Suttree (38 page)

Suttree tipped up the rim of the kettle's lid with a stick. A wafted breath of fragrant steam slid out. The stew simmered gently. He let the lid drop and went to the mouth of the cave and looked in. A red clay floor that shaped itself among the rocks. On the right was a table made from a plank propped on stones. He ducked under the low limestone ledge and entered and set the beer down. Just within the last reaches of daylight he could make out the footrail of an old iron bed. It was damp in the cave and it smelled of earth and woodsmoke. Suttree went back out. He called again but there was no answer. He walked to the edge of the bluff and looked out. The city lay quiet in the evening sun and innocent. Far downstream the river narrowed with distance where the pieced fields lay pale and hazy and the water placid much like those misty landscapes in which Audubon posed his birds. He sat in a tattered lawnchair and watched the traffic on the bridge below. There was no sound save for a bird that conjured up forbidden jungles with its medley of whoops and croaks. Suttree saw it put forth from the bluff and flutter in midair and go back. He leaned his head back. A mayfly, delicate and pale green, drifted past. Lost ephemera, wandered surely from some upland pastoral. The chat came from its bower on the bluffside and fluttered and snatched the mayfly and returned. After a while it sang again. It sang grok, wheet, erk. Suttree got up and went into the cave and got one of the beers. He returned to the chair and sat and wiped the mouth of the bottle with the web of his thumb and held it up and toasted mutely the city below and drank.

It was almost dark when the Indian returned. He came down the slope above the cave and dropped to the stone floor and crossed to where Suttree sat.

Hey, said Suttree.

How you doin?

Okay. Get yourself a beer there. I set them inside on that table.

You want one?

Yeah.

The Indian crossed the little terrace and lifted the lid from the pot and sniffed. How's it doin?

Okay.

He stirred the mixture with a peeled stick and clapped the lid back over it and pushed more wood into the fire. He came from the cave with the beers and handed one to Suttree and squatted on his heels at the edge of the bluff. The John Agee was coming downriver, her stern paddles trudging the brown waters. They sipped their beers. The lights of the city were beginning to come up across the river. The lamps along the bridge winked on. Cryptic shapes of neon gas bloomed on the wall of the night and the city reached light by light across the plain, the evening land, the lights in their gaudy penumbra shoring up the dark of the heavens, the stars set back in their sockets. Bats came from flues and cellars to flutter over the water like rough shapes of ash tumbled on the wind and the air was clean and fresh after the rain.

You're not from Knoxville, Suttree said.

No.

How long you been here?

Just this summer.

Suttree looked out over the lights of the city. What will you do in the winter?

I dont know.

You'll freeze your ass off up here.

How cold does it get.

Got down to zero last winter.

The Indian turned his head and laid the flat of his chin on his shoulder and spat and turned back to watch the river.

I almost froze in that shantyboat. Stove and all.

The Indian nodded.

What do those signify?

The Indian looked down. He touched the doll's eyes. Them? I dont know. Good luck.

I guess they must work. Judging by that catfish.

Dont you have nothin?

A good luck piece?

Yeah.

No. I guess not.

The Indian rose. Wait a minute, he said. I'll get you something.

When he came back from the cave he handed Suttree a small lozenge of yellowed bone. Suttree held it up and looked at it. It had a hole bored in one end and he turned it in his hand to feel if there were not some carving on it but there wasnt. A few hairline cracks. A tooth? He rubbed its polished surface.

What is it?

The Indian shrugged.

Where did you get it?

I found it.

Do I have to wear it or can I just carry it in my pocket.

You can just carry it if you want to.

Okay.

Dont forget about it.

No. He held it up.

You cant just put it away and forget about it. said the Indian, He drained his bottle and rose and crossed the terrace to the fire. He ladled the stew up into heavy white china bowls and came and handed one to Suttree. Suttree took it in both hands and balanced it and stirred. He spooned up a piece of the meat and cradled it in his mouth to cool it. He chewed it. It was succulent and rich, a flavor like no other.

The Indian came from the cave with two more beers and a lighted lamp. He set the beers down and he set the lamp on the stone and crouched like an icon and began to ladle the stew into his jaws. Suttree watched him eat, his eyes dark and trancelike in the soft orange light, his jaws moving in a slow rotary motion and the veins in his temple pulsing. Solemn, mute, decorous. In his crude clothes crudely mended, wearing not only the outlandish eyes but small lead medallions that bore the names of whiskeys. Sitting solemn and unaccountable and bizarre. He reached and took up his beer and drank. He rocked the bottle and studied the foam within the brown glass. I found them in a fish, he said.

The eyes?

Yeah.

What about my piece?

It was in the cave yonder. How you like the turtle?

It's damned good.

The Indian set the bottle down and took up his spoon. How long you been on the river? he said. This is my second year.

The Indian shook his head. You wont stay.

Maybe not,

What got you fishin?

I dont know. I sort of inherited my line from another man. Suttree reached down and got his beer and drank. Dry weeds at the edge of the rock rattled and hissed in the wind.

What happened to the other man?

I dont know, said Suttree. All he said was not to look for him back.

There was no one in the Huddle save a few whores and weird Leonard, pale and pimpled part-time catamite. They were sitting at the black table drinking beer and sharing ribald tales oft told and partly true of Johns and tricks. When he saw Suttree at the bar he rose up and came over.

Hey Leonard, said Suttree.

Listen Sut. I got somethin to ast you.

I've got something to ask you.

He looked about. Come on back in the back, he said. Get ye a beer. Mr Hatmaker, give us a fishbowl over here.

Fat city, said Suttree. Where'd you score?

I got me a little walkabout off old crazy Larry this mornin. Here. Come on back in the back.

They eased into the booth and Suttree cocked his feet up and took a sip of the beer and leaned back. Leonard did the same. After a while Suttree said: Well?

Well.

Well go on.

You ask yourn first.

You know what mine is.

No I dont. What is it.

I'd like to hear the true story. The paper said you finally jumped overboard.

What the fuck, Sut. What are you talkin about?

The River Queen.

Leonard looked around. Hell fire, he whispered hoarsely. That wasnt me.

Then what are you whispering about?

I didnt do it. May God strike me ...

Suttree seized his upraised hand. Not with me sitting this close.

Leonard grinned.

Did you really have to swim for it?

I dont know nothin about it Sut. I keep tellin ye.

Okay. What was it you wanted to ask me.

Well.

Go ahead.

Shit, I dont know where to start.

Start at the beginning.

Well you know the old man's been sick a long time.

Okay.

And you know the old lady draws that welfare.

All right.

Well she draws so much for everbody. I mean she wouldnt let Sue move out on account of it would cut it down and she gets medical for the old man and he draws unemployment on top of that so she draws good money.

All right.

Well if the old man was to die she wouldnt get but about half what all she's gettin.

Suttree sipped from his bowl again and nodded.

Well ...

Go on.

Well he's done died.

Suttree looked up. I'm sorry to hear that, he said. When was it?

Leonard passed the top of his closed fist across his forehead and looked around uneasily. That was what I wanted to talk to you about.

Okay. Go ahead.

Well. Shit.

Hell Leonard, go on.

Well. He died see?

I do see.

And Mama stands to lose about half her check.

Well, she wont have the expense of him.

He aint been no expense. She's been savin to get her some things she needs. She done got a steamiron.

Well Leonard if he's dead he's dead. You cant keep him in the back room and make out like ...

Leonard's finger traced along the top of the table through the water pooled off the frozen mug. He didnt look up.

I mean he wont keep with hot weather coming on. Suttree smiling, smile slowly fading. Leonard gave him a funny little look and went back to scribbling in the water.

Leonard.

Yeah.

When did he die?

Well. He sat erect and rolled his shoulders. Well, he died ...

Yeah, you said. When?

Last December.

They sat in silence, looking at their mugs of beer. Suttree passed his hand over his face. After a while he said: Did you ever get her refrigerator back?

Naw. She got her anothern.

What did you do, run an ad in the paper?

You mean on her old one?

On her old one.

Naw. Hell fire Sut, I never meant to sell it. This old guy stopped me in the street ast me did I know anybody had one for sale. I told him no but I kept thinkin about it and I got to drinkin whiskey with Hoghead and them and we run out of whiskey and I knowed where the old guy lived and went on over there and then we went to the house on account of she was at work and he offered to give me fifteen dollars for the refrigerator and I said twenty and he said okay. Fore I knowed what happened he had it dollied up and out the door and loaded and gone. I wouldnt of done it had I not been drinkin.

Leonard?

Yeah?

What the fuck are you going to do about your old man?

I wanted to talk to you about it. If we could just get him out of there without anybody bein the wiser we could still draw on him.

You're crazy.

Listen Sut. We're painted into a corner anyways. I mean what if we was to just call up and say he died? I mean hell fire, you caint fool them guys. Them guys is doctors. They take one look at him and know for a fact he's been dead six months.

How does it smell in there?

It smells fuckin awful.

Leonard took Suttree's empty bowl to the bar and refilled it. When he came back they sat in silence, Leonard watching Suttree. Suttree shrugged his shoulders up. Well, he said. He couldnt think of anything to say about it.

Leonard leaned forward. Listen, he said. I just need somebody to help me with him. I can get a car ...

Suttree leveled up a pair of cold gray eyes at him. No, he said.

If I could just get you to help me load him, Sut. Hell, it wouldnt be no risk to you.

Suttree looked across the table at that earnest little face, the blond hair, the pimples, the eyes too close together. Strange scenes of midnight stealth and mummied corpses by torchlight, old snips from horror movies, flickered through his head. Listen Leonard, he said.

I'm listening.

What does your mother think about all this? I mean, I cant see her going for this crazy hustle.

She aint got no choice. See, what it was, it got out of hand Sut. We left him in there just to finish out the week. You know. So we could draw on him for the full week? Well, the week ended and I said hell, wont hurt nothin to let it go a few more days. You know. And draw that. Well. It just went on from there.

Aint that the way though? Suttree said.

It wasnt nobody's fault Sut. It just got out of hand.

Suttree lifted his beer and sipped it and set it back and looked at Leonard. You're not shitting me are you? he said.

About what?

This whole thing. Are you telling me the truth?

Goddamn Sut. You think I'd kid about a thing like this? Hell, even Lorina dont know he's dead.

What does she think is going on in the back bedroom?