Nobody's Fool

Street, having apparently interpreted the traffic signal, in conjunction with the time of day, as meaning You Do Not Have to Stop Here. Three small, powerfully built men in filthy jeans, navy blue hooded sweatshirts and heavy orange plaid outer coats clung to the sides of the truck like flies. One of these men, whom Clive Jr. recognized as the same fellow who frequently tagged along with Sully, lost his footing on the side of the truck (the other two men seemed to occupy safer positions along the rear bumper, which provided a wide, flat surface to stand on) and had to hang on with both hands to a metal loop, his booted feet frantically searching the side of the truck for a foothold. Before they were able to locate one, the truck skidded to an abrupt halt behind Clive Jr.’s Continental, and the morose-looking Rub Squeers let go and leapt to the pavement, where he hit an icy patch and ended up on his behind. His two companions dismounted more gracefully, grinning at each other as they did so. One signaled a thumbs-up to the driver, who was grinning into his big passenger side-view mirror. Rub picked himself up without comment, ignoring his companions, who wanted to know if he was okay, and went to fetch the metal garbage can that sat in the doorway of the Rexall next to the stack of newspapers. The other two men lumbered off in the direction of other cans.
    Clive Jr. watched them, especially Sully’s friend Rub. Well, he conceded, people in his “neck of the woods”
were
funny-looking. These garbage men, these Squeers, taken together, looked like some failed genetic experiment—round-shouldered, waistless, neckless, almost kneeless, to judge from the way they lumbered. When one of the two Squeers who had been riding on the back of the truck returned with a garbage can and paused to remove his cloth hood and scratch his dome, Clive Jr. noticed that the hair on top of his skull was exactly the same length as the stubble on his chin, and suddenly Clive Jr. was certain that D. C. Collins, who had twice visited Bath, had witnessed this same scene. Clive Jr. had tried to control what Collins saw during his visits to the region, introducing him to Bath’s better-educated and more successful business people, then hustling him out of town and to dinner at one of Schuyler Springs’ finer restaurants, using that city’s proximity, as he always did, as a recruiting tool. But on one or two occasions Collins had been slippery, and one morning when Clive Jr. had gone to Collins’ Schuyler Springs hotel, he’d learned that the man had headed into Bath in his rental car. Clive Jr. had found himat Hattie’s, of all places. He now imagined Collins getting out of his rental car just in time to see the Squeers garbage truck careen around the corner, various and assorted stubbly Squeers clinging stubbornly to its sides like cockroaches. Lord.
    Sully’s Squeers, perhaps the funniest-looking of the lot, his face a thundercloud of resentment and grievance, grabbed the garbage can angrily from the doorway of the Rexall and started to return to the truck. He carried the heavy garbage can by its handles, balancing it against his hip so that the bottom of the can stuck out a good distance, and when he passed Clive Jr.’s car, Clive heard the bottom of the can graze the side of the Continental. The young man looked up then, surprised, as if the car had that moment materialized, magically, in his path. He looked even more surprised to discover that the vehicle had an occupant. Apparently the driver of the garbage truck had also witnessed the incident, because when Clive Jr. got out and shut his own door, he heard the truck’s door slam angrily and saw a fourth Squeers, the shortest of the lot, come running over. In fact, all four Squeers convened at the Continental’s tail end to examine the scratch Rub had put there. The Squeers boys, standing together like that, bore an eerie resemblance to four human thumbs. “Now you done it,” said the driver, glaring at the angry scratch, a gash really, in Clive Jr.’s paint job.
    Rub sighed. “I wisht I’d seen you there.”
    â€œThe only car on the whole damn street, and you got to bang into it,” the driver said. “Jesus Christ on a crutch!”
    The other two Squeers were looking at Clive Jr. expectantly.
    â€œI’m real sorry about this, Mr. Peoples,” said the driver, surprising Clive, until he