Nobody's Fool

attention.
    â€œWhere you off to?” Wirf wanted to know.
    â€œHome, for once,” Sully said. The idea of spending another long night at The Horse was suddenly insupportable. He’d been hoping to find someone to help him steal Carl Roebuck’s snowblower, but it was just himself and Wirf, and he didn’t see how enlisting another one-legged man would improve his chances. “See if I can plan my next move.”
    â€œI hope this doesn’t mean you won’t be zigging with me anymore.”
    Sully assured him this was not the case. “Maybe we should cut back, though,” he said. “Without giving it up entirely.”
    â€œHmmm.” Wirf nodded thoughtfully. “Zigging in moderation. An interesting concept. I like it as an alternative to cowardly zagging. Speaking of common sense, is this Miles Anderson going to let you work under the table?”
    â€œI forgot to ask,” Sully said, heading for the door.
    â€œInsist,” Wirf called to him. “Otherwise you’re in trouble.”
    Given his present circumstances, the idea of future trouble struck Sully as pretty funny. At the coatrack he chortled, his knee throbbing to the beat. As he put on his overcoat, he realized that Carl Roebuck was right. Something by the front door
did
smell foul. Or were they both imagining the stench, each of them realizing, as they were about to step out into the world, the deep shit they were in?
    This latter interpretation was one that his young philosophy professor at the community college would have favored. He liked screwball theories, the wackier the better, in fact. Sully was just the opposite, and he wrinkled his nose. Something stank, but it wasn’t destiny.
    Opening the door, Sully nearly ran into his son coming in, and it took Sully a moment to realize who it was. Beyond Peter the street was white again and the snow was falling heavily in the fading late-afternoon light. For dramatic effect the street lamps kicked on.
    â€œSon,” Sully said, offering Peter his hand. “What’s up?”
    For some reason this question struck Peter as funny. “How long do you have?” he said, shaking his father’s hand with weary resignation.
    â€œYou’re just in time,” Sully told him, studying the snow. “I got a job for you.”
    Miss Beryl pointed up the street in the direction of Mrs. Gruber’s house. It had begun snowing again. Mrs. Gruber, three houses up Main, had turned on her porch light and was attacking the fresh snow on her steps with a broom.
    â€œThat’s my buddy Mrs. Gruber,” Miss Beryl informed the little girl, Tina. “She ate a snail once, if you can believe it.”
    The old woman and the little girl had been standing at Miss Beryl’s front window for about five minutes, ever since the Donnelly girl had gotten off the phone and said she’d better move the car just in case. “Just let Birdbrain see me out this window and she’ll stay right there till I get back. She won’t be no trouble unless you try to move her. She’ll just stand there.”
    There didn’t seem to be much Miss Beryl could do but agree, though she made a mental note that all of this was what came of poking around upstairs in Sully’s flat, which she shouldn’t have done. The present situation was God’s punishment for following Clive Jr.’s advice.
    When the Donnelly girl slipped out the front door, the child tried tofollow, but when Miss Beryl said, “Here’s your Mommy,” Tina had returned to the window, watched her mother get into the car and drive off. She’d been standing there since, just as her mother had predicted. Miss Beryl had been afraid the little girl would start crying, but she didn’t. She just stood, watching the exact place she’d last seen her mother, apparently expecting her to materialize again in the same spot. She did, however, briefly follow Miss Beryl’s bony finger when she pointed out Mrs. Gruber.
    â€œShe chewed on it for about half an hour and then spit it into her napkin,” Miss Beryl told the child. “She’s a real corker about keeping her front steps clean. If it keeps snowing, she’ll probably sweep them two or three more times tonight before she goes to bed, and then she’ll do it again in the morning.”
    Without trying, Miss Beryl had listened to most of the Donnelly girl’s telephone conversation.