Nobody's Fool (4 page)

"You're talking to yourself, though," he pointed out, "so it can't be long."

"I wasn't talking to myself. I was talking to Ed," Miss Beryl informed her tenant, indicating Ed on the wall.

"Oh," Sully said, feigning relief.

"And here I thought you were going batty." He sat down heavily on Miss Beryl's Queen Anne chair, causing her to wince. The chair was delicate, a gift from Clive Sr. " who had bought it for her at an antique shop in Schuyler Springs. She had talked him into buying it, actually. Clive Sr. had thought it too fragile, with its slender curved legs and arms. A large man, he'd pointed out that if he ever sat in it, " the damn thing" would probably collapse and run him through. " It wasn't my intention for you to sit in it, ever," Miss Beryl had informed him. " In fact, it wasn't my intention for anyone to sit in it. " Clive Sr. had frowned at this intelligence and opened his mouth to say the obvious--that it didn't make a lot of sense to buy a chair nobody was going to sit in--when he noticed the expression on his beloved's face and shut his mouth. Like many men addicted to sports, Clive Sr. was also a religious man and one who'd been raised to accept life's mysteries--the Blessed 20 Trinity, for one instance, a woman's reasoning, for another. Also, he remembered just in time that Miss Beryl had made him a present, just that winter, of what she referred to as the world's ugliest corduroy recliner, the very one he had his heart set on. To Clive Sr. "s way of thinking, there was nothing ugly about the chair, and it was certainly more substantial, with its solid construction and foam padding and sturdy fabric, than this pile of skinny mahogany sticks, but he guessed that he was had, and he wrote out the check. Both had been correct.

Miss Beryl now reflected. The corduroy recliner, safely out of sight in the spare bedroom, was the ugliest chair in the world, and the Queen Anne was fragile. She hated for anyone, much less Sully, to sit in it.

There were many rudimentary concepts that eluded her tenant, and pride of ownership was among these. Sully himself owned nothing that he placed any value on, and it always seemed inexplicable to him that people worried about harm coming to their possessions. Hisexistence had always been so full of breakage that he viewed it as one of life's constants and no more worth worrying about than the weather. Once, years ago, Miss Beryl had broached this touchy subject with Sully, tried to indicate those special things among her possessions that she would hate to see broken, but the discussion appeared to either bore or annoy him, so she'd given up. She could, of course, ask him not to sit in this one particular chair, but the request would just irritate him and he wouldn't stop in for a while until he forgot what she'd done to irritate him, and when he returned he'd go right back to the same chair. So Miss Beryl decided to risk the chair. She enjoyed her tenant's stopping by in the morning "to see if she was dead yet" because she'd always been fond of Sully and understood his fondness for her as well.

Affection wasn't the sort of thing men like Sully easily admitted to, and of course he'd never told her he was fond of her, but she knew he was, just the same. In some respects he was the opposite of Clive Jr.

" who steadfastly maintained that he visited her out of affection and concern but who was visibly impatient from the moment he lumbered up her porch steps. He was always on his way somewhere else, and the mere sight of his mother seemed to satisfy him, as did the sound other voice on the telephone, and so Miss Beryl was unable to fend off the suspicion whenever the phone rang and the caller hung up without speaking that it was Clive Jr. calling to ascertain the fact of his mother's continued existence. " Could I interest you in a nice hot cup of tea? " Miss Beryl said, watching apprehensively as the Queen Anne protested under Sully's squirming weight.

"Not now, not ever," Sully told her, his forehead perspiring. Getting into and out of his boots was one of the day's more arduous tasks. The good leg wasn't that difficult, but the other, since fracturing the kneecap, remained stiff and painful until midmorning. This early, about all he could do was loosen the laces all the way and work his foot into the opening as best he could. He'd locate the shoe's tongue and laces later.

"I'll take my usual cup of coffee, though." He was having such a terrible time with the boot, she said, "I suppose I could make a pot of coffee." He rested a moment, grinned at her.

"No thanks. Beryl."

"How come you're wearing your clodhoppers?" Miss Beryl wondered. In fact. Sully was dressed in preaccidcnt attire--worn gray work pants, faded denim shirt over thermal underwear, a quilted, sleeveless vest, a bill cap.

Since September he'd dressed differently to attend the classes in refrigeration and air-conditioning repair he took at the nearby community college as part of the retraining program that was a stipulation of his partial disability payments. Sully stood--Miss Beryl wincing again as he placed his full weight on the arms of the Queen Anne--and, having inserted his toes into the unlaced work boot, scuffed it along the hardwood floor until he managed to pin it against the wall and force the entire foot in.

"About time I went back to work, don't you think?" he said.

"What if they find out?" He grinned at her.

"You aren't going to squeal on me, are you?"

"I should," she said.

"There's probably a reward for turning people like you in. I could use the money." Sully studied her, nodding.

"Good thing Coach kicked off before he found out how mean you'd get in your old age." Miss Beryl sighed.

"I can't suppose it would do any good to point out the obvious." Sully shook his head.

"Probably not. What's the obvious?"

"That you're going to hurt yourself. They'll stop paying for your schooling, and you'll be even worse off." Sully shrugged.

"You could be right, Beryl, but I think I'll try. Anymore my leg hurts just as bad when I sit around as when I stand, so I might as well stand. I've pretty much decided I don't want to fix air conditioners for the rest of my life." He stomped his boot a couple times to make sure his foot was all the way in, rattling the knickknacks.

"I swear to Christ, though. If you could learn to put this shoe on for me mornings, I'd marry you and learn to drink tea." When Sully collapsed, exhausted, back into the Queen Anne and took out his cigarettes. Miss Beryl headed for the kitchen, where she kept her lone ashtray. Sully was the only person she allowed to smoke in her house, this exception granted on the grounds that he honestly couldn't remember that she didn't want him to. He never took note of the fact that there were no ashtrays.

Indeed, it never occurred to him even to look for one until the long gray ash at the end of his cigarette was ready to fall. Even then Sully was not the sort of man to panic. He simply held the cigarette upright, as if its vertical posit ion removed the threat of gravity.

When the ash eventually fell anyway, he was sometimes quick enough to catch it in his lap, where the ash would stay until, having forgotten about it again, he stood up. By the time Miss Beryl arrived back with the crystal ashtray she'd bought in London five years before. Sully already had a pretty impressive ash working.

"So," Sully said, "you decide where you're going this year?" Every winter for the past twenty. Miss Beryl had sallied forth, as she called it, around the first of the year, returning sometime in March when winter's back was broken. Her flat was crowded with the souvenirs from these excursions--her walls adorned with an Egyptian spear, a Roman breastplate, a bronze dragon, tiki torches, her flat table surfaces crowded with Wedgwood, an Etruscan spirit boat, a two-headed Foo dog, the floor with wicker elephants, terra-cotta pots, a wooden sea chest.

In the months preceding her safaris, she read travel books on her destination. This year she'd checked out books on Africa, where she hoped to find a companion for Driver Ed, who had been purchased in Vermont, actually, and might or might not have been authentic Zamble.

Vermont had been about as far as she'd ever been able to convince Clive Sr.

to sally forth. He didn't like to go anywhere people wouldn't recognize him as the North Bath football coach, which put them on a pretty short leash.

"I'm staying put this winter," she told Sully, surprised to discover that she'd come to this decision just a few minutes before while looking up into the trees.

"That must mean you've been everywhere," Sully said.

"The early snow convinced me that this is our winter.

God's going to lower the boom.

One of those limbs is going to come crashing down on us."

"Sounds like a good reason to head for the Congo," Sully offered.

"There's no such place as the Congo anymore."

NOBODY'S FOOL23

"No?"

"No. And besides," Miss Beryl reminded him, "God finds Jonah even in the belly of a whale." Sully nodded.

"God and the cops.

That's how come I stay close to home. So they know where to find me.

Maybe that way they'll go easy. " Miss Beryl frowned at him. " You're not in Dutch with the police again, are you, Donald? " Her tenant did wind up in jail occasionally, usually for public intoxication, though when he was younger he'd been a brawler. Sully grinned at her. " Not to my knowledge, Mrs. Peoples. These days I try to be good. I'm not a young man anymore. "

" Well," she said, " you were a bad boy far longer than most. "

" I know it," he said, taking another drag on his cigarette and noticing for the first time how hazardously long the gray ash had become. " You going out for Thanksgiving, at least? " Miss Beryl took the cigarette from him, put it into the ashtray, and then put the ashtray on the side table. With Sully, you didn't just set the ashtray down nearby and expect him to recognize its function. " Mrs.

Gruber and I are going to the Northwoods Motor Inn.

They're having a buffet.

All the turkey and trimmings you can eat for ten dollars. " Sully exhaled smoke through his nose. " Sounds like a hell of a good deal for the Northwoods. You and Alice couldn't eat ten dollars' worth of turkey if they gave you the whole weekend. " Miss Beryl had to admit this was true. " Mrs. Gruber likes it there. It's all old fogies like us, and they don't play loud music. They have a big salad bar, and Mrs. Gruber likes to try everything on it. Snails even. "

" Snails are good, actually," Sully said, surprising her. " When did you ever eat a snail? " Sully scratched his unshaven chin thoughtfully at the recollection. " I liberated France, if you recall. I wish snails were the worst thing I ate between Normandy and Berlin, too. "

" It must be true what they say, then," Miss Beryl observed. " War is heck.

If you ate anything worse than a snail, don't tell me about it,"

" Okay," Sully said agreeably. " I just eat a couple of those carrot curls and save myself for the dinner. Otherwise, I get full, and if I eat too much I get gas. " Sully stubbed out his cigarette. " Well, in that case, go slow," he said, laboring to his feet again. " Remember, you got somebody living above you. It's too cold to open all the windows.

"

NOBODY'S FOOL 23

"No?"

"No. And besides," Miss Beryl reminded him, "God finds Jonah even in the belly of a whale." Sully nodded.

"God and the cops.

That's how come I stay close to home. So they know where to find me.

Maybe that way they'll go easy. " Miss Beryl frowned at him. " You're not in Dutch with the police again, are you, Donald? " Her tenant did wind up in jail occasionally, usually for public intoxication, though when he was younger he'd been a brawler. Sully grinned at her. " Not to my knowledge, Mrs. Peoples. These days I try to be good. I'm not a young man anymore. "

" Well," she said, " you were a bad boy far longer than most. "

" I know it," he said, taking another drag on his cigarette and noticing for the first time how hazardously long the gray ash had become. " You going out for Thanksgiving, at least? " Miss Beryl took the cigarette from him, put it into the ashtray, and then put the ashtray on the side table. With Sully, you didn't just set the ashtray down nearby and expect him to recognize its function. " Mrs.

Gruber and I are going to the Northwoods Motor Inn.

They're having a buffet.

All the turkey and trimmings you can eat for ten dollars. " Sully exhaled smoke through his nose. " Sounds like a hell of a good deal for the Northwoods. You and Alice couldn't eat ten dollars' worth of turkey if they gave you the whole weekend. " Miss Beryl had to admit this was true. " Mrs. Gruber likes it there. It's all old fogies like us, and they don't play loud music. They have a big salad bar, and Mrs. Gruber likes to try everything on it. Snails even. "

" Snails are good, actually," Sully said, surprising her. " When did you ever eat a snail? " Sully scratched his unshaven chin thoughtfully at the recollection. " I liberated France, if you recall. I wish snails were the worst thing I ate between Normandy and Berlin, too. "

" It must be true what they say, then," Miss Beryl observed. " War is heck.

If you ate anything worse than a snail, don't tell me about it. "

" Okay," Sully said agreeably.

"I just eat a couple of those carrot curls and save myself for the dinner. Otherwise, I get full, and if I eat too much I get gas." Sully stubbed out his cigarette.