Cormac McCarthy - Suttree

The path switchbacked and ran out on a cutbank above an abandoned railsiding. He descended into the roadbed and went on. The old right of way lay dim among the weeds, the rails rusted, curving away over rotted ties and dark slag. He trudged along happily in his outland garb, his thin shoes cupping the rails. The river ran below him surly and opaque and shaping itself on the curious forms of limestone that jutted from the bank. By and by he came upon two fishbutchers slick with blood by an old retaining wall, holding a goodsized carp between them. He greeted them with a smile, a curiously attired person emerging from the shrubbery. They stayed their gorestained hands a moment to study him while the fish bowed and shuddered.

Hidy, he said.

These two regarded each other a moment and then looked down at him. Blood dripped from the fish. Blood lay among the leaves in little jagged grails of bright vermilion. One beckoned with a dripping claw. Hey boy. Come here.

What do you want?

Come here a minute.

I got to get on. He was going along sideways over the ties.

Just come here a minute.

He sidled away and broke into a run. They watched him without expression until he had gone from sight in the weeds and then turned back to their fish.

A half mile down the track he came upon rolling stock on a siding, an old black iron locomotive with inscriptions of faded gilt and wooden cars quietly rotting in the sun. Creepers threaded the wrecked windows of the coaches, ancient and chalky brown with their riveted seams and welted coamings like something proofed for descents into the sea. He walked the aisle between the dusty green and gnawn brocaded seats. A bird flew. He came down the iron steps to the ground. A voice said: All right, young feller, off of them there cars.

Harrogate turned and beheld an overalled railroader coming down the tracks toward him, an oldtimer in a striped cap with a heavy brass watchchain hanging from him.

The country mouse turned to see which way to run but the man had paused to stoop above a rusted truck with his longspouted oilcan. He was shaking his head and muttering. Old black engine oil dripped from a seized journal. He raised himself erect and checked the time by the clocksized watch he wore in his bibpocket. Where’s your buddies at today? he said.

Harrogate looked about to see if it was he that was addressed. A cat regarded him dreamily from the domed roof of the coach, belly weighed with pigeon eggs against the warm tar.

It’s just me, said Harrogate.

The old man squinted at him. Your daddy aint a railroad man is he?

No.

I allowed maybe I knowed ye.

I’m new around here.

I dont know ye then.

My name’s Gene Harrogate, said Harrogate coming forward. But the old man shook his head and waved him away and climbed laboriously over the couplings between the cars. I know all the people I want to know, he said.

You dont know old Suttree do ye? Harrogate called after him, but the old man didnt answer.

Harrogate went on down the line, under the old steel bridge and out from the shadow of the bluff past a lumberyard and a slaughterhouse. Rich odors of pinepitch and manure. The siding switched off among the yards and he crossed a field with a ragged camp of shacks sketched into the distance and a weedy sea of auto wrecks washed up on the flank of a hill. He came out upon a narrow road and after a while he came to a gate construed from an old iron bedframe all overgrown with dusty morninglories and hung about with hummingbirds like windtoys on strings. In the yard lay a man in greasy overalls with his head resting on a tire.

Hey, said Harrogate

The man reared up wildly and looked about.

I’m a huntin Suttree.

We’re closed, said the man. He rose and crossed the yard toward a tarpaper shack covered with hanging hubcaps, no two alike. Bumpers were stacked against the wall and water dripped from a tap into a gastank halved open with a torch. Beyond in the rank and steamy foliage wrecked cars crouched and everywhere in this lush waste were blooming flowers and shrubs.

Look around if you want, the man called. Dont bother me. Dont steal nothin. He disappeared into the shack and Harrogate pushed open the gate and entered. The gate was weighted with a chainload of gears and closed gently behind him. The air was rich with humus and he could smell the flowers. Wild datura with pale strange trumpets and harebells among the debris. Great gangly rosebushes covered with dying blooms that collapsed at a touch. Phlox lavender and pink along a leaning wall of cinderblock and loosestrife and columbine among the iron inner works of autos scattered in the grass. He crossed to the shed and peered through the open door. The man was lying stretched out on a car seat.

Hey, Harrogate said.

The man lifted his arm from his face. What in the name of God do you want anyway? he said.

Harrogate was peering about in the gloom of this small hut crammed with the salvage of highway disasters. Faint country music came from a car radio in the floor. Tires rose in black serried pillars and batteries lay everywhere suppurating a dry white foam.

I’m a huntin old Suttree, he said.

He aint here.

Where might I find him at do ye reckon?

Web City.

Where’s that at?

Up a spider’s ass.

The junkman put his arm back across his eyes. Harrogate watched him. It was incredibly hot in the shack and it reeked of tar. He studied the outlandish collection of autoparts. You a junkman? he said.

What did you need?

Nothin.

What are ye sellin?

I aint sellin nothin.

Well let’s buy or sell one.

I thought you was closed.

Now I’m open. I guess you’ve got a bunch of hubcaps you’ve stole.

No I aint.

Where are they?

I aint got none. I’m just out of the workhouse now for stealin watermelons.

I aint buyin no watermelons.

Harrogate shifted to the other foot. His clothes did not move. You live here? he said.

Mmm.

It’s neat. I bet a feller could fix hisself a place like this for next to little or nothin, couldnt he?

The man’s toes were pointed toward the ceiling and they spread and closed again in a gesture of noncommitment.

Boy I wisht I had me a place.

The man lay there.

Hey, Harrogate said.

The man groaned and rolled over and reached under the car seat and pulled out a quart jar of white whiskey and sat erect enough to funnel a drink down his gullet. Harrogate watched. The man deftly reapplied the twopiece lid and laying the half filled jar against his ribs he subsided into rest and silence once again.

Hey, said Harrogate.

He opened one eye. Boy, he said, what’s wrong with you?

Nothin. I’m all right.

You want a job?

Doin what?

Doin what, doin what, the man said to the ceiling.

What kind of a job?

The man sat and swung his feet to the clay floor, the jar cradled in his arm. He shook his sweaty head. After a minute he looked up at Harrogate. I aint got time to mess with people too sorry to work, he said.

I’ll work.

Okay. You see that frontended forty-eight Ford out there? That ragtop?

I dont know. They’s a bunch out there.

This one is like new. I need the upholstery out of it fore it ruins. Seats, carpets, doorpanels. And I need em cleaned.

What are you payin?

What’ll you take?

Harrogate looked at the ground. A black swarf packed with small parts in a greasy mosaic. I’ll take two dollars, he said.

I’ll give ye a dollar.

Dollar and a half.

You’re on. They’s wrenches in that box yonder and a screwdriver. The seats unbolts from underneath. Them door and winderhandle scutches are spring loaded you push in on em and knock the pins out with a nail. Armrests unscrews. When you get em all out I got some soap and they’s a watertap at the side of the house.