, close-cropped hair and his large ears, he was, well, funny-looking.

Clive Jr. readjusted the rearview, regarded the gray exhaust escaping from the Continental’s tailpipe and tried, as he’d been trying all morning, to stave off panic, the worst panic he could recall feeling since he was a boy fearful of a beating at the hands of a gang of neighborhood bullies. Were he sitting in a closed garage, it occurred to him, this very same behavior would be the death of him. But as it was the plumes of blue smoke dissipated harmlessly, or at least invisibly, into the wide world of air and earth and water.

Had Sully been the sort of man to indulge regret, he’d have regretted not having done his laundry before going to jail. Socks seemed to be the main problem. Or rather, the complete absence of clean socks. Dirty ones were his long suit. He thought of Carl Roebuck’s bureau, so full of socks and underwear, a month’s supply, and felt a stab of envy. “We gotta make a quick stop at the men’s store,” he called out to Wirf, who snorted awake on the sofa where he’d fallen asleep watching television while Sully was in the shower. “What?”

Sully slipped into his dress shoes, barefoot. “I gotta get some socks.” Silence a moment for this to compute. “How does a man in jail run out of socks?”

“Easy,” Sully explained from the doorway. “I was out of socks when I went in. This look okay?”

In addition to having no clean socks, he was also missing the pants that matched his suit jacket. Had he been a betting man, and he was, he’d have bet they were at the dry cleaner’s and had been since the last time he wore his suit. Which would have been when? Things he took to the dry cleaner’s usually stayed there until he needed them again.

“Spiffy,” Wirf said without much interest. “I’m not sure I’d even bother with socks. You don’t want to overdress.”

“Spoken like a man with only one foot to freeze,” Sully said. “Let’s go.”

Wirf stood, looked at the television all the way across the huge living room. “You need a remote control for this thing,” he observed.

Sully looked around the room, did a quick inventory. He needed a lot of things. A remote control wouldn’t even make the list. Still, he had the impression, indeed had felt it as soon as they’d entered, that there was something different about the flat. Nothing was missing, nothing misplaced so far as he could tell, yet it still felt different, somehow. An atmospheric shift, he decided, of the sort that always registered after one of Clive Jr.’s unauthorized visits, except that Clive’s presence was easy to detect because of his aftershave. This was a more subtly sweet smell that he couldn’t quite place. It smelled like something young, he finally decided.

Or maybe it was just his own absence he was smelling. A week of no rank work clothes piling up on the floor of his bedroom closet. Which reminded him that in two days, the first of the year, he was supposed to be permanently absent from this flat. “Where’s this apartment I’m supposed to look at?” he asked Wirf.