Nobody's Fool

like background music, for the rest of theday, sending only the occasional current of scalding pain, a rim shot off the snare drum, down to his foot and up into his groin, time to rock and roll.
    â€œThey don’t look at knees,” Sully told her, finishing his second cup of coffee and waving off another free refill. “They look at reports. X rays. Knees they don’t bother with.”
    In fact, Sully had suggested showing the judge his knee, just approaching the bench, dropping his pants and showing the judge his red, ripe softball of a knee. But Wirf, his one-legged sot of a lawyer, had convinced him this tactic wouldn’t work. Judges, pretty much across the board, Wirf said, took a dim view of guys dropping their pants in the courtroom, regardless of the purpose. “Besides,” Wirf explained, “what the knee looks like is irrelevant. They got stuff that’d make even my prosthesis swell up like a balloon. One little injection and they could make you look like gangrene had set in, then twenty-four hours later the swelling goes down again. Insurance companies aren’t big believers in swelling.”
    â€œHell,” Sully said. “They can keep me overnight. Keep me all week. If the swelling goes down, the drinks are on me.”
    â€œNobody wants you overnight, including the court,” Wirf assured him. “And these guys can all afford to buy their own drinks. Let me handle this. When it’s our turn, don’t say a fuckin’ word.”
    So Sully had kept his mouth shut, and after they waited all morning, the hearing had taken no more than five minutes. “I don’t want to see this claim again,” the judge told Wirf. “Your client’s got partial disability, and the cost of his retraining is covered. That’s all he’s entitled to. How many times are we going to go through this?”
    â€œIn our view, the condition of my client’s knee is deteriorating—” Wirf began.
    â€œWe know your view, Mr. Wirfly,” the judge said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “How’s school going, Mr. Sullivan?”
    â€œGreat,” Sully said. “Terrific, in fact. The classes I needed were full, so I’m taking philosophy. The hundred bucks I spent on textbooks in September I haven’t been reimbursed for yet. They don’t like to pay for my pain pills either.”
    The judge took all this in and processed it quickly. “Register early next term,” he advised. “Don’t blame other people for the way things are. Keep that up and you’ll end up a lawyer like Mr. Wirfly here. Then where will you be?”
    Where indeed? Sully had wondered. In truth, he wouldn’t trade places with Wirf.
    â€œSo, arc you going to keep after them?” Cass wanted to know.
    Sully stood up, tested his knee with some weight, rocked on it. “Wirf wants to.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    Sully thought about it. “A night’s sleep’d be good.”
    When he started for the door, Cass motioned him back with a secretive index finger and they moved farther down the counter. “Why don’t you come to work here at the restaurant?” she said, her voice lowered.
    â€œI don’t think so,” Sully said. “Thanks, though.”
    â€œWhy not?” she insisted. “It’s warm and safe and you’re in here half the time anyway.”
    This was true, and even though Sully had half a dozen reasons for not wanting to work at Hattie’s, he wasn’t sure any of them would make sense to Cass. For one thing, if he worked at Hattie’s he wouldn’t be able to wander in off the street when he felt like it because he’d already be there. And he much preferred the side of the counter he was on to the side Cass was on. “You don’t need me, for one thing,” he pointed out.
    â€œRoof’s talking about moving back to North Carolina,” she said without looking at the cook, who had taken a stool around the other side of the counter to enjoy the lull and was studying them.
    â€œAnd has been for twenty years,” Sully reminded her.
    â€œI think he means it.”
    â€œHe’s meant it all along. Half the town’s been meaning to leave. They don’t, though, most of them.”
    â€œI know one person who’s going to,” Cass said, and she sounded like she meant it. “The day after the funeral.”
    They both