Cormac McCarthy - Suttree

He heard the creak of a cellar door. On the hearth cut flowers in a blue coalscuttle stirred and trembled.

He could hear her coming from outside, doorlatch and the scuffle of her soft shoes. She entered and closed the door behind her. In the light of its closing he saw a coatrack hung with little fairground birds that swung or turned on their wires in the wind. She came to him and took his head in her hand and held up something small and oddly shaped and wrapped in an old socktoe. Suttree fended it off. Wait a minute, he said. What is that?

Hold still, she said.

He reared back. In his hand her forearm felt like a thin piece of kindling.

Aint a fool a wonderful thing? she said. It’s ice, boy. Now set still.

He subsided into the chair and she laid the cold wet rag against the knot on his forehead and took his hand in her own, a thin little thing you’d remember from touching hands with a monkey through the bars or having a pet coon. She guided his hand to the ice and he held it there. A small rill of water ran down his nose. His head began to feel nicely numb.

You’d better bring some of this for Jones, he said.

What’s got with him?

He got beat up pretty bad down at the jail last week. I guess that’s why he wants to see you.

He dont care nothin about that. He want to kill his enemies is what he want.

Kill his enemies? Suttree had his head bent forward to let the water drip.

Mm-hmm.

Which enemies?

Standing there by the chair where he sat her eyes were level with his. She looked at him. A face wherein lay everything and nothing. A visage hacked from cold black wax. She gestured with one hand, extending her arm and suggesting the world that stood beyond the thin board walls and beyond the locust forest, a gesture both grave and gracious that acknowledged endless armies of the unbending pale. That was all. She put a finger in her mouth to adjust her teeth.

Suttree stood and said that he must go.

She held back the curtain and he went through and made his way to the door. He paused there with his hand on the knob. What should I tell Jones? he said.

I caint make no call down there.

He really wants you to come.

Mm-hmm.

He needs you to come.

I knows that.

Can I bring him up here?

He knows where I’m at.

Well.

He opened the door. White sunlight blinded him. Thank you for the ice, he said.

Mm-hmm, she said.

By the time he reached the street the ice was gone and he stopped in Howard Clevinger’s to get another piece. Lifting the rusty lid of the drinkbox and sorting through the cold water for a rightsized chunk, the smooth shapes sliding about among the bottlenecks with bits of paper and flakes of fallen paint. Gatemouth was watching him from the rocker and when he raised up from behind the lid and clapped the piece of ice to his forehead he laughed and wheezed and rocked and shook his head.

Ho ho, said Suttree.

Who went up the side of yo head, baby?

Suttree leaned back. On the cardboard ceiling were tacked odd shaped bits of paper.

Who you jump salty with, Sut?

I ran into a door.

Hee hee, chuckled Gatemouth.

Where’s all your nutwagon friends today?

Out amongst em.

Good, said Suttree. He held the ice to his head and went out. Clevinger, slouched in his chair with his arms crossed, opened one eye when he passed the counter and closed it again. Suttree went up the hill toward town.

It was late afternoon when he returned. He sat on the porch and watched the river pass. Before dark fell he rose and went up the river to Ab Jones’s.

Two white men were drinking beer in the corner and Doll was frying hamburgers on the little burner in the galley. He went through the room and pushed back the curtain. The bed was empty. He pushed back the plastic shower curtain on the other side. Jones was standing at the urinal, bracing himself up with one hand against the wall. He was wearing a pair of khaki undershorts and even in the dim light from the small window on the river Suttree saw such galaxies of scars and old rendings mended and slick and livid suture marks as made him gasp. He looked like some dusky movie monster patched up out of graveyard parts and stitched by an indifferent hand. Suttree let the curtain fall.

What did she say, Youngblood?

She said for you to come up there.

He was looking at the floor, waiting for an answer. Jones didnt answer.

I told her you needed her to come but she wouldnt have any part of it.

Well.

You want me to try again?

Naw. Go on out there and get you a beer.

Do you think you could make it up there?

I’ll get up there one of these days.

Suttree went back to the front room.

You want a hamburger? Doll said.

Suttree said he would.

He got a beer from the cooler and crossed to the far corner and sat down. The two men watched him. Suttree took a long pull from the bottle and set it on the marble at his elbow. She came shuffling over in her houseshoes and set a thick plate before him with a hamburger and some pickles and went back.

Hey, said one of the men.

Suttree looked at them.

How come he gets his first? He come in after us.

She looked up from behind the plywood counter. Her one eye blinked. She looked enormously tired. He work here, she said.

They looked at Suttree. He raised the hamburger and took a good bite. It was heavily seasoned with pepper. Rich grease and mayonnaise dripped to the plate.

Hey buddy, you work here?

Suttree looked at them. They didnt look good.

How about bringin us a couple more beers, good buddy.

He pointed toward Doll Tell her, he said.

Hell, she said you worked here. Do you not wait tables?

Shit boy, we might be heavy tippers and you not know it.

Suttree set the beer down and leaned forward in his chair. I’m going to tell you goofy pricks something, he said. If you cause that big son of a bitch to come out here as bad as he feels he is going to kill you where you sit.

They looked toward the rear where he’d pointed. One turned to the other. Is he back there? he said.

Shit if I know.

I thought he was in jail.

Suttree looked at Doll. She was turning the pats of meat, her sullen face shining with grease and steam.

We’ll see you outside, motherfucker, said the man at the table.

Sure, said Suttree. He finished his hamburger and drained the beer bottle and rose. He set the plate and bottle on the counter and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

What do I owe?

You dont owe nothin.

Thanks Doll.

Dont you bring that witch down here.

Suttree grinned. She wouldnt come, he said.

Mm-hmm. She came from behind the counter with the plates and Suttree went on to the door. He listened for the men to say something but they didnt.

He crawled into bed without lighting the lamp and he was up not much past daybreak and out to run his lines.

When he came back upriver with his catch the Indian’s skiff was moored to the rocks under the bluff and the Indian hailed him from the top with a piercing whistle.

Suttree waved.

The Indian cupped his hands and called for him to pull in. Suttree feathered the left oar and came up under the shadow of the rocks. The Indian was working his way down the path. Suttree sat the oars and waited.

I got us a turtle, the Indian said. He bent to look at Suttree. What happened to you?

What?

He pointed at Suttree’s head. Suttree put a finger gently to his wound. I got that yesterday. Your buddies.

My buddies?

When I was coming back up after I left you somebody cut loose at me with a flipper.

He was a hell of a shot.

Suttree looked up to see if he was smiling but he wasnt. He rose and went down the rocks. Come on, he said. I’ll show you your supper.