Cormac McCarthy - Suttree

Suttree climbed from his skiff with the rope and made fast. The Indian had taken up a cord from among the rocks and was hauling it in hand over hand. A hulking shape loomed and subsided. It entered the shadowline of the rock pool and scuttled slowly among the ebbing fish heads. Suttree shaded his eyes. It rose up, dragged by its head, a mosscolored shadow taking shape, a craggy leathercovered skull. The Indian braced his feet and swung it up dripping from the river and onto the rocks and it squatted there watching them, its baleful pig’s eyes blinking. It was tied through the lower jaw with a section of wire and the Indian took hold of the wire and tugged at it. The turtle bated and hissed, its jaws gaped. The Indian had out his pocketknife and now he opened it and he pulled the turtle’s obscene neck out taut and with a quick upward motion of the blade severed the head. Suttree involuntarily drew back. The turtle’s craggy head swung from the wire and what lay between the braced forefeet was a black and wrinkled dog’s cunt slowly pumping gouts of near black blood. The blood ran down over the stones and dripped in the water and the turtle shifted slowly on the rock and started toward the river.

The Indian undid the wire and flung the head into the river and reached up the turtle by its tail and swung it trailing blood toward Suttree for him to heft.

Suttree reached to take it by one hindfoot but when he touched the foot it withdrew beneath the scaly eaves of the shell.

Here, you can get him by the tail.

He reached past the Indian’s grip and took the headless turtle. Blood dripped and spattered on the stones.

What do you think he’ll weigh?

I dont know, said Suttree. He’s a big son of a bitch. Thirty pounds maybe?

May be. Lay him down here and we’ll dress him.

Suttree laid the turtle on the rock and the Indian scouted about until he came up with a goodsized stone.

Watch out, he said.

Suttree stepped back.

The Indian raised the stone and brought it down upon the turtle’s back. The shell collapsed with a pulpy buckling sound.

I never saw a turtle dressed before, said Suttree. But the Indian had knelt and was cutting away the broken plates of shell with his pocketknife and pitching them into the river. He pulled the turtle’s meat up off the plastron and gouged away the scant bowels with his thumb. He skinned out the feet. What hung headless in his grip as he raised it aloft was a wet gray foetal mass, a dim atavism limp and dripping.

Plenty of meat there, said the Indian. He laid it out on the rock and bent and swished the blade of his knife in the river.

How do you fix it, said Suttree.

Put him in a pot and cook him slow. Lots of vegetables. Lots of onions. I got my own things I put in. Come on I show you.

I’ve got to get on to town with these fish. How long does it take to cook.

Three, four hours.

Well why dont I come back this evening? Okay.

Suttree looked at the saclike shape of the shucked turtle dripping from the Indian’s hand.

You be sure and come, the Indian said.

I’ll be here.

He pushed off in the skiff and took up the oars. The Indian raised the turtle and swung it before him like a censer.

As he left the markethouse it was beginning to rain. Merchants were out with poles winching down their awnings. The vendors scurried among their trucks, stowing their produce more inboard and a crazed prophet in biblical sandwichboards tottered past muttering darkly at the heavens. Suttree went up the alley and up the back stairs at Comer’s.

A company of mutes were playing check at the rear table and some raised their hands in greeting. Suttree raised back, going to the washbasin for paper towels. One of the mutes gestured at him, carving words with a dexter hand in the smoky air. Suttree was drying his face. He thought he had the gist of it and nodded and formed words with his own fingers, puzzled, erased, began again. They nodded encouragement. He fashioned his phrase for them and they laughed their croaky mute’s laughter and elbowed one another. Suttree grinned and went on to the lunchcounter.

Eddie Taylor was playing bank pool in the sideroom onehanded against a stranger and spotting him two balls. Suttree sat at the counter and turned his stool to watch. The balls rifled across the felt and whacked viciously into the pockets, Taylor laughing, joking, chalking his cue. Bending, stroking. The ball smoking back down from the end rail. Whop.

The Knoxville Bear, called out Harry the Horse on his way to the cashregister.

Stud was wiping the counter at Suttree’s elbow. What for ye, Sut, he said.

Let me have a chocolate milk.

Buddy boy, said Jake.

Hey Jake.

Jake spat into the stainless steel spittoon and wiped his mouth. The bear can walk the balls to the pockets caint he.

Yes he can, said Suttree.

While he was drinking his milk small weird Leonard took a seat beside him and leaned to case the game at the table and leaned back. Hey Sut?

Hey Leonard.

What the fuck is a yegg?

A yegg?

Y E doubleG.

Suttree looked at Leonard. Who called you that?

What is one?

Well. I dont know. A yegg is a … I guess a hoodlum.

Hoodlum huh?

More or less.

Yeah. Okay.

I never heard the word except in this crazy newspaper.

Yeah, well. Leonard looked about nervously and rose. I’ll see ye, Sut.

Suttree watched him go out toward the front and the stairs. Stud, he said. Hand me that paper.

He found the story on page two. Yeggs last night boarded the River Queen, popular Knoxville excursion boat, in what was apparently an unsuccessful robbery attempt. He smiled and finished the milk and laid his dime on the counter and pushed back the paper.

The Jellyroll Kid was in a check game at the front table and when Suttree sat in one of the lopsided theatre seats the kid sidled to him and turned down his cupped hand for Suttree to read his pills. He had the one and the twelve. Suttree noted them with a poker face. You shoot up here with the big dogs do you? he said.

It’s just a dollar. The kid was watching the table. He’d broken the rack and the twelveball was hung in the corner pocket. Flop set his cue crutch up on the felt and laid the cue in it and stroked and sighted, sawing the cue smoothly, holding the crutch under his stump. He shot the eight in the side pocket and the cueball kissed its way along the balls on the rail and tore out the oneball and nudged a ball up against the twelve. The twelve dropped into the pocket.

Check, called Jellyroll, taking the pill from his pocket and wedging it under the rail at the head of the table. Flop looked up at him and chalked his cue and laid by the crutch and set the cue on the rail and began to stroke back and forth and sight. Jellyroll looked off down the hall. Jerome Jernigan turned his eyes up in disgust. Flop stroked the oneball into the corner.

Double, said Jellyroll, throwing his pill on the table.

Shit, said Jerome.

Rack, said Jelly.

The Jellyroll Kid, said Jake, shucking the balls up out of the pockets and rounding them up with the rack.

Jelly threw a quarter on the table and collected his dollars from the other players and funneled the pills back into the leather bottle and shook it and handed it to Suttree. Suttree tipped it and let two pills fall into his palm and passed the bottle to Flop.

That’s the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, Flop said.

Jellyroll broke the balls on the table. Suttree turned up the pills and looked at them. He had the one and the fifteen.

Which way can I go, Sut?

Suttree looked at the table. The eightball was sewn up.

You can go any way you want.

I dont even want to know what I’ve got, said Jelly. He shot the fifteen into the corner and chalked his cue.