Nobody's Fool

Andy was on her shoulder, staring at Sully over the back of the seat. The child’s face was intense, but focused on a vacant spot between the end of his nose and his grandfather. A gaze full of rectal purpose.
    â€œThanks,” Sully said. “I’d hate like hell to get it all over my good clothes.”
    This remark startled Will, who stopped fingering his nose and looked over at Sully, clearly wondering if these could be his grandfather’s good clothes. His eyes widened with fear and sympathy.
    â€œHello, Mordecai,” Sully said to Wacker, who had not stopped staring at him even for a second, though he did not seem to share his older brother’s fear that these might be Sully’s good clothes.
    â€œMy name’s not Mordecai!” the boy said angrily. “It’s Wacker!”
    â€œHow come they call you Wacker?” Sully said, winking across Wacker at Will.
    Wacker’s face brightened instantly, and before Sully could prevent it, the little boy located a long hardback Dr. Seuss and brought it down witha crash on Sully’s knee, resulting in an explosion of sincere expletives that Sully hadn’t had the least intention of using in the company of his son’s family. Will, who had bravely held back the tears occasioned by Wacker’s attack on himself, now burst into tears of genuine terror and sympathy.
    As soon as Sully could catch his breath, he told his son to pull over, which Peter did reluctantly, into the parking lot of the IGA supermarket. Once out of the Gremlin, Sully headed straight across the lot toward the abandoned photo shack some hundred yards away. For some reason, the faster he limped, the less the knee hurt. In about fifty yards, Peter caught up to him.
    â€œJesus, Dad,” he said, his face a study in annoyance, pretty much devoid of concern, it seemed to Sully, who was surprised to discover that a little concern from his son might have been a comfort. “What’d the little bastard do?”
    Sully slowed, the waves of pain and nausea subsiding a little. He took a deep breath and said, “Wow.”
    â€œHe’s just a kid, for heaven’s sake,” Peter said. Apparently this was intended to be a comment on Wacker’s strength, his inability to inflict significant pain. What he wanted to know was why his father, lifelong tough guy, was carrying on like this.
    Since it was the simplest way to explain, Sully pulled up his pant leg to show him. When he saw his father’s knee, Peter’s eyes went so round with fear that he looked like Will. “Wacker did that?” he said, incredulous. “With Dr. Seuss?”
    â€œDon’t be an idiot,” Sully told him, satisfied with his son’s reaction. “I fell off a ladder. A year ago.”
    Peter looked greatly relieved to learn this. “Jesus,” he repeated. “You should see a doctor.”
    Sully snorted. “I’ve seen about twenty so far.”
    When he lowered his pant leg, Peter still stared at the spot, as if he could see the grotesque, purple swelling right through the fabric. They turned back toward the Gremlin. “What do they say?” Peter wanted to know.
    â€œTwenty different things,” Sully said, though this was not precisely true. “They wanted to give me a new knee, back when it happened. I should have let them, too.”
    At the time, it hadn’t seemed like a good idea. After the injury, the pain had been intense but manageable, and Sully had thought that given time the pain would gradually ebb, the way hurt always did. Had he agreedto the operation, he’d have been out of commission even longer, and he told himself he couldn’t afford that, which was pretty close to true. But the real reason he hadn’t let them operate was that the whole idea of a new knee had seemed foolish. In fact, Sully had laughed when the doctor first suggested it, thinking he was joking. The idea of getting a new anything ran contrary to Sully’s upbringing. “Don’t come crying to me and wanting a new one if you can’t take care of the one you got,” his father had been fond of saying. In his father’s house, if you spilled your milk at the supper table, you didn’t drink milk that night. If your ball got stuck up on the roof, too bad. You shouldn’t have thrown it up there. If you took your watch off and left it someplace and you wanted to know the time, you could always walk