Nobody's Fool

conversation.
    â€œYou had breakfast?” Sully asked the boy.
    He nodded. “Grandma made me toast.”
    â€œCan’t you make your own toast?”
    â€œNot in Grandma’s kitchen,” Peter said.
    â€œYou want a hot chocolate?”
    â€œOkay.”
    Sully made him hot chocolate from a packet, added a spurt of whipped cream from a can. “You going to be my helper again today?”
    â€œOkay,” the boy agreed, whipped cream on his nose.
    Sully was studying Peter, who looked extra morose this morning. He was not used to getting up early and was usually silent until midmorning. “How about some coffee?” Sully said.
    â€œNope,” Peter said sleepily. He was eyeing Rub, who pushed his plate away and noticed Peter there for the first time. “Morning, Sancho,” Peter said.
    â€œYou got time for a cup,” Sully said. “Rub’s in no hurry, are you, Rub?”
    Rub studied Sully, aware that this might be a trick question. Sometimes Sully said exactly this to indicate that it was time he got off his ass and went to work.
    â€œWhat do you want us to do today?” Peter said.
    Sully shrugged. “It’s supposed to be nice. Up in the forties. I’d work outside. Chop those hedges back, rake up all the sticks and branches, haul it all off someplace. Give our employer the impression we’re making progress in case he shows up, God forbid. We’re going to have to remove that tree stump at some point.”
    â€œI was thinking that would be a good spring job.” Peter ventured a half grin. “Sometime when I’m gone.”
    â€œI don’t see what that stump’s hurting,” Rub said as he did each time the subject of the stump arose. “How come he don’t just leave it alone?”
    â€œSome people don’t like tree stumps in their front yard,” Sully said. “Be thankful. It’ll probably take us a week to dig it out. That’s a week’s pay.”
    â€œStumps don’t hurt anything, is what I’m saying,” Rub said. He was particularly inflexible on the subject of the stump. “Elm roots go halfway to China. Remember over at Carl’s?”
    â€œDon’t get me started about that,” Sully said.
    â€œI wisht he’d pay us for that job,” Rub said, his face clouding over.
    â€œHe will, eventually,” Sully said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
    â€œWhen?” Rub wondered.
    â€œEventually,” Sully repeated. “Just like eventually you’ll go to work today.”
    â€œYou’re the one just said there was no hurry,” Rub said.
    â€œThat was half an hour ago.”
    Rub slid off his stool. “You coming over when you’re done here?”
    Sully said he would.
    When Rub and his father were gone, Will slurped the dregs of his hot chocolate from the bottom of his mug. He still had a spot of whipped cream on his nose. Sully removed it with a napkin. The boy smiled at his grandfather, then frowned in the direction of the front door his father and Rub had just disappeared out of, something clearly troubling him. Leaning toward Sully, he whispered, full of embarrassment, “Rub stinks.”
    There’d been several reasons Sully hadn’t wanted to buy the truck he was now driving courtesy of Harold’s Automotive World. One was he couldn’t afford it, even without the snowplow apparatus. The other was that whoever had owned the truck previously had pampered it. There was no rust anywhere, and the upholstery in the cab was without meaningful incision. Even the exterior paint job had been maintained. True, the truck had nearly sixty thousand miles on it, but Sully could tell they weren’t hard miles, and so he distrusted them. There was a distinct possibility that nobody had ever worked in this truck, and he was going to have to work in it. Trucks, to Sully’s mind, were a lot like people. If you pampered them early, they got spoiled and then later became undependable. And so he’d set immediatelyabout showing the truck that the good old days were over. The first day he owned it, he accidentally backed into a pole, splintering the red reflector of the taillight and denting the rear bumper. The following week he’d opened the driver’s side door into a fire hydrant outside the OTB where he’d stopped to play his 1-2-3 triple, dinging the finish impressively. The previous owner had put a