Nobody's Fool

rejoinder or two. Except that the conversation never did go that way, and it wasn’t going that way this time, either. In fact, Zack could feel desperation already seeping in. He was about to say, for the third time, “Some ladies’ man,” when Sully lowered the boom.
    â€œI never said I didn’t like your wife, Zack. I just said I wasn’t screwing your wife.”
    â€œThat makes two of you,” somebody piped in from down the bar, and Zack had felt the whole room go out of focus. He had to be led out of The Horse by his cousin Paulie, who, out in the bright sunlight of thestreet, finally got him to quit muttering “Some ladies’ man.” When he was finally able to shake the cobwebs, he’d made a resolution. There’d be no more talk. Next time he’d either leave Sully alone or sucker-punch him as a solution to prefight jitters.
    Unfortunately, the present circumstance conspired against him. He couldn’t very well sucker-punch Sully in his wife’s place of employment. Truth be told, he was a little afraid to, anyway. Sully might be an old fart, but he’d been a tough customer when he was younger, and Zack, who had never been a tough customer, was afraid that at sixty, Sully might still have a few tricks up his sleeve, and Zack did not want to get beat up by an old cripple. On the other hand, he couldn’t very well ignore Sully’s presence here in the restaurant, especially seated down here in the dark part, which seemed significant somehow. As usual, Zack found himself kind of in between. He had to engage Sully in another conversation. “What’re you up to, need I ask?”
    With his dishes all bussed, the only evidence of Sully’s having eaten dinner was his coffee cup and a tiny dice of Bermuda onion on the formica tabletop. And the cherrystone clam, still clamped tightly shut. Sully hoped Ruth’s husband would notice these and draw the correct inference, but he wasn’t optimistic. Zack had already drawn one inference in the last minute or so, and that would be it for a while. “I was just sitting here wondering how things could get worse,” Sully told him.
    â€œOh,” Zack said, feeling the jab land. As usual, he hadn’t seen it coming.
    â€œI must have been thinking out loud,” Sully went on, “because here you are.” He didn’t much care for the idea of being wedged into a tight booth when the man blocking his exit might summon the necessary conviction to punch him. Zack would probably get in a half-dozen good licks before Sully could get to his feet. And if Zack ever kicked Sully in the knee there’d be nothing to do but just sit back down in the booth and cry. The good news was that if Zack was going to start a fight, he probably would have by now. In fact, he had the look of a man who’d already decided to cut his losses. “Take a load off your feet, why don’t you?” Sully suggested again. “Your wife’ll be out in a minute. You can give her a lift home. She looks beat.”
    Zack wasn’t ready to sit down. “I’m not sure I like walking in here and finding you,” he complained.
    Sully shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s one of three restaurants in town.” He thumbed the sliver of Bermuda onion and flicked it into the rubber plant with his forefinger.
    â€œHow come you’re sitting way down here in the dark?”
    â€œI don’t know, Zachary.” Sully sighed. “Do I need a reason? Do I follow you around and ask you how come you sit in one chair and not another one?”
    Zack didn’t have an answer.
    â€œPretty funny, you sitting here in the dark,” Zack managed, though he’d clearly lost the edge, somehow. He couldn’t help thinking he should have had Sully in some kind of corner, that the other man had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. But here they were arguing pleasantly over whether Sully had a right to sit in here by himself in the dark if he felt like it. Which he did, Zack had to admit.
    Ruth emerged from the kitchen drying her hands on a rag. She glared at Zack, who immediately fidgeted guiltily. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Can’t start a fight?”
    â€œWhat’s he doing here?”
    â€œLet’s you and me go home, sport,” Ruth said. “
I’ll
fight with you.”
    Zack looked like he’d rather fight