Richard Russo - Nobody's Fool

“You’re back, Rufus,” he ventured.

Roof did not turn around. Nor did he ever. When the diner was busy and the door opened, everyone up and down the lunch counter leaned forward or backward to see who it was, except Roof, who preferred to face his work than the cause of it. “Town this size need a colored man,” he observed.

“We realized that when you left,” Sully said, grinning at Cass, who’d watched him come in with knowing amusement and had as yet made no move in his direction. “Can I get a cup of coffee, or are you on strike?”

“I should be on strike where you’re concerned,” she told him, grabbing the pot. “Anybody ever tell you that funerals aren’t the place for practical jokes?”

Yesterday, halfway through the service, Otis had discovered the rubber alligator in his pocket and let out a bleat that had caused everyone in the church but Hattie to jump.

“He was supposed to find it when he got home,” Sully admitted.

There was enough thick coffee in the bottom of the pot to give Sully about three quarters of a cup. “There,” Cass told him. “That’s all you get, and more than you deserve.”

“Don’t make another pot,” Sully told her.

“I won’t,” she assured him. “Starting next week, other people make the coffee.”

“Speaking of other people …”

“She’s out back, taking a delivery,” Cass explained. “We had a bet. She said you wouldn’t have the nerve to come in today. Nerve is my word, not hers.”

“I wish people would quit wagering on my behavior,” Sully admitted, recalling that someone (who?) had won a pool when he dropped out of the college.

“You make things up with Rub yet?” Cass said.

“I’m on my way over there as soon as I leave here,” Sully told her.

“Good,” Cass said. “You two were a popular quinella.”

They were grinning at each other now, two old friends. “You going to stay around awhile, or what?”

She shook her head. “The movers come Monday. Wirf’s going to mail me a check when the sale goes through.”

“Mail it where?”

“Boulder, Colorado.”

“Why, for Christ sake?”

“Why not?”

Sully shrugged. “All right, be that way.”

“I will.”

Her certainty made Sully nervous.

“Roof came back, didn’t you, Rufus,” Sully observed. “You didn’t like North Carolina?”

Finished, Roof tossed his brick aside. “Full of lazy kids,” he said with surprising vehemence. “My grandkids. They think you stupid if you work. Make damn near as much not working. Do a little scammin’ on the side. They say, what the matter with yo’ brain? Workin’ like a nigger. I told ’em, I don’t know what you are, but I’m a nigger. A workin’ nigger.”

Sully looked at Cass, who was also stunned. This was more than Roof had said in twenty years. It sounded like twenty years of need might be behind it.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with work but the pay,” he said, pouring vinegar on the grill, causing a toxic cloud.

Sully leaned back from the powerful fumes. “That and the conditions.”

“And the time wasted,” Cass added.

“And the aches and pains,” Sully said.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with work,” Roof repeated. Perhaps a man who’s waited twenty years to say something is not easily joked out of it. Finished with the grill, he filled his water glass, drained it, then ambled out from behind the counter, tossing his apron into the linen hamper. “Y’all be good in Colorado,” he told Cass without looking at her. And then, setting his empty glass on the counter, he left.

“You don’t suppose Rufus has flipped, do you?” Sully said when the door swung shut behind him.

“No, I don’t,” Cass told him.

From the back room, Sully heard Ruth’s voice and turned on his stool, expecting to see her come in. “Who’s going to live in the apartment out back?” it occurred to him to ask.

“Probably Ruth,” she said.

Sully frowned at this intelligence.

“She’s thinking about putting the house on the market.”

“What about Zack?”

“At the moment he’s living in the trailer out back.”

This was the first Sully had heard of any of these arrangements. They increased his feeling of disorientation. “What trailer?”

“The one the daughter had been living in. You should talk her into renting the apartment to you,” she suggested.

“I don’t think so.” Sully grinned, though the possibility had momentarily crossed his mind. “I’d be better off going to Colorado with you. Safer.”

“You’ll be plenty safe right here,” Cass said significantly.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Ruth’s through with you. Meaning you’ve finally managed to lose one of the few women in this town worth wanting.”

“Who are the others?”

“Good.” Cass threw up her hands. “Make a joke.”

“You think Ruth would have been better off if she’d divorced Zack and married me?”

Ruth came in from out back right then, saving Cass from having to answer. Ruth studied Sully a moment, then consulted her watch.

“You owe me a dollar,” Cass told her.

“Put it on my tab,” Sully suggested.

Ruth went to the register, lifted the bottom of the cash drawer, slid a folded invoice underneath. “Your days of running tabs are over, friend.”

Sully shrugged, took out a dollar and slid it next to his empty cup. “Maybe if I start paying I can get a full cup of coffee now and then.”

The two women exchanged glances. “You okay to close by yourself?” Cass said.

“Yup,” Ruth assured her. “You’re a free woman.”

“My philosophy professor says there’s no such thing as freedom,” Sully offered.

“He said this before or after he met you?” Ruth wondered.

Cass was looking around the place with what were clearly mixed emotions.

Sully, for some reason, squirmed. “What time are you off Monday?”

“Early.”

“How early?”

“Six,” she said. “Maybe seven.”

“You need help packing?”

“The movers are doing it all,” she said. “I’m not lifting a finger.”

Sully shrugged. “I’ll come by.”

“Don’t,” Cass said, sounding like she meant it, and he saw that her eyes were full.

“Send me a postcard,” he suggested. “Addressed where?”

“To The Horse, with the rest of my mail. Piss Tiny off.”

She came around the counter then and they hugged, and Cass whispered a thanks in his ear. “What for?” he said.

“No clue,” she admitted.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ruth warned when Cass was gone.

“Like what?”

“like I just won her restaurant in a crooked poker game.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Sully said, realizing that this was precisely the way he must have looked. “In fact, I was about to ask how business was.”

“Too early to tell,” she said. “Some of the regulars are going down to the donut shop for their morning coffee, or so I hear.”

Sully nodded, ashamed. “They’ll be back.”

“If not, to hell with them,” Ruth said jauntily, meeting his eye directly.

“You get a good deal on this place?” Sully said, deciding a subtle change of emphasis couldn’t hurt.

“The best,” Ruth said. “I got a good price and used Vince’s money.”

“Can’t beat that,” Sully conceded.

“Nope,” Ruth agreed. “It reminded me a lot of the deal Kenny Roebuck offered you twenty years ago.”

Sully nodded, not so much acknowledging the truth of her observation as her apparent decision that they would quarrel. “I hope you’ll be as content with your decision as I’ve always been with mine,” he told her.

Ruth couldn’t help but smile. “Your head must be made of solid granite.”