Nobody's Fool

guessed. Either that or he could smell the beer in the confined space of the U-Haul trailer.
    â€œA little,” Sully admitted.
    â€œThis is heavy,” Peter said.
    â€œI can lift my end,” Sully assured him. “Just worry about your own.”
    Peter studied him a moment. “I get this feeling we’re fighting over a woman again.”
    â€œI get the feeling you expect this desk to walk upstairs on its own if you wait long enough,” Sully said. “Come on.”
    â€œFine,” Peter said. “Kill yourself.”
    When they got up the ramp and onto the porch, Peter set his end down. “Let me back up, at least,” he suggested.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œFine.”
    They lifted then and moved through the door to the foot of the stairs, Sully backing, Peter inching forward.
    â€œSlow now,” Sully said, feeling the first step at his heel. The problem, he knew, was how to use the bad leg—to step with it or plant with it. Plant, he decided, since the good leg would bend at the knee and he’d have to thrust off it. They began going up the stairs a step at a time. He lifted from a ridge underneath the rim, and after each step he allowed the legs of the desk to rest a moment on the step below. They’d only gone four or five steps before he could see, even through his beery fog, that this wasfoolishness. Peter and Rub could walk the bastard of a desk right up in the morning. It would take them thirty seconds, and they wouldn’t have to stop once, much less at every step. A year ago Sully himself would not have had to stop. Worse, their slow progress was making the job twice as hard on Peter, who had to bear the weight of the desk between lifts. Sully could see his son sweating profusely in the frigid air. “You enjoying yourself?” Peter wanted to know when they were about halfway.
    â€œYes, I am,” Sully said, hoisting another step.
    â€œHave you decided what it is you’re trying to prove?”
    â€œWe’re arguing over a woman, I thought.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Sully heaved again, and they went up another step. “Well, pray for me then,” he suggested. “Because if I lose my end of this desk, we won’t have a dick between us.”
    The living room that had seemed so spacious that morning was now crowded with boxes that Peter had stacked in rows in front of the fireplace and the built-in bookshelves and along the walls. The two men guided the desk between them and to the far corner, where Peter had reserved a space for it.
    â€œI thought you said Charlotte took everything,” Sully said, looking around the room at all the cardboard boxes.
    â€œShe did,” Peter said. “These are mostly my books.”
    Sully tried to take this in. There had to be seventy boxes. In the next room, the shower thunked off. Sully hadn’t been aware of the sound, or its significance, until it stopped. He studied Peter, who leaned against the desk. “Didi says hi,” he told his son.
    If Peter was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I was afraid she’d turn up. She jump you yet?”
    â€œNo. She jumped Carl, though.”
    â€œShe will,” he said, adding, “Just to get at me.”
    â€œI should probably let her,” Sully said. “Just to get at you.”
    More sounds from the next room. “I better say you’re here.”
    They heard the bathroom door open then, and Sully purposely turned away. He was tempted to leave, and when Peter followed Toby Roebuck into the bedroom, he nearly did. Behind the door he could hear urgent, confidential voices. From the front window he saw the big IGA sign across the street flicker and go dark, but just before it did he caught a flicker of shiny red metal in the street below.
    Sitting on the big oak desk, he leaned back against the wall and closedhis eyes for a second, enjoying the dark, even though the solitude turned up the volume on the song his knee was singing. That afternoon and evening, once Jocko’s pill took effect and he’d found a few decent distractions (beer, bourbon, poker, a pretty half-naked young woman), he’d almost been able to forget about Vera and his knee, its singing reduced to background vocals, the orchestration to soft violins. Now the marching band was back again, but just tuning up, not stomping to the rhythm of the bass drums. For which he was thankful, being far too worn out to