Nobody's Fool

matters?”
    â€œSexual matters,” Carl explained. “You might say I have considerable experience.”
    â€œYou might,” Sully agreed.
    â€œAnd that I’m not prone to hyperbole,” Carl continued.
    â€œI might say that if I knew what hyperbole meant,” Sully said.
    â€œExaggeration,” Carl explained. “Overstatement. Didn’t you ever go to school?”
    â€œBlow me,” Sully suggested.
    Carl rapped the bar enthusiastically. “That’s my
point
!” he said gleefully. “This girl gives the best head on the East Coast. She could suck the cork out of a champagne bottle. She could suck the lug nuts off a tractor. She could probably bring you to climax, Sully.”
    Sully ignored the insult. “You want to know what I find hard to believe?”
    â€œWhat? Tell me. Ask me any fucking thing. I’m the answer man.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said. “We’ll start with an easy one. Why are you drunk at”—he consulted the clock on the wall—“one o’clock in the afternoon?”
    â€œBecause I’m in pain,” Carl said, apparently serious. “You’re right. That was easy. Next question.”
    Sully shook his head. “
You’re
in pain?”
    â€œI’m … in … pain,” Carl repeated. “What? You think you’ve got a lock on pain? You think you’ve got the pain market cornered in this burg?”
    Sully took out his vial of pills and set them on the bar between them. “Eat one of these,” he suggested. In fact, the throbbing in his own knee had begun to level off, though he could not be sure that this was because of the pill or because the distraction he’d hoped for had arrived.
    Carl waved the pills off. “Do they cure heartache?”
    â€œDo blow jobs?”
    â€œFor their duration, they do indeed,” Carl said. “That was another easy question. Ask me a hard one.”
    â€œOkay,” Sully said. “What became of all that happy horseshit you were feeding everybody last week? About how you were turning over a new leaf? About how you weren’t even horny any more now that you were going to be a father?”
    Carl Roebuck was grinning at him now and pretending astonishment, index fingers of both hands pointing at his temples, as if he were receiving telepathic messages. “I
knew
you were going to ask that!” he exclaimed. “In fact, that’s the question you were thinking when I walked in here with the queen of the headers. Admit it.
That’s
your idea of a tough question, isn’t it?”
    Sully took an apprehensive swig of beer. He’d seen Carl Roebuck behave like this before. It meant he was about to drop some sort of bombshell. Or what he considered to be a bombshell. Sully studied Carl warily before answering. “Well, I don’t know how hard the question is,” he said, “but I notice you haven’t answered it.”
    â€œThen I will,” Carl said. “All that happy horseshit? You want to know where all the happy horseshit went? I’ll tell you. All that happy horseshit was before somebody named Sullivan managed to fuck up my marriage, before somebody named Sullivan started fucking up my life.”
    Sully blinked at him, speechless, feeling vaguely guilty. True, he’d had a crush on Toby Roebuck for a long time and probably would have fucked up their marriage if he had the opportunity. But he hadn’t had the opportunity. Was somebody spreading rumors? “You know what?” Sully said, when he located his voice.
    â€œNo, what?” Carl said, still grinning.
    â€œThere are too many people saying things like that to me today. My ex-wife just got done telling me I’m to blame for everything wrong in her life. I expect to hear that shit from her, because she’s nuts. But not you.If you think I’ve fucked up
your
life, then you’re even crazier than she is.”
    â€œSully,” Jeff called from down the bar. He made a motion with his hand for Sully to keep his voice down. Several people at the table of eight that contained Ollie Quinn and Satch Henry were looking in his direction.
    â€œSully, Sully, Sully,” Carl Roebuck shook his head sadly. “Who said anything about you?”
    Again Sully had the feeling that he was on the fringes of the conversation. “You did. About two seconds ago.”
    â€œNo I