The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [19]
“How did you wind up here. Sully?”
“God knows.”
“You weren’t born here?”
“Christ, no. It’s a Dutchy name, but it’s Milwaukee Dutch, not Pennsylvania. Except they never said Dutch for German in Milwaukee. Krauts they called you, or Chermans. Christ, if I was born here, I never would of stayed around.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Let me think. I came here two years before I got married the first time. That was to Alicia, I think that was before your time. So that would be something like twenty years in September. Twenty years exactly. I remember I hit this town Labor Day weekend.”
“I suppose you never thought you would stay. At the beginning, that is.”
“You kidding? I was here ten years never figuring I would stay no more than another week. Then one day I look around, and there’s ten years gone and I don’t know where the hell they went to, and I realize I’m probably gonna spend the rest of my life in this toilet. It’s the kind of town it is, it sneaks up on you like that.”
“It’s been good to you, though.”
“Yeah, I got no personal bitch.”
“You’ve done well.”
“I make a living.”
“You’ve got this place and you’ve got the Coryell Arms and God knows what else.”
“Not so much else. Not so much as you might think, Hugh. You know something, you’re the first person ever called it the Coryell Arms in my hearing. I had to think a minute to realize you were talking about the Shithouse. Sully’s Shithouse, that’s all anybody calls it. Hell, it’s what I call it.”
“Twenty years in New Hope. You should throw a party to celebrate.”
“Hold your breath,” He picked up the glass again his large hand, took a long swallow. “You can almost throw your own party, can’t you, Hugh? You haven’t been around any twenty years but you didn’t turn up yesterday either. What is it, twelve, fourteen years?”
“More like eighteen.”
“Is that a fact? Well, I wouldn’t of said that much. If that’s the case you must of been here when I was married to Alicia, but I don’t remember knowing you then.”
“I didn’t go to bars much back then.”
“I didn’t have this place at the time, but you would of had to go to a bar to meet me. I worked for old man Lakey who had a place where the mall is now, and then I tended bar for a time at the Inn up in Pipersville. You look empty.”
“Yeah, you can do it again, Sully.”
“Same way? Here you go. No, you’re giving me too much, Hugh. What you’re drinking is just a buck ten. Thanks.” A waitress approached with a table order and Sully expertly mixed half a dozen drinks, then returned to Hugh. “This fucking town,” he said.
“You said that before, I think.”
“It’s a downhill town, Hugh. There’s towns that are getting better and there’s towns that are getting worse, and this one’s the kind that’s getting worse. The tourists come here because it’s supposed to be an art colony. The good artists have been getting fewer and farther between in these parts ever since the war. The tourist business is still alive because those shitheads don’t realize anything until a hundred years after it happens, so they still come up to look for artists and walk around with ice-cream cones in their fists looking for something to hang on the bathroom wall. Each year there’s more of them in town and each year they spend less and look worse. These days they’re either freaked-out kids with no money in their pockets or Bermuda shorts types who wouldn’t pay a nickel to see Christ ride a bicycle. The fucking tourists keep the town alive and the fucking town won’t put up a parking lot or a public toilet for their benefit. Who the hell wants to come to New Hope as a tourist? If I drove through this shithole I wouldn’t even get gas.”
“You would if you ate here.”
“Huh? Oh, very funny, very fucking funny. But why do I have to tell you this, for Christ’s sake? You live here, you know the place is dying.”
“They’ve been saying that for eighteen years that I know about.”
“They’ve been saying it for twenty years that I know