“What?” Rub seemed genuinely curious.
“I wish you’d get up off your ass. We got a lot of work to do, and I can’t do it all by myself.”
Rub stood unsteadily, kicking over the empty bottle of Thunderbird. “Bootsie got herself arrested.”
Sully nodded. “So I heard.”
“Did you see her in jail?”
“They don’t put the men and women in the same place.”
“They took back all the stuff she stole,” he added, looking around the empty flat.
“Now you got some room to breathe in here,” Sully said, though breathing wasn’t something he’d have recommended. The place still smelled like ten pounds of dead dime-store fish. “Let’s go to work.”
“Okay,” Rub agreed.
They went outside. “How come you got the Canimo?” Rub said, climbing in.
“Camino, you dope,” Sully corrected him. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Rub thought about this and rephrased the question. “Where’s the truck?”
“Peter’s got it.”
“He’s still here?” Rub said, clearly disappointed to hear it.
Sully turned the key in the ignition, then turned it off again. “Hey,” he said.
Rub studied his knees.
“Look at me,” Sully insisted. “He’s my son. You’re my best friend. That okay with you?”
Rub nodded, snuffed his nose.
“Don’t cry either,” Sully warned him, intuiting this possibility too late. “You hear me?”
“I won’t,” Rub said, though it was a promise he couldn’t keep.
Sully watched him, shook his head in disbelief, and sighed. He’d gotten away without apologizing, but this was worse. “I should have stayed in jail,” he said, turning the key in the ignition again. Then he put the radio on to drown out the sound of his best friend’s sniffles.
Since it hadn’t taken nearly as long to locate Rub as Sully had anticipated, he decided to swing by Silver Street, where Vera and Ralph lived, in case Peter was still there. Apparently he was, because the U-Haul trailer was still in the drive. For some reason, it was unhitched from the ball of Sully’s truck and resting off to the side. The back door to the house, the one that opened into the garage, had been propped open. Since Vera’s car wasn’t in evidence, Sully backed the El Camino next to the curb and turned the ignition off.
Rub opened the passenger side door and threw up into the gutter, practically the same spot where Sully had upchucked on Thanksgiving. Rub had more to offer. A whole jug of Thunderbird, apparently. When he finished, he said, “I feel better.”
“I bet,” said Sully, who sympathized, though he had declined to watch.
They were halfway up the drive when Peter backed out the kitchen door holding on to one end of a box spring. “You got a step coming, Pop,” he warned.
Then Ralph appeared on the other end. “I know it,” he said. “Set it down a minute.”
They noticed Sully and Rub then, and Ralph looked relieved. “Just lean it up against the door,” he suggested.
“You know Rub Squeers?” Sully asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ralph said, extending his hand. Rub, who was surprised by Sully’s introduction, missed two full beats before realizing what had happened, a look of pure astonishment on his face. Also, he was embarrassed by the condition of his shirtfront.
“He’s my best friend,” Sully explained, “but he’s a little slow on the uptake.”
“You never introduced me before,” Rub said.
“Sure I have,” Sully said. “You just forgot.”
“Well, I don’t remember it,” Rub explained.
“That’s what I just said,” Sully pointed out.
“I’d remember,” Rub insisted.
Sully nodded, grinning at him. “Say the Carnation Milk jingle.”
“I like tits best of all,” Rub began confidently, only to discover he was lost.
“Aren’t you going to say hi to Peter?” Sully suggested.
“Howdy, Sancho,” Peter said. “Hi.” Rub scowled.
“Why don’t you grab the other end of that mattress?” Sully suggested. “Ralph here looks pooped.”
“I am too,” Ralph admitted. “I don’t have to do nothing to get pooped, either.”
“That’s because you’re old,” Sully explained.
“I’m not as old as you, and you work all day.”
“Actually, he watches us work,” Peter observed over his shoulder as he and Rub, who’d begun to look a little pale again, carted the mattress past them toward the U-Haul.
“You want a cup of coffee, Sully?” Ralph offered. “I got some made.”
“Good,” Sully said. “Let’s go inside and sit down and watch them work. It’s cold out here.”
Ralph led the way. Will was in the kitchen drinking from a coffee cup, so Sully pulled up a chair next to his grandson. “What’s that?”
“Hot chocolate.”
“I can make you that if you want,” Ralph offered.
“Coffee’s fine,” Sully assured him.
“No trouble,” Ralph said. “The cocoa’s right here.”
“Coffee’s fine.”
“Take me two minutes to heat the water, is all.”
“No wonder Vera’s annoyed with you all the while,” Sully said. “Bring me a cup of coffee.”
Ralph poured a cup from the coffee maker on the drain board. “You want cream and sugar?”
“No, I want coffee.”
“They’re right here,” Ralph said, indicating them and that it was no trouble.
Sully nudged Will. “I still don’t have my coffee,” he said. “I could have drunk three cups by now.”
“Here,” Ralph said, setting the cup in front of Sully and pulling up a chair. “I’m glad you and your friend showed up. Now maybe it’ll all be done before Vera gets back from Schuyler. That’s the bed from the guest room they’re loading, and she’s going to have a kitten.”
“They could take my bed,” Sully suggested.
“Then where would you sleep?”
“On the couch. I don’t sleep enough to bother anymore anyhow.”
“Me neither,” Ralph said sadly. “I bet I’m up twenty times a night.”
“Vera finds out you let Peter take that bed, and you’re going to be the one with no place to sleep.”
“I wish I hadn’t been asleep last night,” he said. “We were burglarized.”
“You’re kidding.”
Ralph looked guilty. “Just the garage. You’ll never guess what they took.”
“Yes, I will,” Sully warned him. “They took the snowblower.”
“Was it you who did it?” Ralph said, slack-jawed with amazement.
“No, but I know who did.”
“Who?”
“The guy I stole it from. Don’t worry. I’ll steal it back.”
Ralph shook his head, studied Will, who was taking all this in. “Your grandpa Sully’s one of a kind, ain’t he?”
Will looked back and forth between the two men, clearly unprepared to voice an opinion.
“You want some more hot chocolate?” Ralph said.
Will shook his head.
“You want a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?” Sully offered.
“You don’t have a stick,” Will pointed out.
“You going to let your two grandpas visit you in your new apartment?”
“And Grandma Vera.”
“Right,” Sully said.
Peter and Rub came back through then. “Just the top mattress, and we’re set,” Peter said. “Step down, Sancho,” he reminded Rub.
“I know it,” Rub responded, though he sounded content to be warned. Sully could almost see Rub’s slow brain working, adjusting to this new reality that Sully had taught him — that Peter was Sully’s son, Rub his best friend. It’d take him a while to master the intricacies. Sully understood how Rub felt.