Nobody's Fool

cooler was and returned with a beer. “You want a glass, Sully?”
    â€œAm I entitled to one?”
    Tiny gave him a glass. Also a piece of mail. Sully said thanks and swallowed a second of Jocko’s pills, chasing it with a swig of beer from the bottle. The second pill was probably not a good idea, but he figured he was close to home. The mail bore the logo of Schuyler Springs Community College. The address Sully had given at registration had been care of the White Horse Tavern, just to piss Tiny off. The envelope contained his grades for the fall semester. F’s except in philosophy, for which his young professor had awarded him an incomplete. “Good news,” Sully said, wadding up the letter and tossing it in the direction of the garbage bucket Tiny kept behind the bar. “I made the dean’s list.”
    Wirf was still eyeing the unused glass, anxious as always to head off hostilities. “You hear Tiny’s hired a band for tomorrow night?”
    â€œWhat’s the occasion?”
    â€œNew Year’s Eve,” Tiny said, coming back over to pick up the wad of paper from the floor. “Some people like to go out and celebrate that night.”
    In truth, Sully had lost track of what day it was. “Will I need reservations?”
    â€œA free buffet, too,” Wirf interrupted. “For all the regular customers.”
    â€œSeventy-five pounds of chicken wings I ordered,” Tiny grumbled proudly.
    â€œThose fucking things,” Sully said. “The whole town will be shitting razor blades sideways for a week.”
    â€œThen don’t eat them,” Tiny said, instantly angry, as Sully had hoped. “Who cares what you want, Sully?”
    â€œNobody,” Sully admitted. “For twenty years I’ve wanted somebody to open another bar on Main Street and put your ugly ass out of business.”
    â€œ
Twenty
years?” Tiny said. “Try forty. Forty years I been right here. There were four bars right on Main Street back when your old man was around being the same kind of asshole you are now. Now I’m the only one left.”
    â€œThe only asshole?” Sully said.
    â€œThe only bar.”
    â€œSurvival of the dumbest,” Sully offered, by way of explanation.
    â€œTwenty minutes to closing,” Tiny said, heading off down the bar toward the bar stool he kept on his side.
    â€œThere,” Sully grinned at Wirf. “Thank God he’s gone.”
    Going through his pockets, he put all the money he was carrying on the bar in front of them and started to make sense of the random denominations. It made an impressive sight, though Sully knew it wasn’t nearly enough to square his debts. When the money was arranged, he counted out five hundred dollars and slid the money in front of
Wirf
.
    Wirf studied it. “You sure?” he said. “I know you’ve got other problems.”
    â€œTake it,” Tiny advised from down the bar. “When’s he going to have that kind of money again?”
    â€œI wish somebody would offer me a hundred to shoot you in the head,” Sully returned. “In fact, I’d do it for free if I thought it would kill you.”
    â€œYou hear the weather forecast for tomorrow?” Wirf said.
    Sully admitted he hadn’t.
    â€œSupposed to snow like hell.”
    Sully sighed, ran his fingers through his hair.
    â€œHell, I thought that would cheer you up. You’ve been pissing and moaning about no snow for a month.”
    This was true, and yet Sully couldn’t help thinking of all the other things he had to do tomorrow. Going out to Harold’s and getting the plow rigged onto his pickup was one more thing. On the other hand, he was going to have to go see Harold tomorrow anyway and give him some of the money he was carrying around before it leaked away.
    â€œHe was in here earlier,” Wirf said at the mention of Harold’s name.
    â€œHe must have heard about my triple,” Sully surmised. He’d never seen Harold at The Horse or any other bar.
    Wirf shook his head. “He sat right where you’re sitting, drank a Jack Daniel’s.”
    â€œNext you’ll be telling me his wife was with him drinking Singapore Slings.”
    â€œYou know that kid Dwayne they hired? Red hair? Always picking his nose?”
    Sully said he knew Dwayne.
    â€œHe emptied the cash register on them and took off,” Wirf said.“Harold was supposed