Nobody's Fool

didn’t, schmucko,” Carl held up one finger, as if to call a point of order. “Scroll back. What did Carl say?”
    â€œYou said I fucked up your marriage and your life,” Sully said, getting more and more exasperated.
    Carl Roebuck made a loud honking noise. “Wrong-o! That was Beulah the buzzer, and
you
don’t win a prize. Tell schmucko here what Carl said, Don Pardo!” Then, in a TV game show announcer’s voice, he continued, “What Mr. Roebuck actually said was that
somebody named Sullivan
had fucked up his life and marriage. Those were his exact words.”
    The young woman named Didi returned then, sliding onto the stool next to Carl’s and running her hand along the inside of his thigh.
    â€œWatch this,” Carl told her excitedly, pointing at Sully. “This is always exciting. He’s about to grasp something. There! See it? Truth is beginning to dawn! By Jove, I think he’s got it! We’ve struck brain!”
    Both of them were grinning at him now, the girl rather lewdly, Sully thought, Carl Roebuck maddeningly, and then suddenly Carl was on his back on the floor, the bar stool across his legs. Wirf, who had that moment returned, helped Carl to his feet and stood the bar stool back upright. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” Wirf said, wedging his big, soft body in between Sully’s and Carl Roebuck’s stools.
    Carl Roebuck, feeling the back of his head where he had landed, climbed tentatively back onto his bar stool. “You’ve hurt me, Sully,” he said. “I’m wounded. You’ve busted my lip, and you’ve hurt my feelings. I try to be your friend, and what do I get? Heartache.”
    â€œI didn’t bust your lip,” Sully said. “I hit you in the jaw. You bit your own lip.”
    Carl tasted the blood with his tongue. “Oh,” he said. “Then I guess it’s my own fault.”
    Ollie Quinn came up to the bar with a fistful of bills to pay for lunch. From the register he studied the knot of people at the end of the bar—Carl Roebuck fingering his lip, the girl Didi examining Carl’s scalp, Wirf standing,Sully still seated, just as he had been when he delivered the blow, flexing his right hand incriminatingly. “You’re still pretty quick for an old fart, Sully,” Ollie Quinn offered. He took a toothpick from the shot glass next to the register, lodged it between his front teeth with his tongue and made a sucking noise. “You should’ve seen his old man, though. Now
there
was a brawler.”
    â€œA legend,” Satch Henry agreed from across the room. “Quick hands,” he remembered. “Smarter too. He would’ve waited till the chief of police left the room.”
    â€œDon’t say a fuckin’ word,” Wirf advised under his breath.
    â€œYou want to press charges, Mr. Roebuck?” Ollie Quinn said.
    â€œI sure do,” Carl said. “But not against him.”
    The chief of police nodded at Sully. “This is your lucky day,” he said.
    At noon Miss Beryl fired up the Ford, backed out of the garage, pointed the car in the direction of Schuyler Springs and drove up Main Street past Mrs. Gruber’s house, where her heartbroken friend stood at the window, waving at her pathetically. This was the first time in recent memory that Miss Beryl had gone anywhere in the Ford and not taken Mrs. Gruber, who never cared where they were going as long as they went. And so Miss Beryl was not surprised when her friend was unable to understand this act of treachery. She wouldn’t have called Mrs. Gruber in the first place except she was afraid her friend would spy the Ford backing out of the driveway and bolt from her house and hurt herself when Miss Beryl drove by.
    â€œI’m all ready,” Mrs. Gruber had pleaded. “I’ll just throw on my coat and kerchief.”
    But Miss Beryl had said no. “I’m not fit for human companionship today,” she’d explained as patiently as she could, hoping that under the circumstances this explanation would suffice and knowing it wouldn’t.
    â€œYou’re fit for me,” Mrs. Gruber had assured her stubbornly.
    â€œIf I’m not back by five, send out a search party,” Miss Beryl told her friend, half wondering if this might indeed prove necessary if she became lost again or, worse, if she had one of her spells in the