Nobody's Fool

the defendant?” Wirf said, surprised, glaring at the TV judge with the same perplexed expression he always wore at Sully’s disability hearings.
    â€œSame as he did last week,” Sully said. “This is a rerun, you jerk.”
    Wirf nodded. “I thought it looked familiar.”
    â€œEvery time we go to Albany it’s a rerun too,” Sully pointed out. “Which is why we’re about to quit.”
    Wirf had taken a five-dollar bill out of his wallet. He’d been about to hand it over to Jeff, who’d narrowly won the week’s wager. “Had you seen that one before?”
    Jeff had shifty eyes, and they shifted now. “Sully’s full of shit as usual. That wasn’t no rerun.”
    â€œI thought I remembered it too,” Wirf said.
    â€œThen you should pay double,” Jeff pointed out. “If you guess wrong on reruns.”
    Wirf must have considered this a valid point, because he shoved the five across the bar. When Jeff drew two beers, Sully took them and headed down to the other end of the bar where he and Peter could talk.
    â€œWhat?” Wirf said when he noticed Sully and Peter had moved down to the vacant end of the bar. “You don’t want to talk to me?”
    â€œNot right this minute,” Sully admitted.
    â€œI didn’t finish telling you about the guy that shot the deer.”
    â€œThere’s more?”
    â€œThey arrested that son of a bitch,” Jeff bellowed from down the bar. He was standing on a stool, switching stations to yet another holiday football game. When somebody wanted to know how come he was arrested, Jeff explained, “You can’t discharge a firearm inside the city. It’s against the law.”
    Wirf sighed. “Everybody’s a lawyer.”
    â€œExcept you,” Sully agreed.
    Wirf ignored this, turning his attention back to the television. “Are they playing this game now?” he asked Jeff suspiciously. A man who wasn’t above getting his friends to bet on reruns of
The People’s Court
wouldn’t balk at betting on tape-delayed sporting events he already knew the outcome of.
    â€œSo,” Sully said. “What’re you going to do?”
    Peter stared into his beer, bubbles rising from nowhere in the bottom of the glass, ascending into foam.
    â€œHead back tomorrow, I guess,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d be able to give me a lift to Albany? I can rent a car there.”
    â€œSure,” Sully said. “I could have taken you today. I wish you’d come around, in fact. You could have saved me some money.”
    â€œI wish I could have gotten away sooner,” Peter said.
    Sully nodded, understanding, he thought. “Your mother?”
    â€œShe’s getting worse,” Peter said, surprising Sully, who couldn’t remember ever having confided in Peter his strong conviction that Vera was nuts.
    â€œShe seemed about the same to me,” he said, though he’d been surprised when he saw his ex-wife. Vera had aged a good deal since he’d seen her last. She seemed smaller, too, than he remembered her. Or more tightly wound. Or something.
    â€œI think she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she’s liable to give Ralph one too.”
    â€œRalph didn’t look too good,” Sully admitted. “What was he in the hospital about?”
    â€œProstate,” Peter said. “Colon.”
    Sully nodded
. “What’d they say?”
    â€œThey’re saying he’s going to be okay,” Peter said. “I don’t think he believes them. They want to do radiation. He doesn’t understand why, if they got the cancer like they said.”
    â€œHe should do what they say, though,” Sully said, even though he reserved the right to arrive at the opposite conclusion if the situation were ever his own. “That’s why she’s all bent out of shape?”
    â€œI wish it were,” Peter said. “That would make sense.”
    Sully discovered he didn’t care for Peter’s tone that much. Maybe it was true that Sully considered Vera nuts, but it didn’t seem right for his son to share such a low opinion of his own mother. “Don’t be too hard on her,” he advised. “Most of what she does is for you.”
    Peter smiled at that. “You think so?”
    â€œYou don’t?”
    He seemed to think about it. “I think most of