Percival Everett - Suder

I wake up early the next morning and I head downstairs for breakfast and when I step into the kitchen I’m speechless. All four of them Chinese fellas are naked as jaybirds and I’m frozen in the doorway. Thomas, Mike, and Larry are sitting at the table and Quincy is facing the stove, his skinny butt turned toward the table.

Thomas sees me. “Good morning, Craig.”

I nod.

“Have a seat,” says Quincy, turning to face me.

I sit down at the table and Mike and Larry are reading from little books. Every few seconds one of them taps the other and points out something in the book, but they don’t pay me any attention.

“You picked a good morning to come down for breakfast,” says fat Thomas.

“Yeah?” I glance over at the pan that Quincy is working over.

“Yeah,” says Thomas, “we’re having yogurt-and-tofu omelets.”

“We’re having what?”

Quincy answers me. “Yogurt-and-tofu omelets.”

“Oh.”

“Here you go,” Quincy says, sliding an omelet onto my plate. There’s yogurt oozing from between the lips of the thing and I’m just looking at it.

“Before it gets cold,” Thomas says.

Quincy is back at the stove, cooking, and he looks over at me and smiles.

I cut into the eggs and slice through some of that tofu stuff and it looks like turkey gelatin or something. I slowly push a bite into my mouth. I don’t like it, but I eat it, and then I reach for the juice. It’s prune juice.

Thomas is smiling at me and then he winks and I wink back and his face sorta goes red, but more orange. Thomas makes me feel odd.

I’m sitting next to the phone, which is on a table in the living room, and I pick up the receiver. Mike and Larry are discussing their little books quietly in a far corner. I’m calling Lou Tyler.

“I’d like to place a collect call,” I tell the operator.

“Name?”

“Craig Suder.”

Lou’s phone rings and Lou’s daughter picks up. “Hello.” “I have a collect call from Craig Suder,” says the operator.

“Who?”

“Craig Suder. Will you accept the charges?”

“I’m a friend of your daddy’s,” I says.

“I’ll get my daddy,” the girl says.

“Hello.” It is Lou.

“I have a collect call from Craig Suder. Will you accept the charges?”

“Where the hell are you!” Lou shouts.

“Will you accept the charges?”

“Everybody here is—”

“Will you accept the charges?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Hello, Lou,” I says.

“Where the hell are you? You’ve got everybody sick wondering if you’re okay.”

“I’m in Portland.”

“What are you doing there? Come up here!”

“I was wondering if I could use your cabin at Mount Hood.”

“Get your behind up here!”

“No, I really need some more time to myself. Can I use your cabin?”

“You call Thelma?”

“The cabin?”

“Call your wife.”

“Okay. Now, can I use—”

“Yeah, you can use the cabin. Do you know how to get to it?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Thanks a lot, Lou. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hang up.

Fat Thomas comes into the room and stands in front of me. “I’m going to work,” he says.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I just look straight ahead at his stomach. I move my eyes up to his face. “Where do you work?”

“All over.”

I question him with my eyes.

“I fill vending machines,” he says. “You know, candy, cigarettes, bubble gum, little toys in plastic cases.”

“That’s what you do for a living?”

“Yeah.”

“Like it pretty much?” I’m just trying to make conversation with the man.

“Yeah. I get to move around a lot.”

“You got a truck?”

“Station wagon.”

“I see.”

“Well, I’m going to work now.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see you later.”

“See you later.”

“Yeah.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Thomas walks out of the room and out of the house. I call the bus station and I find out there’s a bus leaving at one o’clock in the afternoon for Parkdale. I go up to my room and I play my horn for a while.

At about noon I collect my belongings. I find some cord and I rig things up so that my bat and my saxophone are strapped behind me. I put my record in the briefcase with the money and I grab my phonograph and start downstairs.

The front door slowly opens and there’s Sid Willis and he’s holding a gun.

“I’m here for my money, boy,” Sid says. “Then I’m going to blast you.”

“How’d you find me?” I am taking a step backwards.

“I didn’t have any luck looking for you, but everybody knows about that three-hundred-pound Chinese she-boy.”

“Oh.”

“Now, let me have my money.”

I shake my head.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to blast you first.”

Then Thomas appears in the doorway and he raises his finger to his lips and then he throws his arms around Sid. Sid’s gun falls to the floor and Thomas’s fat arms have got the old man tied up good.

“Run, Craig!” Thomas says. “I’ve got him! Run, darling!”

“Get this funny Oriental off me!” screams Sid.

I move out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I turn again to Thomas and I says, “Thanks.”

“Somebody get this faggot off me!” yells Sid, struggling.

“Take my car,” Thomas says. “The keys are in it.”

“Thanks.”

And Thomas blows me a kiss. I frown and run out of the house and I hop into Thomas’s station wagon and drive away.

Bud was looking out the front window and then he turned to Daddy. “Doc, I wish you’d come look at this.”

His tone pulled not only Daddy but Martin and me as well to the window. Coming down the street was a white pickup truck. It was moving real slow and sitting on the lowered tailgate was McCoy in a white sweat suit, looking back at my mother, who was chasing the truck. McCoy was waving his arms, yelling for Ma to keep up the pace.

Daddy was outside in a second and we were all with him. We were in the driveway and Ma came trotting past. “Kathy!” Daddy yelled. The neighbors were out of their houses. Daddy looked around and then he picked up some gravel from the driveway. “Throw rocks,” Daddy said and ran toward the truck. Martin and I grabbed handfuls of rocks and ran, too. So did Bud. McCoy was up and slapping on the cab of the truck. Daddy threw his rocks and McCoy ducked behind the wall of the truck’s bed. We pelted the truck with gravel. Daddy picked Ma up over his shoulder and carried her into the house.

“Maybe just different,” Bud said.

Martin thought I was asleep. He pulled on his trousers and grabbed his flashlight and climbed outside through the window. I got dressed real quick and went out after him. He was halfway down the block when I was out of the tree to the ground. I followed him a good many blocks and I saw him go behind Watkins Funeral Home. My eyes got big. I couldn’t figure why anybody should be going there late at night, especially my brother. I walked down the driveway, alongside the big black cars, to the backyard. Martin was standing at the back door, knocking lightly. The door opened and Martin went in.

My wind got short and I moved around and looked at the door. I looked at that door for a long time and then I grabbed the knob. It was open. I walked in. I moved down this dark hallway. I heard noise coming from this room. I pushed the door open a crack and then I heard Martin’s voice. I walked in and in the back of this room Martin was kissing Naomi Watkins and touching her all over. Then Naomi climbed on this table and Martin got on top of her.

Just then, the door that I had come through opened. I ducked into a corner and I heard Martin and Naomi running and then the light came on. I guess they got out some way because Pernell Watkins walked past me, looking around, and then he left. He left the light on and I looked beside myself and saw jars and tubes and then I looked behind and found myself face to face with a dead person. I closed my eyes tight and stood motionless for a long time.