Cormac McCarthy - Suttree

Suttree smiled.

Reese had her by the hand. He leaned toward Suttree. Listen, he said, you wouldnt tell on a feller would ye?

Maybe not. Where’s the whiskey?

Here. Hell fire, get ye a drink. He brought the bottle forth from his overalls and handed it over.

You raise tobacco too? the girl said.

Sure, said Suttree.

Reese was making peculiar faces and jerking his shoulder at Suttree. Suttree spun the cap back on the bottle and slid from the booth. I’ve got to talk to my partner here a minute, he told the girl.

They conferred a few feet from the table. Let’s hear the bad news, said Suttree.

Bad news’s ass. Looky here.

He was cupping his hand at the mouth of his pocket, a roll of bills crouched there like a pet mouse. Old buddy, I strictly slipped it to em in yonder, he said.

The whore on his arm leaned across to whisper in Suttree’s ear. You ought to get with Doreen yonder, she said, nodding toward a puffy blonde at the bar. She’s real sweet.

We got to get us another bottle of whiskey, said Reese. Both she and Reese had taken to hoarse stage whispers and Suttree had to bend his head forward to hear them at all what with the howl of electric guitars from the jukebox. As he did so the old man seized him by the head and pulled him close and rasped in his ear: Go on and get her Sut. We’ll strictly put the dick to em.

When he woke a light had come on in the cabin and a man and a girl were standing in the door. That goddamned Doreen leaves her goddamned dates in the cabins all the time, the girl said. Suttree groaned and tried to put his head beneath the pillow.

Hey, said the girl. You caint stay here.

His head was at the edge of the thin mattress. He looked down at the floor. The floor was pink linoleum with green and yellow flowers. There was a glass there and a halfpint bottle with a drink in the bottom. He reached down and got the bottle and held it against his naked chest.

Hey, said the girl.

Okay, said Suttree. Let me get my clothes.

He wandered off through the weeds in the dark. Out on the highway the sound of trucktires whined and died in the distance. He fell into a gully and climbed out and went on again.

When he woke it was daylight and he was lying in a field. He rose up and looked out across the sedge. Two little girls and a dog were going along a dirt lane. Beyond them the sunhammered landscape veered away in a quaking shapeless hell. A low gray barn, a fence. A fieldwagon standing in milkweed. Yonder the town. He rose to his feet and stood swaying, a great pain in his eyeballs and upon his skull like the pressure of marine deeps. He tottered off across the fields toward the roadhouse.

He found Reese asleep in a wrecked car behind the cabins. Suttree shook him gently awake into a world he wanted no part of. The old man fought it. He pushed away and buried his head in one arm there on the dusty ruptured seat. Suttree could not help but grin for all that his head hurt so.

Come on, he said. Let’s go.

The old man moaned.

What? Suttree said.

You go on and I’ll come later, tell em.

Okay. You comfortable?

I’m all right.

You want a sip of this cold lemonade fore I go?

An eye opened. The musty gutted hulk of the car stank of mold and sweat and cheap whiskey. Wasps kept coming in the naked rear window and vanishing through a crack in the domelight overhead.

What? said Reese.

I said would you like a sip of this cold lemonade?

The old man tried to see without moving his head but he gave it up. Shit, he said. You aint got no lemonade.

Suttree pulled him around by one arm. Come on, he said. Get your ass up from there and let’s go.

A bloated face turned up. Ah God. Just leave me here to die.

Let’s go, Reese.

Where are we at?

Let’s go.

He struggled up, looking around.

How you feeling, old partner? said Suttree.

Reese looked up into Suttree’s grinning face. He put his hands over his eyes. Where you been? he said.

Come on.

Reese shook his head. Boy, we a couple of good’ns aint we?

You dont have a little drink hid away do you?

Shit.

Here.

He lowered his hands. Suttree was holding the almost empty bottle at him. Why goddamn, Sut, he said. He reached for the bottle with both hands and twisted off the cap and drank.

Leave me corners, said Suttree.

Reese closed his eyes, screwed up his face and shivered and swallowed. He blew and held the bottle up. Goddamn, he said. I dont remember it bein that bad last night.

Suttree took the bottle from him and let the little it held fill up one corner and then he tilted it and drank and pitched the empty bottle out through the open window into the weeds. Well, he said. Think you can make it now?

We’ll give it a try.

He pulled himself painfully from the doorless car and stood squinting in the heat little pleased with what he saw. Where do you reckon they sell beer on Sunday up here?

Right here probably, Suttree said, nodding toward the roadhouse.

They passed among the cabins and staggered across the dusty waste of gravel and trash with their tongues out like dogs. Suttree tapped at a door at the rear of the premises. They waited.

Knock again, Sut.

He did.

A slide shot back in the side of the building and a man peered out. What’ll you have, boys? he said.

You got any cold beer?

It’s all cold. What kind?

What kind? said Suttree.

Any goddamned kind, said Reese.

You got Miller’s?

What you want, a sixpack?

Suttree looked at Reese. Reese was looking at him blandly. Suttree said: Have you got any money?

No. Aint you?

He felt himself all over. Not a fucking dime, he said.

The bootlegger looked from one to the other of them.

Where’s that pearl? said Suttree.

The old man raised his foot and put it down again. He leaned against the side of the building and raised his foot and reached down in his sock. He held up his purse.

How come you to still have that, said Suttree. Did you not get any poontang last night?

You daggone right I got me some. But I never took off my shoes. He undid the mouth of the thing and rolled out the pearl and held it up. Looky here, he said.

What’s that supposed to be? said the bootlegger.

A pearl. Go on. Take a look at it.

You sons of bitches get on away from here, said the bootlegger, and slammed the little window shut.

They looked at each other for a minute and then Suttree squatted in the dust among the flattened cans.

Shit, said Reese.

Suttree palmed his knees and shook his head. We’re hellatious traders, he said.

Boy I hate a dumb son of a bitch like that that dont know the value of nothin.

Let’s get the hell out of here. It’s a long way home.

Coming over the Pigeon River Bridge into Newport a county police cruiser passed them. The old man saw them coming. Wave like they know ye, he said.

Fuck that, said Suttree.

The cruiser went by and Reese waved real big. The cruiser turned at the edge of the bridge and came back and pulled up alongside. A fat deputy looked them over. Who you think you wavin at buddy?

Suttree groaned.

Reese smiled. I thought you was somebody I knowed, he said.

Is that right? Maybe you’d like to come uptown and get a little better aquainted.

He didnt mean anything by it, officer.

The deputy eyed Suttree up and down, little joy in the beholding. I’ll be the judge of that, he said. Where you two goin?

Both reckoned one more wrong answer would be all that the law allowed. They looked at each other. Suttree could hear the river beneath them. He saw himself in a swandive, heedless, lost. Under gray swirling waters. He could hear the cruiser’s motor idling roughly with its high camshaft. Home, he said.