Nobody's Fool

stools?”
    â€œI was saving that one for you,” Wirf said.
    â€œWhy?” Sully said. “I told you I was going home.”
    â€œI never believe anything you say,” Wirf explained. “And I certainly don’t believe it when you say you’re going home at six-thirty on Friday night. Someday,” he added, “you’re going to forget which is my fake leg.”
    Sully nodded. “I’ve already forgot,” he said. “I was just guessing. You ever met my son?”
    Wirf rotated on his stool, offered his hand to Peter. “I don’t get it,” Wirf frowned. “He looks intelligent.”
    â€œHe is,” Sully said, feeling an unexpected surge of pride. He tried to remember the last time he’d introduced his son to anyone. Many years ago, he decided. “He’s a college professor.”
    Peter shook Wirf’s hand. “Your old man was a college student up until a couple days ago,” Wirf said. “He must’ve been on the verge of learning something, though, because he quit.” To Sully he added, “You missed all the excitement, as usual.”
    â€œGood,” Sully said. “I’ve had enough excitement today. What excitement?”
    â€œSome guy shot a deer right in the middle of Main Street.”
    Sully frowned, considered this. A deer in the middle of Main Street was possible. When he was growing up, deer used to graze on the grounds of Sans Souci. Even now, at first light and after a fresh snow, people on Upper Main sometimes claimed to see deer tracks across their lawns, though Sully had never seen any himself.
    â€œGuy must have thought it was his lucky day,” Wirf went on. “Spent all day out in the woods till he froze his nuts off, finally drove home, parked his car, took his gun out of the backseat and shot a deer dead on his own front lawn. Next year he’ll probably just sit by his front window and wait where it’s warm.”
    â€œI take it you didn’t witness this shooting yourself,” Sully said. In Bath news traveled two ways. Fast and wrong.
    â€œNope,” Wirf said. “I sat right here. Heard all about it, though.”
    â€œYou have any doubts about the testimony?”
    â€œA few,” Wirf admitted. “But I’m fond of the story. And the guy who told it swore he saw the deer.”
    Sully grinned at him. “He was probably drunk, like you. Some guy ran over a dog and left it there. What do you want to bet?”
    â€œWhat’d I tell you!” Jeff, the bartender, bellowed. The judge had just found for the plaintiff, as he’d predicted.
    Birdie threw up her hands. “That does it,” she said. “I’m going home.”
    â€œHow about making us a couple hamburgers before you go?” Sully suggested.
    â€œThe kitchen closes at seven,” Birdie said, pointing at the beer sign clock on the wall, which said seven-fifteen.
    â€œOkay,” Sully said. “I’ll go make them myself.”
    Jeff shook his head. “Tiny doesn’t want you back there. You always leave the grill a mess.”
    â€œWhat do you want on them?” Birdie sighed, sliding off her stool.
    â€œA bun’d be nice,” Sully said, “and whatever else looks good.” These were pretty much the same instructions he’d given Rub at noon for the hamburger he never got.
    â€œHow about you, handsome?” Birdie said.
    â€œEverything,” Peter said.
    Sully noted with some interest that Peter seemed used to being called handsome. As a boy he’d been easy to embarrass, but no more.
    â€œThanks,” Peter added.
    â€œNow there’s a word you never learned from your father,” Birdie said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
    On television the judge was explaining the principle of shared culpability, which allowed him to assign percentages of blame. The explanation wasn’t as impressive as the ones Sully’s young philosophy professor came up with in class. By the time he got finished explaining something like free will it had disappeared without a trace, disproved. Dividing up things like responsibility, as this judge was doing, wasn’t a bad trick either, but it wasn’t as clean as philosophy. A good philosopher could just make the thing in question disappear. One minute it was there, the next that son of a bitch was gone and there wasn’t anything to divide up either.
    â€œHe ruled for