Nobody's Fool

stationed in the mud below. “I don’t want you to say a word, understand? If you so much as open your mouth I’m going to brain you with one of these blocks and bury you in the woods. And I’m going to pile all those broken blocks on top of you.”
    â€œI wisht you wouldn’t say things like that,” Rub said. “You always sound like you mean it.”
    â€œMean what?” Carl Roebuck said, getting out of the El Camino.
    Rub started to answer and Sully cuffed him again. Rub’s mouth closed with an audible click of his teeth.
    Carl surveyed the mound of remaining blocks, which had not diminished perceptibly. “I should apply for a federal grant,” he said, shaking his head. “When you hire the handicapped, you’re supposed to qualify.”
    Sully sat down on the tailgate of the pickup, took off his work gloves, lit a cigarette. “You could help. That way things’d go faster. Except then you’d break a sweat and your girlfriends’d all wrinkle their noses.”
    â€œLet’s not even talk about women,” Carl suggested. Indeed, the mere mention of the subject made him look even more morose. “You know what the C. I. in my name stands for?”
    â€œWhat?” Rub said, genuinely interested.
    â€œCoitus Interruptus,” Carl said sadly.
    â€œWhat?” Rub frowned.
    â€œThat’s Latin, Rub,” Carl reassured him. “Don’t worry about it. Learn English first.”
    â€œIf you’d use your lunch hour to eat lunch this wouldn’t happen,” Sully observed. “This used to be a nice, peaceful town. Now everybody has to go home between twelve and one to make sure your car isn’t in their driveway.”
    â€œI wish it was just between twelve and one that they checked,” Carl said. “I can take my lunch break whenever I want.”
    â€œGo home and see Toby,” Sully suggested, wondering if Carl knew yet about the locks. “You’re married to the best-looking woman in town, you jerk.”
    Carl rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” he said. “You remember who said that?”
    Sully didn’t remember.
    â€œWhere do they talk Latin?” Rub wanted to know.
    Nobody said anything for a moment, but Carl was grinning now. Talking to Rub seemed to have cheered him. Sully knew the feeling. It was hard to feel sorry for yourself when Rub was around.
    â€œI’m thinking of establishing a college scholarship,” Carl told him. “You should apply.”
    â€œI never graduated from goddamn high school,” Rub said, halfway between recollected anger and regret.
    â€œThen what makes you think you’re eligible for a college scholarship?” Carl asked him.
    This question so confused Rub that he looked to Sully for help. “Just don’t listen to him,” Sully advised.
    â€œI can’t believe this is as far as you’ve got,” Carl said, surveying the huge pyramid of blocks that remained.
    â€œI can’t believe anybody set them down here in the first place,” Sully remarked. “Right next to a basement that’s already built.”
    Carl Roebuck, more interested in today’s lunacy than yesterday’s, did not appear to have heard this. “At this rate you’ll still be here Christmas.”
    â€œYou’ll know right where to bring my Christmas present then,” Sully said. “Don’t go to a lot of trouble. The money you owe me will be fine.”
    Carl appeared not to hear this, his attention having been captured by a detail at his feet. There in the mud were the two blocks Sully had placed in front of the truck’s rear wheels three hours earlier. They looked like they were just sitting there, like a man might be able to bend over and just pick them up, except that when Carl Roebuck tried, he discovered they werefrozen in place, as immovable as the blocks cemented the day before into the basement foundation a few feet away. Carl looked at Sully, who was grinning at him.
    â€œGo ahead,” Sully invited. “Pick ’em up.”
    â€œYou’d like to see me have another heart attack, wouldn’t you?”
    Sully snorted at the suggestion. “Don’t worry. It’s not your destiny to die working.”
    Carl apparently agreed with this assessment, or was insufficiently motivated to argue the point, though he continued to