Nobody's Fool

of Sully. “Read it and weep, asshole,” he said, pointing at the last entry. “One egg I charged him for.” Then he pointed at the floor. “There’s your dinner.”
    Sully studied the tab closely to make sure nothing had been erased. Then he gathered the money and stuffed it into Wirf’s shirt pocket. “The perfect end to a perfect day,” he said.
    Wirf was shaking his head. “How come you never see anything headed your way until it runs over you?”
    â€œI’d have bet everything he charged you for both eggs,” Sully admitted.
    â€œYou
did
bet everything,” Wirf pointed out.
    All three men slid off their stools then, and Sully went over and picked up the egg off the floor. “Hey,” he said to Tiny, who was grinning now. “I knew if I came in this place long enough I’d get something for free, you cheap prick.” Then he ate the egg, washing it down with the last swallow of his beer.
    â€œGo to jail, Sully,” Tiny said. “It’s where you belong.”
    Outside, the wind had died down, leaving the night sky full of stars. The three intersections of downtown Bath were strung with holiday lights.
    â€œIt doesn’t feel like Christmas, somehow,” Sully said.
    Wirf looked at him a little cross-eyed and, finding Sully serious, exploded into laughter. Peter was chuckling too. When Birdie came out, Wirf made him repeat what he’d said, and when Sully did, Wirf laughed so hard again that he had to sit down on the curb. “It’s for moments like these that I zig with you,” he said.
    Sully, who didn’t see anything that funny about what he’d said, turned to Birdie. “You know it’s customary to give a condemned man one last request. My truck’s out back. What do you say we go get naked and see what happens.”
    Birdie thought about it. “Okay,” she said without visible enthusiasm.
    â€œDon’t you have any pride at all?” Sully said, taken aback.
    â€œAll talk,” she said. “Just as I suspected.”
    When they got Wirf onto his feet again and headed, under Birdie’s guidance, toward his car, Sully and Peter ambled up the street toward the police station. When they got to the alley alongside Woolworth’s, Sully said, “Wait here a minute,” and disappeared into the darkness, from which Peter heard him retching. After a minute Sully returned, looking pale and unsteady. “You all set on tomorrow?”
    â€œAll set,” Peter said, holding up a thumb to show he meant it. For the last two hours, Peter’s mood had been strangely agreeable, his customary sarcasm and wry distance absent. Not at all his usual tight-assed self, in Sully’s opinion. Maybe his son just needed to drink more. Or perhaps he was still under the spell of the prettiest girl in Bath.
    They walked, slowly.
    â€œTiny was right about one thing,” Sully said. “Your grandfather was some asshole.”
    â€œI don’t really remember him,” Peter admitted.
    â€œGood,” Sully told him. “I know you think I’m an asshole too, but I’m nothing compared to him. Not really.”
    â€œNo, you’re not,” Peter agreed. “Not really.”
    â€œWhat’re you planning to tell Will?” Sully asked, since that was what he’d been thinking about all night. Of all the regrets he refused to indulge, this was the biggest.
    Peter was clearly surprised by the question. “What do you want me to tell him?”
    In truth, Sully didn’t know. “Tell him his grandfather’s an asshole, I guess. Tell him it runs in the family.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œI wasn’t thinking about you,” Sully said truthfully. He’d been thinking about his brother and how much like Big Jim Patrick had become before he’d been killed in the head-on collision.
    â€œThanks again,” Peter said.
    â€œYou really planning on staying around here after the first of the year?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Peter said. “I thought I might.”
    â€œEvery day won’t be like today,” Sully promised.
    â€œNo?”
    â€œYour mother’s right, though. You’d be better off to go back to your college.” When Peter didn’t say anything to this, Sully said, “You want to hear something funny? I liked college,” he confessed, for the first time, to anyone.
    Peter studied