Suttree (37 page)

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.

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.

Check, said Suttree, rising and putting the fifteen pill under the rail.

How's that fourteen look, Sut?

That's too hard a shot, Jelly.

Jelly walked around the table and sighted on the oneball and banked it across the side.

Double, said Suttree.

No shit? said Jelly, raising up and grinning.

Rack, said Jerome.

Flop shook his head. The other man stood up and threw his pills on the table and took the pillbottle and emptied the pills out onto the felt. Let him draw his own fuckin pills, he said.

Yes, said Jelly. I aint had the eightball a time.

How sweet it is on the Jellyroll Kid, said Jake, racking up the balls.

The stranger was counting the pills back into the bottle. Jellyroll grinned and winked at Suttree. Kenneth Tipton told me he got in a check game up here last week with four highschool boys. He was the last to draw pills and when he went to draw them there wasnt but one left in the jug. He held it up and asked could he borrow one from somebody.

Suttree grinned. Jimmy Long got in a bank game up here with a hustler one time, they butted heads for about an hour, finally this hustler says: Let's play one game lefthanded for ten. Old J-Bone says okay and this hustler was lefthanded.

Jelly laughed and bent and broke the balls and reached for the pillbottle. Suttree rose.

Where you goin Sut?

I've got to go.

Shit, dont leave now. We'll go drink a beer here in a minute.

I'll see you later.

Jelly was looking at his pills. Drink some mash and talk some trash, he called out.

Suttree went past the counter. Hey Fred, he said.

Buddy boy, said Fred.

He pushed open the door and nodded to the sentry at the top of the stairs and went down the stairwell to the street.

In the evening he rowed back across the river with six bottles of cold beer under the seat. The shadow of the bluff lay deep and cool along the south shore of the river. He swung in alongside the Indian's patched skiff and tethered his rope and tucked the sack of beer under his arm and started up the bluff.

The path wound up by a steep and narrow way and near the top of the rise came out upon a natural terrace in the rock and a cave. The Indian did not seem to be about. A soapkettle was lodged on a rock hob and the gray flaky ashes when he toed them broke open to an orange heart of burning wood.

Hey Michael, he called.

A lizard crossed the stone floor and slithered into the weeds.