Nobody's Fool

Sully called, grateful actually for the arrival of someone he might be able tohold his own against. He often did poorly against women individually, and when they ganged up on him, like Janey and Ruth were doing, he knew it was time to fold the tent. “Just follow the light.”
    Zack came in, slid onto the stool one down from Sully. In lieu of saying hello to anyone, he asked Ruth, “What’re you going to do with that old cash register?”
    â€œIt’s broke,” Ruth told him. “And it killed an old woman.”
    This latter piece of information either did not impress Zack as germane to his inquiry, or else he’d heard how Hattie died. “I know a guy in Schuyler’d probably give you five hundred for it. They don’t make keys like them no more.”
    Ruth studied her husband malevolently. “Do me a favor,” she told him.
    â€œOkay,” Zack shrugged.
    â€œFrom now on, come in the front door,” Ruth told him.
    â€œI don’t know why you bother, Daddy,” his daughter said. “Can’t you see she just wants to be mean to somebody? Before you came in she was being mean to Sully. She’d be mean to me too if I’d let her.”
    Zack shrugged again. “He might even go seven hundred,” he told his wife. “This guy, he collects cash registers. All kinds.”
    â€œFuck me,” Janey murmured, rolling her eyes at the ceiling.
    Ruth studied the two of them, first her husband, then her daughter, then sighed in Sully’s direction. “Genetics,” she said, and then she surrendered the generous smile that had made him love her so long ago and kept her rooted so deep in his affection now. Cass had been right, of course, Ruth was worth wanting. He just hadn’t wanted her bad enough, and in truth he still didn’t. He could be ashamed of that, but he couldn’t change it. He also realized two other things: first, that Ruth’s remark was an act of generosity, the first time she’d ever acknowledged that Janey was not theirs, and second, ironically, that they were indeed through, this time for good, except possibly as friends.
    â€œAll right, I’ll go,” Zack was saying, though he made no move to get up off his stool. “I just come by to see how you made out, if there was anything you needed.”
    â€œThere isn’t,” Ruth said. She had finished counting money out of the drawer and was binding wads of ones, fives and tens together with rubber bands.
    Zack seemed to understand the sad truth of the situation, that his wife didn’t need him, didn’t need the other man sitting one stool down the counter either.
    â€œWell,” Sully said, sliding gingerly off his stool. “I better go find Rub.”
    â€œYou like deer meat?” Zack asked suddenly, throwing Sully off guard. “Who, me?” he said. “No, I don’t.”
    â€œI got a freezer full, is why I asked,” Zack admitted sheepishly. “There’s some real nice steaks. I wouldn’t charge you nothin’ if you wanted to take a couple.”
    â€œI haven’t cooked anything for myself in twenty years, Zachary,” Sully admitted. “Thanks, though.”
    Janey was chuckling unpleasantly now.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” Ruth said, shutting the drawer to the cash register in a way that suggested her daughter’s explanation had better be good.
    â€œI was just thinking I’m the only one here who’s got anything anybody else wants.” She adjusted her breasts for emphasis.
    â€œEnjoy it while you can,” her mother advised.
    â€œYou know what this kind of dog says?” Sully asked the little girl on the way out, wondering if Miss Beryl had told her.
    It was Tina’s bad eye that found him, her good one still examining the dog, and once again Sully had the strange feeling that he was addressing old Hattie reincarnated. Just when he concluded the child wouldn’t answer, she said, almost inaudibly, “Foo on you.”
    â€œRight,” Sully agreed. “Foo on me.”
    The front door to Rub and Bootsie’s flat was unlocked, so Sully went in, knocking loudly as he did. For a moment he thought he’d made a mistake and walked into the wrong house. Rub and Bootsie’s had always been crowded with end tables, lamps, the big aquarium, the zillion knickknacks Bootsie had lifted from the dime store. The walls had been covered