Nobody's Fool (100 page)

"You going to pick up that end, or what?"

"You're drunk," Peter guessed. Either that or he could smell the beer in the confined space of the U-Haul trailer.

"A little," Sully admitted.

"This is heavy," Peter said.

"I can lift my end," Sully assured him.

"Just worry about your own."

Peter studied him a moment.

"I get this feeling we're fighting over a woman again."

"I get the feeling you expect this desk to walk upstairs on its own if you wait long enough," Sully said.

"Come on."

"Fine," Peter said.

"Kill yourself." When they got up the ramp and onto the porch, Peter set his end down.

"Let me back up, at least," he suggested.

"No."

"Fine." They lifted then and moved through the door to the foot of the stairs, Sully backing, Peter inching forward.

"Slow now," Sully said, feeling the first step at his heel. The problem, he knew, was how to use the bad leg to step with it or plant with it.

Plant, he decided, since the good leg would bend at the knee and he'd have to thrust off it. They began going up the stairs a step at time.

He lifted from a ridge underneath the rim, and after each step he allowed the legs of the desk to rest a moment on the step below.

They'd only gone four or five steps before he could see, even through his beery fog, that this was foolishness. Peter and Rub could walk the bastard of a desk right up in the morning. It would take them thirty seconds, and they wouldn't have to stop once, much less at every step.

A year ago Sully himself would not have had to stop. Worse, their slow progress was making the job twice as hard on Peter, who had to bear the weight of the desk between lifts. Sully could see his son sweating profusely in the frigid air.

"You enjoying yourself?" Peter wanted to know when they were about halfway.

"Yes, I am," Sully said, hoisting another step.

"Have you decided what it is you're trying to prove?"

"We're arguing over a woman, I thought."

"That's right." Sully heaved again, and they went up another step.

"Well, pray for me then," he suggested.

"Because if I lose my end of this desk, we won't have a dick between us."

The living room that had seemed so spacious that morning was now crowded with boxes that Peter had stacked in rows in front of the fireplace and the built-in bookshelves and along the walls. The two men guided the desk between them and to the far corner, where Peter had reserved a space for it.

"I thought you said Charlotte took everything," Sully said, looking around the room at all the cardboard boxes.

"She did," Peter said.

"These are mostly my books." Sully tried to take this in. There had to be seventy boxes. In the next room, the shower thunked off. Sully hadn't been aware of the sound, or its significance, until it stopped.

He studied Peter, who leaned against the desk.

"Didi says hi," he told his son. If Peter was surprised, he didn't show it.

"I was afraid she'd turn up. She jump you yet?"

"No. She jumped Carl, though."

"She will," he said, adding, "Just to get at me."

"I should probably let her," Sully said.

"Just to get at you." More sounds from the next room.

"I better say you're here." They heard the bathroom door open then, and Sully purposely turned away. He was tempted to leave, and when Peter followed Toby Roebuck into the bedroom, he nearly did. Behind the door he could hear urgent, confidential voices. From the front window he saw the big IGA sign across the street flicker and go dark, but just before it did he caught a flicker of shiny red metal in the street below. Sitting on the big oak desk, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the dark, even though the solitude turned up the volume on the song his knee was singing.

That afternoon and evening, once Jocko's pill took effect and he'd found a few decent distractions (beer, bourbon, poker, a pretty half-naked young woman), he'd almost been able to forget about Vera and his knee, its singing reduced to background vocals, the orchestration to soft violins. Now the marching band was back again, but just tuning up, not stomping to the rhythm of the bass drums. For which he was thankful, being far too worn out to march. And indeed there were other things to be thankful for. His luck had finally turned. He still had his triple winnings and another five hundred or so from the afternoon's poker game. He wasn't out of the woods, but tomorrow he'd be able to go see HCarld Proxmire and give him fifteen hundred on the truck, which would hold him for another couple months. And he'd have his first and last months' rent on the new apartment he hadn't found yet. If his luck held. Miles Anderson wouldn't return for a while and see how far behind he was on the house. It shouldn't take more than a couple weeks to get more or less caught up now that Rub was back in the fold. Peter had managed to convince Anderson that everything would get done.

Probably the smart thing would be to turn the whole Anderson project over to Peter. If it snowed, he could afford to do that. Maybe he could afford to anyway. Sully felt the big wad of bills bulging comfortably in his pants pocket. He hadn't even counted it yet. Maybe he was even better off than he knew. When he awoke with a start, he saw that over half the boxes in the living room were now unpacked and the floor-to-ceiling bookcases were now full of books. Toby Roebuck, barefoot, her hair still damp, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, was standing on a chair and filling up the top shelf with volumes Peter was handing to her. The empty boxes they had used to form a wall between themselves and him. It was Toby Roebuck who first noticed he was awake.

"Sully," she said.

"How can you sleep sitting up like that?"

In fact, he wished he hadn't, at least not for so long. He'd slept slumped against the wall, and his neck was stiff.

"Hello, Mrs.

Roebuck," he said, trying to stretch some of the kinks out. She gave him a look.

"Don't Mrs. Roebuck me. Sully," she said cheerfully.

"You're a documented sinner."

"That was a long time ago," he said, standing up and testing his knee.

"Anymore I'm too tired to sin."

"My point exactly. Don't criticize people who have the energy." She cast a glance at Peter, who didn't look like he had any great wealth of energy himself. He must have, though. Sully reflected. There were at least two women who thought so.

"I don't recall saying anything except hello," Sully told her.

"If you decide to get married, let me know. I'll give away the bride."

"Don't pretend you approve, either," Toby Roebuck said.

"That's even worse." Sully flexed tentatively at the knee.

"Let me see if I understand. I'm not supposed to approve and I'm not supposed to disapprove. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Break down some of these boxes," Peter suggested.

"There's a pair of scissors right behind you on the desk."

"Just don't throw them all away," Sully told him, picking up the scissors.

"I'm moving myself in a couple days."

"I'll save a couple," Peter agreed.

"You think two will do it?"

"I wish I'd known you were attracted to smart-asses," Sully told Toby Roebuck.

"He has other qualities," she said.

"If it were just being a smart-ass, I'd be attracted to you." They finished about half an hour later. With all the books on the shelves and the boxes broken down and in a single tall pile, the flat again looked bare.

"You're going to need a few things, aren't you," Sully said.

Toby's voice came in from the kitchen.

"Pots and pans and plates and glasses and silverware, for instance."

"I've got all that stuff," Sully said.

"We can bring it over tomorrow."

"Then what would you use?" Peter asked.

"I haven't eaten a meal at home in five years," Sully told him truthfully, pulling on his coat and gloves to leave.

"That's sad," Toby said from the kitchen doorway.

"Not really, dolly," Sully said, going over to the window. The street was dark, but he could make out the shape of Carl Roebuck's sports car at the curb below. Peter put on his coat too.

"I'll walk you down. I've got to close up the trailer anyhow." Sully glanced around the room again.

Even empty it looked good. The fireplace, surrounded by books. He hadn't seen that in his mind's eye when they'd looked at the flat this morning, hadn't imagined how it might look.

"The place is going to be all right," he admitted.

"Bring your mother over tomorrow. It'll make her feel better."

Peter nodded.

"Nothing reassures her like books."

"She'll love it here, then. It's a regular library," Toby said, pronouncing it "lie-berry," and Sully thought he saw Peter smile.

Sully led the way down the dark stairway, holding on to the railing and taking the stairs one at a time, both feet on each step before proceeding to the next. What had possessed him, he wondered, a few hours ago, to back up these same stairs with a heavy oak desk? On the other hand, what had possessed Iiim to punch a policeman last week or Carl Roebuck this afternoon?

As always, to Sully, the deepest of life's mysteries were the mysteries of his own behavior. At the foot of the stairs, Peter flicked a wall switch to no purpose.

"One more thing to do tomorrow," he said, staring up into the dark of the vaulted ceiling.

"Thanks for the help with the desk." Sully nodded, didn't say anything for a minute.

Peter, he was coming to understand, was capable of generosity. Sully hadn't been a help with the desk, he knew. He'd made more of a job of it, not less. His son was simply being kind. Maybe this was one of the other qualities Toby Roebuck was referring to.

"I'd lock up down here if she stays the night," Sully warned.

"That's her husband parked across the street in the red car."

"He followed us as far as Albany," Peter said.

"When we went to Morgantown."

"She went with you?" Peter didn't say anything.

"How did all of this come about?" Sully wondered, genuinely curious.

"Quickly," Peter said, as if this explanation might suffice. It did not.

Sully had never fallen in with any woman quickly.

"Well," Sully said.

"Look out for Carl. This is all new to him." It was odd talking to Peter in such a confined, dark space. Easier, in some ways.

Often it was the expression on his son's face that made talking to him difficult, the wry, detached smugness. His voice, on the other hand, was pleasant enough.

"He's the one that's always playing around," Sully explained.

"He's got to get used to the shoe being on the other foot."

Sully could see just well enough to see his son shrug.

"The shoe's been on the other foot before," Peter said.

"At least according to Toby." Sully considered this for a moment.

"I doubt it," he said.

"Okay," Peter agreed.

"Have it your way."

"She's a pretty nice girl."

Peter chuckled.

"She's a pretty nice woman. And you've put her on a pretty tall pedestal."

"Well," Sully said and let his voice trail off, glad that Peter apparently had no interest in confiding to him Toby Roebuck's past transgressions, if indeed he knew of any.

"Swing by the house on Bowdon in the morning before you return the trailer. There's some furniture in the spare room. If there's anything you want, take it."

Peter said he would.

"There might not be anything you can use," Sully admitted.

"Who knows?" He put his hand on the doorknob.

"I'll have a word with our friend on the way out. He'll listen to me."

"Do me a favor and don't," Peter told him.

"You'll just make things worse.

Again. " This, Sully realized, was a reference to his earlier refusal to wait for the ambulance when he'd slapped Vera. The horror of the scene had been running through his mind all afternoon, despite the excellent diversions-- beer and poker and bare-breasted girls--with which he'd been surrounded. " You think your mother's going to be okay? "

" I don't know," Peter admitted. " They're going to keep her at Schuyler overnight.

You know how she is. She's not any different, really, just worse. "

" You could probably help her out more," Sully ventured. " Not really," Peter said. " The world doesn't do what she wants it to, and she gets frustrated. " This was the same conclusion Sully had come to thirty-five years ago, of course, and Peter couldn't make his mother happy or content anymore than Sully had been able to all those years ago. Still, it now seemed cowardly that Sully had not tried harder, endured more. It was one thing to realize you were shoveling shit against the tide, another to give up the enterprise before you got soiled. Especially when, in other respects, you intended to keep shoveling different shit against other tides. " It sure doesn't take much to get her started anymore," Sully reflected, recalling that the mere sight of Rub in her driveway had set her off.