Nobody's Fool

this remark.
    â€œAm not,” Rub said.
    â€œSure you are,” Sully said. Pushing his empty coffee cup away, he stood and planted a kiss on Rub’s bristly cranium.
    Rub flushed bright red. “You’re going to make people think I’m queer,” he said sadly.
    â€œThat ship has sailed, Rub,” Sully said. “Let’s go to work.”
    Rub stood, gulped his coffee down. “I didn’t know we had work.”
    â€œThere’s always work,” Sully told him. “Today some of it’s ours.”
    Cass wouldn’t take money for the coffees. “Thanks,” she said to Sully. “I’m grateful, even if I don’t act like it.”
    â€œSo long, old girl,” Sully said loudly to Hattie on their way out.
    â€œWho is it?” the old woman grinned maniacally. “It sounds like that darn Sully.”
    Perfect silence. This in response to Sully’s key being turned in the ignition of the pickup. It was as if the ignition were connected to nothing but the cold November air on the other side of the dash. Sully tried it several more times, trying to elicit some sort of sound, even a bad one. A bad sound—a grating, a straining, a scraping—might have suggested some diagnosis, and a diagnosis might have had some tentative price tag affixed to it. Sully wasn’t sure what the sound of perfect silence meant, pricewise. What it suggested was finality, a vehicle beyond resuscitation. Sully leaned back, left the key in the ignition, ran his fingers through his hair. Rub stared at his knees, afraid. This was a hell of a time to be seated next to Sully, who was not above flying into rages at inanimate objects. In such a confined space there was the danger of ricochet.
    Rub didn’t want to be the first to speak, but the unbroken silence took a greater toll on him than on Sully, who looked to Rub like he might sit there all winter. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, Rub said, “Won’t it start?”
    Sully just looked at him. Ricochet was the least of his worries, Rub realized.
    â€œLet’s take a walk,” Sully suggested, getting out.
    Rub got out too. “Don’t you want to take your keys?” he said. “What for?”
    â€œSomebody might steal your truck,” Rub said.
    â€œThink about it,” Sully advised.
    Rub thought about it. “Somebody might steal your keys.”
    â€œThere’s only three on the ring,” Sully said. “One’s for the truck. I don’t remember what the other two are for, even.”
    â€œOld Lady Peoples is spying on us again,” Rub noticed, grateful for the change of subject. The curtain in the front room had twitched. “I wisht she’d just go ahead and die instead of spying on people.”
    â€œThat’s kind of mean, don’t you think?” Sully said, as they headed back downtown on foot.
    â€œShe started it,” Rub said. “She was mean to me all during eighth grade. I’m just being mean back.”
    â€œShe probably just wanted you to learn something,” Sully suggested.
    â€œShe wanted me to learn everything,” Rub recalled angrily. “I wisht she’d just die so I could forget her.”
    Jocko was at the OTB, holding up one section of wall. “Those were some pills,” Sully told him. “I slept like a baby.”
    â€œGood,” Jocko said, suspicious of something in Sully’s voice.
    â€œOnly trouble was, I happened to be at the wheel of my truck at the time.”
    Jocko nodded. “I warned you, if you recall. I see you’re in one piece, anyhow.”
    â€œMmmmm,” Sully said. “What was Wednesday’s triple?”
    â€œThree-one-seven,” Jocko told him. “The reason I remember is that’s what I bet.”
    â€œGood for you,” Sully told him. “The rich get richer. Do me a favor and don’t spend it all. I may need a loan.”
    â€œI just signed it over to my wife. Brought me almost up to speed, alimonywise. I’m still on the same rung of the ladder, affectionwise.”
    â€œI like a woman whose love can’t be bought. What was that triple again?” Sully wanted to know.
    â€œThree-one-seven. Pay attention, for Christ sake.”
    Sully had located the stub and stared at it to make sure he hadn’t been given the winner by mistake. “I had two thirds of it myself,” he said.
    â€œGood,” Jocko