Nobody's Fool

what the reason might be for all these recent visitations from his father. Now he looked Wirf over, shaking his head. Since there was no one close enough to overhear, he decided what the hell, he’d ask. “What’s this I hear about you being sick?”
    â€œWho, me?” Wirf said, not very convincingly. It occurred to Sully, now that he looked Wirf over, that Birdie was right. Wirf didn’t look so hot. His skin looked yellow, something Sully probably hadn’t noticed because he so seldom saw Wirf in natural light.
    â€œNo, the pope.”
    â€œThe pope’s sick?”
    â€œHave it your way,” Sully said. “It’s none of my business.”
    â€œSure it is.” Wirf grinned. “Anything happens to me and you don’t get your disability.”
    Sully nodded. “Same result if you live to be a hundred, though.”
    Wirf contemplated his beer. “Apparently I’m not going to live to be a hundred,” he conceded.
    â€œIs this a medical opinion or just you guessing?”
    â€œThis is a medical opinion with which I happen to concur,” Wirf said, then added, “It’s also just between us.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said.
    Neither of them said anything for a moment then.
    â€œThey tell me I eat too many pickled eggs,” Wirf finally continued. “The stuff they pickle the eggs with is dangerous. Eats away at your liver.”
    Sully nodded. “Especially if you wash each one down with about a gallon of beer.”
    â€œEspecially,” Wirf said.
    â€œWell,” Sully said. “You could cut back on your pickled eggs.”
    Wirf shrugged, then shook his head sadly. “The time to cut down on the pickled eggs was about five years ago. Ten, maybe. They tell me that my liver is irreversibly pickled. They don’t like to say it right out, but I gather that it doesn’t make much difference anymore whether I zig or zag.”
    Sully shook his head, feeling much of the same frustration he’d felt two days ago listening to Cass, who’d explained to him her lack of options with regard to her mother. Here was Wirf telling him the same thing, that he was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Maybe Sully’s young philosophy professor at the college had been right. Maybe free will was just something you thought you had. Maybe Sully’s sitting there trying to figure out what he should do next was silly. Maybe there was no way out of this latest fix he’d gotten himself into. Maybe even the trump card he’d been saving, or imagined he was saving, wasn’t in his hand at all. Maybehis father’s house already belonged to the town of Bath or the state of New York. Maybe Carl Roebuck had bought it at auction for back taxes.
    There was a certain symmetry to this possibility. Maybe Carl had used the money he refused to pay him and Rub as the down payment. Who knew? Maybe even Carl Roebuck didn’t have any choices. Maybe it just wasn’t in him to be thankful for having money and a big house and the prettiest woman in town for his very own. Maybe he was just programmed to wander around with a perpetual hard-on, oozing charm and winning lotteries. Maybe. Still, Sully felt the theory to be wrong. It made everything slack. He’d never considered life to be as tight as some people (Vera came to mind for one, Mrs. Harold for another) made it out to be, but it wasn’t that loose either.
    â€œSo what’s your plan?” he asked Wirf.
    Wirf shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. To Sully’s surprise, Wirf didn’t sound all that discouraged. “Maybe I’ll just keep zigging til I can’t zig any more. I can’t even imagine zagging at this late date.”
    Sully nodded. “How many more years of zigging do they figure?”
    â€œMonths,” Wirf said. “If I continue to zig. If I zag, I might get a year or two. A little more. We all end up in the Waldorf-Astoria, Sully. Zigging or zagging. I’m not that afraid. At least not yet,” he added. “In fact, I wasn’t afraid at all until we started this conversation.”
    Sully stood, said he was sorry for bringing it up, which he was.
    â€œThat’s all right,” Wirf said. “I’ve been wondering when you’d say something.”
    Sully suddenly felt awash in guilt for not having seen it earlier, for not paying attention, or the right kind of