Cormac McCarthy - Suttree

The first person to get clobbered was a country boy from Brown’s Mountain named Leithal King. He sat down in the floor holding his head with both hands. Goddamn, he said.

Callahan had leaped back, holding up his hands. He’s gone crazy, he said.

Slusser turned. He looked crazy. Eyes wild, a blue swelling at his temple giving his face an asymmetrical twist. The prisoners had fallen away. Slusser turned toward the guards in a half crouch and they fell upon him with slapsticks flailing. Callahan lowered his hands and leaned forward to see better. The slapsticks were going whop whop whop, Slusser on the floor with just the pick sticking out, the guards hammering away from kneeling positions like carpenters on a roof.

When they raised him up he was limp and bleeding from the mouth and ears and his face was his face seen through bad glass. Leithal had risen from the floor and Blackburn pointed his cudgel at him and said: You. Get this man. Callahan you son of a bitch. You get his other side.

I aint done nothin, said Leithal, coming forward uncertainly.

Callahan already had Slusser’s arm draped around his neck and was bearing him up. He wiped a thin trickle of blood from his own mouth with a freckled fist and turned and gave the prisoners a pinched grimace of idiotic triumph which sent such a plague of grins among them that the other guard turned at the door. What the hell are you doing, Callahan?

Just holdin this man up. Where you want him?

They followed the guards out the door and Blackburn slammed the gate and locked it and they followed them down the hall and down the stairs, Slusser’s pick dragging along behind until the other guard fell back and raised it up and they went on like that, bearing Slusser on toward the box with his hindleg aloft like a wounded iceskater.

The guard returned with Leithal and Callahan and when he unlocked the door Callahan started through it.

Hold it Callahan, said the guard.

Callahan held it.

The guard shut the door behind Leithal and locked it and motioned Callahan down the hall. The prisoners could hear him protesting. Hell fire, what for? I aint done a goddamned thing. Hell fire.

Suttree went back to his bunk, touching his swollen ear with his fingertips. Harrogate was still crouching in the top of his bunk with the spoon in his hand.

Where are they goin with Mr Callahan? he said.

To the hole. Blackburn’s wise to his bullshit.

How long will they keep him in there?

I dont know. A week maybe.

Goddamn, said Harrogate. We sure stirred up some shit, didnt we?

Suttree looked at him. Gene, he said.

What.

Nothing. Just Gene.

Yeah. Well …

You better hope they keep Slusser in the box.

What about you?

He’s already punched me.

Well. As long as they let Mr Callahan out before they do him.

Suttree looked at him. He was not lovable. This adenoidal leptosome that crouched above his bed like a wizened bird, his razorous shoulderblades jutting in the thin cloth of his striped shirt. Sly, rat-faced, a convicted pervert of a botanical bent. Who would do worse when in the world again. Bet on it. But something in him so transparent, something vulnerable. As he looked back at Suttree with his almost witless equanimity his naked face was suddenly taken away in darkness.

Some of the prisoners called out complaining. The hall guard told them to knock it off.

Hell fire, it aint but eight oclock.

Knock it off in there.

Bodies undressing in the dark. The hall light made a puppet show of them. Suttree sat on his bunk and eased off his clothes and laid them across the foot of the bed and crawled under the blanket in his underwear. Voices died in the room. Rustlings. The light from the yardlamps falling through the windows like a cold blue winter moon that never waned. He was drifting. He could hear a truck’s tires on the pike a half mile away. He heard the chair leg squeak in the hall where the guard shifted. He could hear … He leaned out of the bunk. I will be goddamned, he said. Harrogate?

Yeah. Hoarse whisper in the dark.

Will you knock off that goddamned clicking?

There was a brief pause. Okay, said Harrogate.

When they came in from work the next evening Harrogate had a couple of small jars he’d found in the roadside. Suttree saw him descend from his bunk after lights out. He seemed to disappear somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. When he reappeared he camped on the floor at the head of Suttree’s bed and Suttree could hear a tin set down on the concrete and the clink of glass.

What the fuck are you doing? he whispered.

Shhh, said Harrogate.

He heard liquid pouring.

Whew, said a voice in the dark.

A whiff of rank ferment crossed Suttree’s nostrils.

Harrogate.

Yeah.

What are you up to?

Shhh. Here.

A hand came toward him from the gloom offering a jar. Suttree sat up and took it and sniffed and tasted. A thick and sourish wine of unknown origins. Where’d you get this? he said.

Shhh. It’s Mr Callahan’s julep he had workin. You reckon it’s ready?

If it’d been ready he’d of drunk it.

That’s what I thought.

Why dont you put it up and let it work some more and we’ll drink it Saturday night.

You reckon it’ll tear your head up?

Suttree reckoned it would tear your head up.

They lay there in the dark.

Hey Sut?

What.

What you aim to do when you get out?

I dont know.

What was you doin fore you got in?

Nothing. Laying drunk.

A deep wheezing of sleepers rose and fell about them.

Hey Sut?

Go to sleep Gene.

By morning a heavy rain had set in and they did not go out. They sat in small groups in the dimly lit cell and played cards. It was cold in the room and some wore their blankets shawled about their shoulders. They looked like detained refugees.

At noon a gimplegged prisoner brought up sandwiches from the kitchen. Thin slices of rat cheese on thin slices of white bread. The prisoners bought matchboxes of coffee from the hallboy for a nickel and he poured hot water in their cups. Harrogate came awake from a deep nap and hopped to the floor to get his lunch. He drank plain water with his sandwich, crouched up there in his bunk, his cheeks jammed. Outside the cold gray winter rain fell across the county. By nightfall it would turn to snow.

He’d finished his sandwiches and was back to tapping at his ring when a new thought changed his face. He put aside his work and climbed down to the floor and crawled under Suttree’s bunk. Then he crawled out and back up topside where he fell to work again. In a little while he crawled down again.

Toward dusk a few prisoners looked his way to see what went, the smallest prisoner sitting in the top of his bunk suddenly going whooo whoo like a chimpanzee and lapsing silent again.

When the triangle rang for dinner all fell out save he. Suttree came by from his cardgame and shook him by the shoulder. Hey hotshot. Let’s go.

Harrogate raised up with one eye shut, his face matted where it had lain crushed in the blanket. Aaangh? he said.

Let’s go to supper.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pitched out onto the floor face down.

Suttree had turned to go when he heard the crash. He looked and saw Harrogate struggling in the floor and came back and helped him up. What the fuck’s wrong with you?

Yeeegh yeegh, said Harrogate.

Shit, said Suttree. You better stay here. Can you get back in the bunk?

Harrogate fended him away and focused one eye toward the cell door. Sup sup, he said.

You crazy fucker. You cant even walk.

Harrogate started across the tilted floor listing badly. The other prisoners were jammed at the door, filing out by twos and down the stairs. Some looked back.