Nobody's Fool

congratulated him. “How many of those pills did you take yesterday?”
    â€œTwo.”
    Jocko nodded. “They’re not aspirin.”
    â€œThe first one didn’t seem to have much effect.”
    â€œHow about the second one?” Jocko said.
    â€œThat was a doozy,” Sully admitted.
    â€œNext time wait for the first one to kick in.”
    â€œI will.”
    Sully bet his 1-2-3 triple and collected Rub, who’d used the dollar Sully had given him earlier to bet a daily double.
    â€œWhat’d you bet?” Sully said when they were back on the street. “I forgot,” Rub admitted.
    â€œNaturally,” Sully said. “You bet it almost a minute ago.”
    â€œI like Carnation best of all,” Rub said, and he recited the rest of the Carnation Milk jingle as flawlessly as he’d done yesterday in Sully’s dream.
    â€œWell, what do you know,” Sully said, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk. He’d have bet Jocko’s winnings that Rub wouldn’t be able to remember yesterday’s jingle.
    â€œOld Lady Peoples always tried to get me to memorize poetry back in eighth grade,” Rub told him. “Back then I never could.”
    The same girl was behind the counter at the donut shop, and she looked less than thrilled to see Sully and Rub. Carl Roebuck was sitting at one of the tables in back, and that thrilled Sully, who, since hearing the deathly silence of his pickup truck, had been wishing fervently that he’d taken a fistful of Carl’s money the night before when he had a chance. The woman with Carl in the booth was a blonde, and Sully thought for a minute it was Toby until he saw it wasn’t.
    â€œCan I borrow another dollar?” Rub said.
    â€œIf you’ll sit here at the counter and not bother me while I’m over there,” Sully said, indicating Carl’s table.
    â€œI hate Carl,” Rub reminded him.
    Sully handed him a dollar. “There are women in this town I could associate with who’d be cheaper than you,” he said.
    â€œThey wouldn’t be your real friend,” Rub reminded him seriously.
    â€œWell, I see you’ve recovered,” Sully said when Carl looked up and saw him approaching.
    â€œTwo hours’ sleep,” Carl said proudly. “And I’m fresh as a fucking daisy.”
    Carl did look amazingly well, Sully had to admit. “If you were a daisy,that’d be the kind, all right,” he said. He put a hand on the shoulder of the woman sitting across from Carl, who, now that Sully looked at her, was about the plainest-looking woman he’d ever seen, her age indeterminate, her gender less obvious from the front than the rear. “Would you give us about two minutes, dolly?” he said.
    The woman looked at Carl, who shrugged a yes.
    â€œGo keep that fellow at the counter company,” Sully suggested, indicating Rub, who’d ordered a big ole cream-filled donut. “He’ll recite you a poem if you ask him nice.”
    The woman went over to the counter but settled on a stool for from Rub, perhaps because his donut had already erupted obscenely.
    â€œYou have to be the dumbest man in Bath,” Sully told Carl Roebuck.
    â€œThat wouldn’t be such an insult if you hadn’t just walked in here with the dumbest man in Bath,” Carl said. “You never count yourself, either.”
    â€œSpeaking of counting,” Sully said. “Count out what you owe me for yesterday.”
    â€œI haven’t even been out to check on your work,” Carl said.
    â€œThis is the wrong fucking day to start that,” Sully said. “Last night you shoved about a thousand dollars at me. Told me to take what I wanted.”
    Carl nodded, recalling it. “What a day that’d been,” he sang. “What a rare mood I was in.”
    Sully nodded impatiently. “Well, fork it over if you want to be around for your next mood swing.”
    Carl counted out the money he owed Sully for the sheetrocking, pushed it across the formica tabletop. “What?” he said when Sully put the money in his pocket. “You aren’t going to bust my balls about the other?”
    â€œI don’t want to think about it,” Sully told him. “My truck died this morning, and if I start thinking about all the money you owe me I might kill you before you kill yourself.”
    â€œWho will you blame for your sad