Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

And so Clive Jr. had gotten off at the next exit, headed south along the deserted two-lane blacktops of the western Alleghenies, flying through at two in the morning a series of tiny, dying villages with little more than a dark, run-down gas station/garage/convenience store to offer. America, it occurred to him now, was still full of bad locations.

Feeling the shoulder again, Clive Jr. pulled the Lincoln back onto the blacktop, surprised by the fact that the car did not react immediately to his command. There seemed to be a split-second delay between his turning the wheel and the car’s responding, which caused Clive Jr. to wonder if he had been in a rut. But when he hit a straightaway, the car felt fine again. The sensation was strange but also familiar, though he had to travel back more than fifty years to locate it. How old had he been at that amusement park when he was placed in one of the brightly painted kiddie cars that slowly circled an oval track? He couldn’t remember, but what he did recall was his sense of disappointment to discover that the little car’s steering wheel was a fraud, that his spinning it left or right, fast or slow, had no effect upon the car’s direction, anymore than the two fake pedals — supposedly accelerator and brake — on the floor had. And he remembered trying to conceal his disappointment from his father and mother, even, perhaps, from himself.

In a wide spot in the road called Hatch, Clive Jr. flew out of the woods, took the blinking yellow caution light at sixty-five and was just as quickly back in the woods again, tall trees forming a cathedral arch above. Then the three-quarter moon came out from behind some clouds and sat on the Lincoln’s hood ornament, on what Clive Jr. imagined must be the western horizon, lighting his way. He wondered how fast he’d have to go to keep the moon right there, to keep the sun from rising behind him. It would have been nice to prevent another sunrise. Speed, enough of it, could do that. He checked his rearview to make sure that nothing, not even the dawn, was gaining on him, and was gratified to see that the small rectangle of mirror was perfectly black.

Even had he not been looking at the rearview, it was unlikely that he would have seen the pothole or, having seen it, would have been able to avoid it. The Lincoln’s right front tire hit the hole dead center, the right rear wheel a quickened heartbeat later, sending a shiver throughout the Lincoln and a buzz through the steering wheel and into Clive Jr.’s soft hands. “Ouch,” he said out loud and, hearing his voice, considered it might be wise to slow down. He couldn’t, after all, outrun the dawn. Then he felt the Lincoln on the shoulder again, and felt that too when he turned the steering wheel, the Lincoln did not respond.

Before him, a two-hundred-yard straightaway and, at sixty-five miles an hour, not much time. Enough, though, to recall Harold Proxmire’s warning to get the Lincoln’s axle checked after Joyce parked it on the tree stump, enough time to imagine what lay ahead at the end of the straightaway, enough time to imagine what it would feel like to leave the road, to be briefly airborne, headlights straining to locate the other side of the ravine, with only darkness and silence below, time to reflect that his own father had been killed going thirty miles an hour on a quiet residential street without the car hitting anything, time to calculate his own slim odds.

When to Clive Jr.’s surprise the Lincoln’s steering responded again and he took the curve at sixty, sending pebbles screaming off into the dark ravine, he was curiously devoid of emotion, and when he ran his tongue over his swollen lower lip, he was disappointed to discover that very little of the salty blood taste lingered there. By applying pressure on the swelling with his teeth, however, he was able to burst the ruptured skin like a grape, after which his tongue was again rich with the sweet taste of blood.

Ahead a vista opened in the trees, and far below Clive Jr. saw a major highway running straight toward a glow in the west. It looked like a scene viewed from the window of an airplane. The Pennsylvania Turnpike, he guessed, and Pittsburgh.

He felt again, without fear, the play in the wheel, that he was neither in nor out of control. So this, he reflected, was what it felt like to be Sully.

Judge Barton Flatt was not a well man. His jowls were loose and jaundiced, and except for a single tuft of hair on his forehead, his hair had fallen out, thanks to the chemotherapy. He was ensconced in a leather chair behind his huge oak desk in chambers, but he was still visibly uncomfortable, as his incessant squirming testified. He had the look of a man in a titanic struggle against imminent flatulence, and the other men in chambers eyed him nervously. In addition to the sick judge there were in attendance Satch Henry, the county prosecutor, Police Chief Ollie Quinn, Officer Doug Raymer in civies and sunglasses, a red-eyed Wirf, who looked as if someone had dressed him while he lay in bed, and of course Sully, in whose honor this meeting had been called. “Okay, boys and girls,” said Judge Flatt, closing the cover of the manila folder on the police report in front of him. “Let’s see if we can’t dispense some small-town justice right here, right now.”

“Your Honor, could we all sit down, at least?” Chief Quinn requested. Five folding chairs had been set up in a semicircle around the judge’s desk, and all five were occupied except Sully’s. Sully was limping along the back, book-lined wall. His knee was throbbing to the beat of a brass band, and he’d decided it was best to march.

“Mr. Sullivan,” said Judge Flatt, “would you be more comfortable seated or standing?”

“Standing, right now,” Sully said, adding, after a moment, “your Honor.”

“He’s not standing, he’s pacing,” the police chief observed.

Judge Flatt shifted in his chair, causing the other men to lean back in theirs, as if from a jab. “I may join him before we’re through.”

“He’s making me nervous, is all,” the chief explained, looking over his shoulder at Sully warily.

“Everybody who isn’t in jail makes you nervous, Ollie,” the judge observed. “You’re perpetuating a fascist stereotype.” Then to Sully, “Go pace over on that side of the room, Mr. Sullivan. Our police chief fears a sneak attack.”

“Your Honor,” said Satch Henry, his hand raised like an obedient student in an elementary school. “If you aren’t feeling well, we could postpone—”

“No, we’re going to do this now,” Judge Flatt said. “Mr. Sullivan here’s already spent one holiday in jail, and I’m not going to feel any more like doing this next week than I do now. Unless you were suggesting this be postponed until next month after I’m retired and you can bring this case before someone more to your liking.”

“That’s not what I meant at all, your Honor,” Henry said quickly.

“Good,” said the judge. “Then let’s proceed.”

Wirf, who had not said a word since entering chambers, examined his fingernails, a trace of a smile on his lips. He and Sully had conferred briefly a half hour before, and Wirf had explained what he thought was likely to happen. “If things go like I think they will, I’m not going to say much (“You never do,” Sully had reminded him), and I don’t want you to open your mouth unless you’re asked a direct question. Just remember, no matter what happens in there, the fact that we’re in chambers to begin with is the good news. Satch Henry knows that, and he’s ready to bust a gut. This thing’s going to go our way unless we mess it up.”