Somebody's Fool, page 25
“Just bring it back here and put it in the impound lot,” David Proxmire instructed. “And check the answering machine as soon as you get back. It’s supposed to snow hard all day. You might actually earn your pay for once.”
In Rub’s opinion he earned his pay every single Sunday, especially the slow, off-season ones where he had to sit in the dank office all day waiting for the phone to ring. He much preferred being busy. He’d originally taken the job because there was nothing to do on Sundays but sit around and watch old movies in his tiny apartment above the Rexall and feel guilty about the fact that he didn’t miss Bootsie as much as he knew he should. At Harold’s he watched those same old movies on David’s snowy portable, wishing David would spring for cable, maybe one of the premium movie channels where they showed boobs. He also wished David Proxmire hadn’t specifically forbidden him to raid the snack and soda machines. And of course, despite his growing sense of independence, his pride in both his burgeoning bank account and his newfound autonomy, he’d have gladly traded them all to have Sully back, telling him what to do and when and how.
You sure? Sully wanted to know.
Yes. Rub was sure.
* * *
IT WAS SNOWING harder now, but the streets were empty, so despite traveling at a speed that was unlikely to wreck the wrecker, Rub made it to the Green Hand in under twenty minutes, time he spent trying to convince himself that the Caddy with the West Virginia plates couldn’t possibly be Peter’s son’s. But of course it was. He knew that as soon as he pulled in, though with its windows all smashed, its body covered with dents, its tires flattened, the Caddy was all but unrecognizable. Getting out of the wrecker, Rub went over to where the vehicle sat, battered and forlorn. What in the world had transpired here? he wondered. Yesterday, he himself had taken an instant dislike to Thomas Sullivan. Had someone here at the Green Hand done the same? Had Thomas gotten into some kind of altercation that had spilled out into the parking lot? Or, for reasons Rub couldn’t fathom, had Thomas done this to his own vehicle? Had the thing refused to start? Rub had known Sully to become furious at inanimate objects, and Thomas was Sully’s grandson, so maybe.
He was on his back under the vehicle, hooking the wrecker’s chain to the Caddy’s frame, when he heard a nearby door open and boots crunching through the snow and broken glass. A voice said, “They did some job on it, didn’t they?”
Rub pulled himself out from under the car. The large man standing over him looked to be in his fifties and he identified himself as Glen, the tavern’s owner. When they shook hands, Glen’s came away red. “You’re bleeding,” he told Rub. “Did you know that?”
Rub didn’t, though he probably shouldn’t have been surprised. The freshly fallen snow glittered with shards of glass from the Caddy’s windows, headlights and taillights, mirrors and reflectors. The cut was on the heel of his right hand, and seeing the blood caused the cut to sting. “Darn,” Rub said, wishing the man hadn’t pointed it out. In his considered opinion there were many things in this world that you were better off not knowing, and whether or not you were bleeding somewhere was one of them. The knowledge of unpleasant things too often led directly to other unpleasant things, and this right here was a case in point. No sooner did he feel the sting of the cut on his hand than he became aware of an identical sting on his left butt cheek, which meant that when he wriggled under the vehicle he’d cut himself there, too. He closed his eyes in an attempt to intuit other nicks, but there didn’t seem to be any.
“I wasn’t here,” Glen said in answer to Rub’s unspoken question, “but the way I heard it, the owner of this shit-heap assaulted a police officer. Another officer took exception.”
“But how’s he going to get back to West Virginia?” Rub said.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” the other man told him, though he was studying Rub curiously now. “What difference does it make to you?”
“None,” Rub lied, not wanting to reveal just how invested he was in Peter’s son leaving Schuyler County and never, ever returning.
* * *
CARL ROEBUCK, long one of Rub’s least favorite people in the whole world, was just emerging from Peter’s Upper Main Street house when Rub pulled up at the curb, hoping to catch Peter at home. Taking in the spectacularly ruined Caddy sitting on the long bed of the wrecker, Carl sauntered down the sidewalk for a closer look. “You know what this looks like?” he said, when Rub got out and joined him on the sidewalk. “It looks like the sort of vehicle our old friend Sully might’ve owned. One he meant to trade in on something even worse.”
Rub ignored this and nodded at the house. “Is he in there?” Meaning Peter, of course.
“No, Rub, I’m sorry to report that Sully died.”
“I know that,” Rub told him, adding, to his own astonishment, “I dug his grave.” Immediately ashamed for having given voice to something he didn’t want to remember, much less talk about, and feeling his eyes start to fill up, he had to look away. When he finally looked back, Carl was regarding him curiously. “Who exactly are you?” he wanted to know. “And what have you done with Rub Squeers?”
It was not unusual for Rub to find himself lost in simple-seeming conversations. Somehow, though, when talking to Carl Roebuck, he was never not lost. It was why—or one of many reasons why—Carl was one of his least favorite people. “What do you mean?” he said.
“You said you dug Sully’s grave,” Carl explained. “The real Rub Squeers would’ve duh-duh-dug it. What happened to your stuh-stuh-stutter?”
“I don’t know,” Rub said, even more ashamed now. Was he being accused of carelessness? Of misplacing something valuable? “It just…went away.” Suddenly wanting his stutter back to prove who he was, he would’ve liked to say wuh-wuh-went. Anxious for this grueling conversation to be over, he asked again if Peter was inside.
“Left about an hour ago,” Carl informed him.
Given that Peter’s truck was nowhere in evidence, Rub was inclined to believe Carl was telling him the truth, though it did beg an obvious question. “Then…how come…”
“How come I was inside?” Carl smiled, pausing to light a cigarette. One of the things that baffled Rub was why Carl always seemed to enjoy the very conversations that Rub himself was so anxious to conclude. “Because I live there,” he finally explained.
Rub started to contradict him, then thought better of it, even though he knew for a fact that Carl didn’t live there. The problem was that a fair amount of what Rub knew for absolute certain turned out in the final analysis not to be true at all, and this made him cautious. Was this one of those times? If it turned out that Carl did live there, it would mean that history was repeating itself, because once upon a time, when Sully was alive and living out back in a trailer, he had indeed rented the upstairs flat to Carl. To Rub it made a kind of sense that with Sully gone Carl would return there now. If Rub didn’t want him to—and he didn’t—then of course he would. Just as he’d once had to share Sully, he would now have to share Peter. Rub could feel the stars aligning to make this happen. “Since when?” Rub asked.
“I moved in last night,” Carl said, inhaling deeply, triumphantly, it seemed to Rub.
“It’s all torn up in there,” Rub objected.
Carl spit a fleck of tobacco into the snow. “Not the part I’m living in,” Carl said. “Look, you wouldn’t happen to have a spare grand or two on you?”
“No,” Rub said quickly, worried now. He hadn’t let on to anybody about his checking account. Was it possible that someone like Carl could tell just by looking at him that he did have that kind of money. Had somebody at the bank blabbed?
“Don’t worry, Rubberhead,” Carl said, dropping the half-smoked cigarette into the snow and grinding it out under his boot. “I’m just pulling your leg. What would you be doing with two grand, right?”
To Rub’s surprise, instead of being relieved to know that his secret was safe, he felt a strong urge to set Carl Roebuck straight, to let him know just how wrong he was, that by dint of working seven days a week and never going anywhere or buying anything, he could, in fact, loan Carl Roebuck the sum he had in mind.
“Anyhow,” Carl was saying. “I’m glad you’re here. If you can’t loan me two grand, you can at least give me a lift.”
“Where?” Rub said, realizing, even as he did so, that it was a mistake. He should’ve just said no. David Proxmire had told him explicitly to fetch the Caddy, bring it directly back to the yard. He’d already disobeyed orders by making this unauthorized detour, which for all he knew might be a firing offense. And he had more than once reminded Rub that the wrecker was not to be used for anything not work-related, which giving Carl Roebuck a lift would be.
“Spa City Realty,” Carl Roebuck informed him.
“That’s in Schuyler.”
Carl waved this off. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, opening the wrecker’s passenger-side door and climbing in. Once situated, he rolled down the window. “It’s right on the main drag. Practically on your way.”
“It’s in the other direction,” Rub corrected him.
“That’s why I said practically,” Carl told him, rolling the window back up and effectively ending the discussion.
Somehow, Rub realized, the wrong man was now inside the wrecker, the right one outside of it. This didn’t seem like a problem with no solution, but if there was an obvious one, Rub couldn’t see it. He supposed he might remain standing there in the snow and wait for the man inside to get back out, but Carl’s relaxed posture in the cab suggested that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Alternatively, he could join Carl in the warm, dry wrecker and drive him back to Schuyler like he wanted. How would David Proxmire ever learn that he’d done this? A third option would be to get back into the wrecker, ignore both Carl’s presence and his pleas and just return to the yard with the Caddy like he was supposed to, after which Carl would be farther from his hoped-for destination than he was now. Which would serve him right. Of the three options, this one was the most satisfying to contemplate, and another man might actually make it work. Rub had spent pretty much his entire life wishing he was another man, any other man but, unfortunately, he never was and, he felt certain, never would be.
“I could get in trouble,” he told Carl petulantly, climbing back into the wrecker. “I’m not supposed to give people rides.”
“Aah,” Carl said, lighting another cigarette. “You worry too much.”
“And nobody’s supposed to smoke in the truck,” he added.
“Silly rule.”
“Also?” Rub said, allowing a frightening impulse to roll over him. “I don’t even…like you.”
Carl tapped his cigarette into the pristine ashtray. Rub made a mental note to empty it when he got back to the yard. “That’s okay, booby,” Carl assured him. “I like you. Whoever you are.”
Rub pulled away from the curb, still trapped in a conversation he couldn’t seem to escape.
“I don’t even luh-luh-like you,” Carl said, taking another deep drag on his cigarette. “That’s what you would’ve said if you were really Rub Squeers.”
Dithering
DESPITE PETER’S DOGGED EFFORTS to ignore them, Ruth’s words—Maybe you ought to find out—kept on repeating on an unwelcome loop in his brain. After the cemetery he’d driven her home, then headed to Schuyler. Cuppa, his regular Sunday-morning coffee shop, was located a convenient block from Edison College, where, later in the morning, he played in a regular Sunday racquetball league. In the meantime, he ordered a latte, found a small table along the back wall where he connected his laptop to the shop’s Wi-Fi. Tomorrow he would meet with his staff to discuss which new books, movies, art and music deserved their attention and match those with their growing list of regular contributors. Against his better judgment he’d also promised Jack Julowitz to add to their agenda his proposal to expand the paper’s focus to include some hard news. In J.J.’s view, the Schuyler Springs Democrat, despite its left-leaning opinion page, had become too timid and conservative in its news division, too unwilling to cover tough local stories. What Schuyler Arts needed to become, in J.J.’s view, was a genuine alternative newspaper, one willing to do deep dives into local politics and government. Peter didn’t object to the idea in principle. He just wasn’t anxious to undertake such a significant change, one that would almost certainly require additional funding to implement, especially given that he hoped his own days in Schuyler County were numbered. Also, J.J., the paper’s principal photographer, was a gadfly and pot stirrer, always anxious to rile people up. His “deep dive” stories, Peter feared, would be more muckraking than news, perhaps even an invitation to lawsuits.
After staring at the blinking cursor of his laptop long enough for his coffee to get cold, he gave up and clicked out of his Schuyler Arts folder. Part of him, he realized, was still back at Hilldale. When Ruth, blunt as usual, had suggested it might be a good idea to find out what kind of man the son he’d abandoned so long ago had become, he’d voiced his reluctance to embark upon what would likely be a pointless exercise. No surprise, she’d responded by quoting his father: Do some fucking thing. If that doesn’t work, do something else. Which, Peter had to admit, was pure Sully. Your only options were bad? Choose the least awful one and get to work. If the result was unintended consequences that made matters worse, well, you could at least say you tried. What it all came down to, Peter supposed, was life experience. During the war his father had learned that indecision was as likely to get you killed as resolute action. Sure, you’d make mistakes, and a really bad one might cost you your life, but waiting around for the situation to clarify could prove deadly as well. In wartime, data often arrived in the form of live ammunition. Dithering led to further dithering and, in the end, to paralysis. Peacetime had only reinforced his father’s conviction that trial and error—or, as he put it, Do something, even if it’s wrong—were preferable to armchair theorizing. The latter involved sitting down, which told you a lot right there. In Sully’s view, life demanded being on your feet and—speaking of feet—putting one in front of the other. You sat down only when you were done doing.
What kept Peter from fully embracing his father’s philosophy, at least as it manifested in Sully himself, was that it was too often born of impulse or impatience. Human beings had a lot of moving parts, and what ailed them wasn’t easily diagnosed. His father’s pragmatic approach also ignored the very real possibility that there was no remedy for the problem you were trying to fix. Hadn’t Ruth herself acknowledged as much when she worried that her granddaughter might be broken beyond repair? If this was also true of Thomas, if the injury Peter and Charlotte had inflicted on him as a boy was both grave and permanent, what good would knowing all about it do? Was it even possible to do after decades of not doing? The best reason for risking dire unintended consequences was that things couldn’t get any worse. In Peter’s own experience, however, this was seldom true. Almost every situation could be made worse, even when it wasn’t immediately clear how.
Feeling a sudden urge to talk to the son he hadn’t neglected, Peter shot Will a quick email. Got a few minutes to chat?
A minute later his cell rang. “Dad,” Will said, the sound of his voice causing Peter to smile. His son was, Peter realized, a kind of genetic resolution to the philosophical dispute between his father and grandfather—a calm, patient, hardworking, resolute problem solver. “What’s up?”
“I was just wondering,” Peter said, suddenly reluctant to launch right in. “Do you remember your grandfather ever saying, ‘Do something. If it doesn’t work, do something else’?”
“Sure. All the time.”
“Not ‘Do something, even if it’s wrong’?”
“That, too,” Will chuckled, then grew serious. “Is anything wrong? You sound weird.”
Peter took a deep breath. “You’ll never guess who showed up here yesterday.”
“Ummm…Mom?”
“No, but you’re not far off.”
“Don’t tell me Wacker!”
“Yep.”
“Whoa. No advance warning?”
“Nope. He was sitting there on the porch when I pulled up. He claimed he was on his way to Montreal and decided to stop and say hello.”
“You don’t sound like you believed him.”
“Would you have?”
“Well, I wasn’t there to hear him say it, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense, I admit. You don’t decide on the spur of the moment to stop by and ‘say hello’ to someone you’re estranged from.”
Estranged. The word landed like a gut punch. He was pretty sure he used it with Thomas.
“How long did he stay?”
“An hour?”
“Huh,” Will said. “That part kind of makes sense if he really was just passing through. If the whole purpose of the trip was to see you, he would’ve stayed longer, right? How did he look?”
“A lot like you. Or how you’d look if you’d been in a bunch of bar fights.”
“That sounds kind of harsh.”
“You’re right,” Peter admitted. “Put it this way. He looks like life hasn’t done him many favors.” That black tooth, revealed when Thomas smiled, was what he was recalling. How glimpsing it had caused his heart to sink.
“You think he blames you?”
“Weirdly, no.”
“Why weirdly?”
“Well, in a similar situation, I did blame your grandfather.”
“Similar, but not identical. You at least tried. It was Mom who refused to let us be part of their lives.”
