Nobody's Fool

though.”
    â€œCan I play?” Rub said. He’d been standing just inside the doorway since they came in, eyeing the one remaining free chair. These were not men Rub presumed in the presence of.
    â€œNo, Rub,” Carl said.
    â€œNope,” the others agreed.
    Rub looked at the floor.
    â€œSure, Rub,” Carl said. “Jesus. Can’t you tell when people are pulling your chain?”
    In fact, Rub couldn’t. Sometimes these same men refused to let him play, claiming he stank. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to tell it was a joke now, when most of the time it wasn’t. “You didn’t deal me in,” Rub noted when he’d taken the chair next to Sully.
    â€œYou weren’t playing when the hand started,” Carl explained.
    â€œI was standing right there,” Rub said, pointing at the air he had so recently displaced.
    â€œHow can I deal you in when you’re standing over there?” Carl said. To illustrate, he sent a card whistling through the air toward the doorway. “That what you wanted me to do?”
    â€œMisdeal,” somebody said.
    â€œI had a pair of wired sevens,” one man complained angrily. “That was a deliberate misdeal.”
    Carl turned over his own hole cards, revealing a pair of tens.
    â€œMr. Lucky,” the man who had said this before repeated, then whistled the theme song.
    Rub went and fetched the card Carl had tossed across the room, then sat back down. Carl reshuffled. Sully cut. Carl dealt, skipping Rub again.
    â€œWhat about me?” Rub said.
    â€œSony, Rub,” Carl said. “Did you want to play?”
    Everybody tossed their cards back in, groaned.
    â€œMake up your mind,” Carl said. “You want to play or not?”
    â€œIn about one minute I’m going to rip your head off,” Sully said.
    Carl shuffled, dealt again. “I told you you’d be happier roofing. Some people don’t know what’s good for them.”
    The man to Rub’s left opened. Rub, who was a surprisingly good poker player, raised.
    â€œDid it ever occur to you that you might be one of them?” Sully asked, calling Rub’s bet.
    â€œI know exactly what’s good for me,” Carl said, tossing his cards into the center of the table. Two others followed, leaving just the man who had opened, Rub and Sully. Sully consulted his hole cards, which made, together with his first two up cards, a Sausalito straight—two, four, six, eight.
    Tiny had set up an old space heater near the table. Its whirring reminded Sully of the sound of approaching traffic. No doubt about it, the smart thing to do would be to fold. On the other hand, Sully considered, he’d come this far.
    Miles Anderson called back three times during the afternoon. The last time Sully, an even hundred dollars down in the game, took the call.
    â€œI thought we were going to meet today,” Miles Anderson said, his voice a study in impatience.
    â€œMe too,” Sully said. “In fact, I was so sure of it I actually went over there and waited for you for about an hour.”
    â€œWe must have just missed each other,” Anderson said, backing off a little in his tone of voice. He was apparently willing to share responsibility. “I was delayed at the bank.” When Sully didn’t say anything, Anderson added, “Do I understand this silence to mean that you’re no longer interested in the job we discussed?”
    â€œNo,” Sully said. “I didn’t know it was my turn to talk.”
    â€œThen I’m to understand that you
do
want the job?”
    Sully said he did.
    â€œBecause, frankly, I don’t sense much enthusiasm at this moment,” Miles Anderson said, his former impatience returning. “And if you aren’t sure, I’d rather you said so. A man I talked to at the bank this morning intimated you were less than reliable.”
    â€œLook, Mr. Anderson,” Sully said. “I need the work. I’m just too old to jump up and down, okay? Inside, I’m all aflutter. Trust me.”
    â€œHmmm,” Miles Anderson mused. “Well, I was also told you were insolent, though I suppose that’s to be expected. The gruff, frontier independence of the American blue-collar worker and all that.”
    Who
was
this guy? “I’m dropping out of college to fix your house, actually,” Sully informed him, since this was almost true.