Nobody's Fool

back when he was married, had never been terribly successful. Before noon his orgasms were always vague,like the distant rumblings of a train half a mile away and headed in the other direction. It was one of the things wrong with his marriage. Vera had often awakened feeling frisky, an enthusiasm that had seldom survived breakfast. Sully attributed this to her Puritan upbringing. Some girls you just had to catch before they woke up enough to remember who they were.
    â€œTell me you don’t want to get it on with this broad right now,” Carl challenged. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the TV, though he’d finally removed his hand from his shorts.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you, anyway?” Sully said.
    Carl Roebuck sighed. “I have no idea. Honest to God,” he confessed. “Lately I want to fuck ’em all. Even the ugly ones. You ever want to fuck the ugly ones?”
    â€œThis conversation’s getting kind of personal,” Sully told him.
    Carl looked hurt. “Okay. Ignore me in my moment of pain and crisis. I reach out to you as a friend, and what do I get? Heartache.”
    Sully grinned at him. This “What do I get? Heartache” line was one of Carl’s favorites and was impossible to take seriously, though it occurred to Sully that there just might be an element of seriousness now. “Just because I don’t lock my front door doesn’t make us friends. What’re you doing here, anyhow?”
    Carl stood up, pretended to do jumping jacks, his feet firmly planted on the floor, only his arms in motion. “I wanted to make sure you got an early start. You have a lot of work to do,” he observed. “You and your smelly dwarf finish with those blocks yesterday?”
    Sully told him they had.
    â€œI missed you at The Horse last night,” Carl said. “Rub was there. He said you finished.”
    â€œThen why’d you ask me?”
    â€œÂ â€™Cause Rub had that scared look he gets when he lies,” Carl said and stopped with the jumping jacks to study Sully.
    Sully had to smile at the idea of Rub trying not to blurt out that they had broken a load of blocks. “He’s always nervous around his betters,” Sully explained. “I’ve told him you aren’t one of them, but Rub’s a slow learner.”
    â€œI don’t see how you can work with somebody who smells like a pussy finger.”
    â€œI keep him downwind when I can.”
    â€œWouldn’t it be simpler to tell the little fuck he stinks?”
    â€œI have,” Sully said. “He thinks I’m kidding. He says if he stunk that bad Bootsie would mention it.”
    Carl shuddered. “That’s what I should do when I get horny. Think of Bootsie.”
    â€œI thought you wanted to fuck the ugly ones,” Sully reminded him.
    â€œNot that ugly,” Carl conceded.
    Sully went back into the bedroom to dress. He could hear Carl poking around the tiny kitchen.
    â€œYou got any coffee?” he called.
    â€œNo,” Sully said. “Hattie’s does though, just down the street.”
    Sully was seated on the edge of the bed, flexing his knee, when Carl poked his head in. “Mind if I grab a quick shower?” he said. Then, catching sight of Sully’s knee, he added, “Jesus.”
    Anymore, that’s the effect Sully’s knee had on people, which was one reason he didn’t like to let people see it. The sight of the grotesque swelling, the deep discoloration, the skin stretched so tightly that it glistened, was something Sully himself had grown accustomed to. It was the look on other people’s faces that scared him.
    He pulled on a fresh pair of work pants, stood to zip and buckle. “Yesterday was a long one,” he explained.
    Carl was still looking at the knee, as Peter had done yesterday, through the fabric.
    â€œI got a hell of an idea,” Sully said. “Why don’t you pay me for yesterday. My knee always feels better when I take money from you.”
    â€œYou should have that operation,” Carl said. “If they can fix my heart, they can fix your knee.”
    â€œI got news for you,” Sully said. “They didn’t fix your heart. They just made it so it wouldn’t stop beating for a while. If they’d fixed it, you’d be faithful to your wife and pay your employees what you owe them.”
    â€œI’ve thought about paying you for last