Nobody's Fool

seeing in them their own lost parents and grandparents, most of whom had bequeathed to their children the usual legacy of guilt, along with the gift of selective recollection. Most fathers and mothers did their children the great favor of dying before they began fouling themselves, before their children learned to equate them with urine-soaked undergarments and other grim realities of age and infirmity. Cass knew better than toexpect understanding, and she understood how profound was the human need to see old people as innocent, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Some days, like today, she would have liked to tell everybody in the diner a few things about both her mother and herself. Mostly herself. She’d have liked to tell somebody that every time she changed Old Hattie’s stockings, she felt her own life slipping away, that when the old woman made one unreasonable demand after another her hand actually itched to slap her mother into reality. Or Cass might confess her fear that her mother’s death might just coincide with her own need of assistance, since she didn’t share her mother’s ferocious will to keep breathing at all costs. Indeed, she was grimly pleased that she was childless, which meant that when her own time came there’d be no one upon whom she’d be an unwanted burden. Whoever got the job would be paid for doing it.
    This morning Hattie’s was busy as usual. Between 6:30 and 9:30 on weekdays, Roof, the black cook, could not fry eggs fast enough to fill all the Hattie’s Specials—two eggs, toast, home fries and coffee for a dollar forty-nine. When Sully and Rub arrived, there was no place for them to sit, either at the short, six-stool counter or among the dozen square formica booths, though a foursome of construction workers was stirring in the farthest. Old Hattie herself occupied the tiny booth, half the size of the others, nearest the door, and Sully, to Rub’s dismay, slid gingerly into the booth across from the old lady, leaving Rub in the crowded doorway. “How are you, old woman?” Sully said. Hattie’s milky eyes located him by sound. “Still keeping an eye on business, I see.”
    â€œStill keeping an eye on business,” Hattie repeated, nodding vigorously. “Still keeping …” Her attention was diverted, as it was during all conversations, by the ringing of the cash register, the old woman’s favorite sound. She had manned the register for nearly sixty years and imagined herself there still, each time she heard it clang. “Ah!” she said. “Ah …”
    â€œThere’s a booth,” Rub said when the road crew got up with their checks and started for the register.
    â€œGood,” Sully said. “Go sit in it, why don’t you.”
    Rub hated being dismissed this way, but he did as he was told for fear of losing the booth. It was the perfect booth, in fact, the last in the row, away from traffic, where he could beg a loan from Sully in relative privacy, the threat of interruption greatly reduced.
    â€œWhat do you say we go dancing some night?” Sully suggested to Hattie in a loud voice, partly because the old woman was hard of hearing,partly because their conversations were much enjoyed by the regulars at the lunch counter, several of whom rotated on their stools to watch.
    â€œDancing?” Hattie said, then bellowed, “Dancing!”
    Now everyone turned and looked.
    â€œWhy not?” Sully said. “Just you and me. First dancing, then we’ll go over to my place.”
    A sly grin crossed the old woman’s face. “Let’s just go to your place. Nuts to the dancing.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said, winking at Cass, who was watching now also, with solemn disapproval, as usual.
    â€œJust tell me one thing!” Hattie shouted. When she got revved up, her voice always reminded Sully of walruses at the zoo. “Who are you?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, who am I?” Sully said in mock outrage. “What are you, blind?”
    â€œYou
sound
like that darn Sully.”
    â€œThat’s who I am, too,” Sully told her.
    â€œWell, I’m too old to dance,” Hattie said. “I’m too old for your place too. You live on the second floor.”
    â€œI know it,” Sully said, massaging his knee. “I can hardly get up and down those stairs myself.”
    â€œHow old are you?” Hattie