Nobody's Fool

wraparound porch that looked out upon both Main and Bowdon streets. The previous owner had been an elderly widow frightened into a nursing home two years before when a huge limb from one of Upper Main’s ancient elms had fallen on her roof during the famous ice storm. Since then the house had sat empty. Sully could not recall ever seeing a For Sale sign in front of the house, but he seldom ventured up this way, so there might have been one.
    â€œI wisht I could afford a big ole house like this,” Rub said as he and Sully sat at the curb in the El Camino waiting for Miles Anderson to show up. So far Anderson was fifteen minutes late, and Rub was no good at loitering he wasn’t paid for.
    â€œBe a little big for just you and Bootsie, wouldn’t it?” said Sully, who’d been sitting there wondering what anybody would do with a house that big, how you’d go about filling it up. Actually, Bootsie might be one of the few people he knew equal to the task. She swiped something from the Woohvorth’s she worked at every day and brought it home with her,and their apartment was about to burst under the strain. The easiest thing to steal at Woolworth’s was goldfish, and Rub and Bootsie had an aquarium so full of them that the fish barely had room to turn around without knocking into one another. The murky water they swam in was permanently brown from processed fish food. In such conditions the fish died about as fast as Bootsie could slip them in their water-filled baggies into her spacious pockets. She also took things that didn’t fit into her pockets. Somehow she’d managed to swipe a sofa-sized painting of the Atlantic Ocean at sunset, its crashing waves bright orange and blue. Neither Bootsie nor Rub had ever seen the Atlantic and so could not judge the painting’s realism.
    â€œI’d have my room way up there.” Rub pointed to the room under the eave where the larger of the two widow’s walks was located. “I could just walk out there on that little porch and stand there.”
    â€œI suppose you could, Rub,” Sully said, trying to picture Rub on the widow’s walk.
    â€œI wisht we’d stopped for lunch,” Rub added.
    Sully consulted his watch for the umpteenth time. “Go eat,” he said. His meeting with Miles Anderson would probably go better without Rub anyway. The only reason he’d wanted Rub along was to reassure Miles Anderson he had an able-bodied helper. Time enough for that later.
    â€œWhere?” Rub said.
    â€œHattie’s is just down the street.”
    Rub turned and looked out the rear window, as if to verify this information. “What about you?”
    â€œBring me a hamburger.”
    â€œCould I borrow five dollars?”
    â€œNo,” Sully said. “But I’ll pay you for yesterday.”
    â€œOkay.” Rub shrugged.
    Sully gave him the money.
    â€œWhat do you want on yours?”
    â€œA bun.”
    â€œThat’s all?” Rub frowned.
    â€œAnd ketchup.”
    â€œOkay.” Rub started to get out.
    â€œAnd cheese.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAnd a pickle. And a slice of onion.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAnd some relish.”
    â€œThat’s a hamburger with everything.” Rub frowned.
    â€œOkay. A hamburger with everything.” Sully grinned.
    â€œHow come you didn’t just say that?”
    â€œAnd some fries,” Sully told him. “And some ketchup for the fries.”
    Rub sighed, thought about it, waited for the information to sift down. “Okay,” he said finally.
    Sully gave him another three dollars.
    â€œWhy don’t you come with me,” Rub suggested.
    â€œBecause if I do, Miles Anderson will turn up here.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œBecause that’s the way it works.”
    When Rub was gone, Sully lit a cigarette and started making a list in his head. The porches were all sagging and the wood trim around the windows needed sanding and repainting and the odd board needed replacing. The roof didn’t look too bad except where the limb had fallen, causing the chimney to tilt. On the ground there was a huge stump that Sully would have just left there but which Miles Anderson apparently wanted removed. Brown tangles of weeds festered everywhere. Indoors? Miles Anderson had mentioned half a dozen time-consuming tasks, which was fine with Sully, because most of the outdoor stuff would have to wait