Suttree (1979)

by McCarthy, Cormac

  Why goddamn you, said Suttree. He cast about until he found a huge clod of dried mud and going close he broke it over the animal. It squalled and scrabbled away, shaking its head. Suttree retrieved the fish and looked it over. He rinsed it in the river and gathered up the other fish and piled them in his washbasin, a tottery load, and went on to the shanty. The cat was already back in the skiff, searching.

  With the day's sun full on the tin roof the heat in the houseboat was unendurable. He put away his things and got a clean shirt and trousers from his cardboard bureau and dressed and took his shoes and socks and towel and went out onto the deck. There he sat looking out through the rails with his feet hanging in the river. Down near the bridge an old man poled a skiff by the shore. Standing precarious and daring. Wielding a longhandled hook. A fellow worker in these cloacal reaches, plying the trade he has devised for himself. The old man's name was Maggeson and Suttree smiled to see him at his work, going slow, shaded by the fronds of a huge and raveled fiber hatbrim.

  He dried his feet and put on his socks and shoes and combed his hair. Inside the shanty he wrapped the fish in a newspaper and tied them with a string and took the coaloil can from its corner. At the door he looked to see had he forgotten anything and then he left.

  When he reached the street he walked along until he found a flat place at the paving's edge and under the weeds and here he stopped and poured the kerosene over the warm tar. Then he set the can from sight in the weeds and went on.

  Gravely, gravely, small chocolate children nodded or lifted pale brown palms. Hello. Hidy. He climbed up from the river and went toward the city with his fish.

  Early in his living by the river Suttree had found a shortcut through old gardens on the river bluff, a winding path with cinder paving that angled up behind old homes of blackened boarding and old porches where rusted skeins of screening fell down the rotting facades. But passing under one high window always he heard a dull mutter of invective and sullen oaths and he no longer took the near path but went the longer way round by the streets. The invector however had moved to a new window so large was the house that he shared with his soul and he could still watch for the fisherman to pass. In these later years he had become confined altogether and this was hard for one accustomed to tottering daily abroad and dripping vitriol on passing strangers. He keeps his watch with fidelity. An old man dimly seen in upper windowcorners.

  Market Street on Monday morning, Knoxville Tennessee. In this year nineteen fifty-one. Suttree with his parcel of fish going past the rows of derelict trucks piled with produce and flowers, an atmosphere rank with country commerce, a reek of farmgoods in the air tending off into a light surmise of putrefaction and decay. Pariahs adorned the walk and blind singers and organists and psalmists with mouth harps wandered up and down. Past hardware stores and meatmarkets and little tobacco shops. A strong smell of feed in the hot noon like working mash. Mute and roosting pedlars watching from their wagonbeds and flower ladies in their bonnets like cowled gnomes, driftwood hands composed in their apron laps and their underlips swollen with snuff.

  He went among vendors and beggars and wild street preachers haranguing a lost world with a vigor unknown to the sane. Suttree admired them with their hot eyes and dogeared bibles, God's barkers gone forth into the world like the prophets of old. He'd often stood along the edges of the crowd for some stray scrap of news from beyond the pale.

  He crossed the street, stepping gutters clogged with greenstuff. Coming from behind the trucks a beggarlady's splotched and marcid arm barred his way, a palsied claw that gibbered at his chest. He slid past. Stale nunlike smell of her clothes, dry flesh within. The old almstress's eyes floated by in a mist of bitterness but he had nothing but his fish.

  He passed under the shade of the markethouse where brick the color of dried blood rose turreted and cupolaed and crazed into the heat of the day form on form in demented accretion without precedent or counterpart in the annals of architecture. Pigeons bobbed and preened in the high barbicans or shat from the blackened parapets. Suttree pushed through the gray doors below.

  He went over the cool tiles, his heels muted by sawdust and wood-shavings. A halfman on a skatecart oared past with leather chocks. Huge fans wheeled slowly in the upper murk and marketers shouldered past with baskets, eyes stunned by the plenty through which they moved, shy women in wrappers of gingham print with the armpits eaten out and trailing small streaked children in tennis shoes. They milled and turned and shuffled by. Suttree wandering among the stalls where little grandmothers offered flowers or berries or eggs. Rows of faded farmers hunched at the lunchcounters. This lazaret of comestibles and flora and maimed humanity. Every other face goitered, twisted, tubered with some excrescence. Teeth black with rot, eyes rheumed and vacuous. Dour and diminutive people framed by paper cones of blossoms, hawkers of esoteric wares, curious electuaries ordered up in jars and elixirs decocted in the moon's dark. He went by stacks of crated pullets, plump hares with ruby eyes. Butter tubbed in ice and brown or alabaster eggs in ordered rows. Along by the meatcounters shuffling up flies out of the bloodstained sawdust. Where a calf's head rested pink and scalded on a tray and butchers honed their knives. Great cleavers and bonesaws hung overhead and truncate beeves in stark abbatoir by cambreled hams blueflocced with mold. At the fishmarket cold gray shapes dimly limned in troughs of powdered ice.

  Suttree eased past the cool glass cases with their piscean wares and went on to the rear of the stall.

  Hello Mr Turner.

  Howdy Suttree, said the old man. What have you got?

  Two nice cats and some carp. He unrolled the paper and laid them out on the block. Mr Turner thumbed one of the catfish over. Bits of newsprint clung to it. He felt the flesh, picked up the two fish and laid them in the scales.

  Call it seven pounds.

  All right. What about the carp?

  He regarded the dull placoid shapes with doubt. Well, he said. I could maybe take one of them.

  Well.

  He lifted out the catfish and selected a small carp. They watched the needle swing. The old jowter twisted up his apron in his hands. Two and a half, he said.

  Okay.

  He nodded and went to his till and rang open the drawer. He came back with a dollar bill and four cents and handed the money to Suttree.

  When are you going to bring me some of them little channel cats?

  Suttree had slid the folded dollar into his pocket and was rewrapping the remaining fish. He shrugged. I dont know, he said. When I get a chance.

  Turner watched him. Windchimes belled thinly, a flutter of glass above them stirred by the fans, I get people askin all the time, he said.

  Well. Maybe later on this week. I have to go up on the French Broad for them. This hot weather is bad.

  Well, you bring me some quick as you get a chance.

  All right.

  He slid the other fish under one arm and nodded.

  Mr Turner wiped his hands again. Come back, he said.

  Suttree went on through the markethouse and out the double doors to Wall Avenue. A blind black man was fretting a dobro with a broken bottleneck and picking out an old blues run. Suttree let the four pennies into the tin cup taped to the box. Get em, Walter, he said.

  Hey Sut, said the player.

  He crossed the street toward Moser's to admire the boots in the window. A graylooking cripple sat on the walk with a hatful of pencils trapped in his wasted kneecrooks. His head lay sunken on his chest. As if he were trying to read the sign hung from his neck. I AM A POOR BOY. His grizzled wool tiaraed with smoked glasses worn gogglewise. Suttree went on. He crossed Gay Street with the shoppers and went up the long cool tunnel of the bus station arcade and through the doors.

  A nasal voice called out through a megaphone the names of southern cities in this cavern of stale smoke and boredom. Suttree adjusted his fish and went through the doors at the far side of the waiting room and down the concrete steps, along the platform past idling buses and into
State Street. He went past the firehouse where the inmates sat tilted in cane chairs along a shaded wall and he went down the hill past dolorous small taverns and cafes and down Vine Avenue by secondhand furniture stores among throngs of blacks and along Central where loud and shoddy commerce erupted out of the dim shops into the streets and packs of scarred dogs wandered. Shouldering his way through dark shoppers in a market ripe with sweat and the incendiary breath of splo drinkers, wide white teeth and laughter and cupshot eyeballs. Beyond the grocery cases a long trestle of beerdrinkers. An old woman thickly mantled in rags mumbled something incoherent at his ear in passing. He leaned on the meatcase and waited.

  A pocked black face peered at him over the top of the counter through racks of packaged sausage and porkskins.

  I've got four fresh buglemouth, Suttree said.

  Lessee.

  He handed up the limp package. The dark butcher unrolled it and looked the fish over and placed them in his bloodstained balance. Foteen pound, he said.

  All right.

  How come you aint never got no catfish?

  I'll try and get you some.

  Folks astin all the time: Where yo catfish at? Aint none, that's all.

  I'll see if I can get you some.

  Dollar twelve.

  Suttree held out his hand for the money.

  Out in the baking street with the bills wadded together in the toe of his pocket he swung along whistling. He went up Vine to Gay Street and along the walk by pawnshop windows. Wares to find a thousand trades. Consulting with his image in the glass he studied a display of knives. Come in, come in. A round and shirtsleeved merchant from the doorway. Suttree moved along. Late noon traffic pushed sluggishly through the heat and trolleys clicked past dimly dragging sparks from the wires overhead.

  He cruised the cool wooden dimestore aisles, eyeing the salesgirls. He revolved into the perfumed and airconditioned sanctuary of Miller's. A cool opulence available to the most pauperized. Up the escalator to the second floor. Holt was standing with his hands clasped in the small of his back like an usher at a funeral. He wore a shoehorn in his waistband and a small grin.

  He didnt make it today.

  Thanks, said Suttree.

  He went down the escalator and into the street again.

  Jake the rack stood with his hands in the change of his apron, tilling the coins. He spat enormously and dark brown toward a steel spittoon and stepped to a table where the balls were being shucked up from the pockets and a player was pounding the floor with his cue. He called back over his shoulder: He just left, him and Boneyard. I think they went to eat. Jim's drunk.

  He saw them in the rear of the Sanitary Lunch, J-Bone and Boneyard and Hoghead all three, bleary figures gesturing beyond the fogged glass. He went in.

  Jimmy the Greek speared up meat from his gasping trypots and forked the slabs onto thick white plates. He adjusted salads with his thumb and wiped away drips of gravy with his apronskirt. Suttree waited at the counter. The fans that hung from the stamped tin ceiling labored in a backwash of smoke and steam.

  The Greek was blinking at him.

  Two hamburgers and a chocolate milk, Suttree said.

  He nodded and scratched the order on a pad and Suttree went on to the back of the cafe.

  Here's old Suttree.

  Come here and set down, Sut.

  Scoot over, Hoghead.

  Suttree looked them over. What are you all doing?

  I'm tryin to get well, said J-Bone.

  How do you feel?

  I feel like I need a drink.

  Suttree looked at Hoghead. A halfcrazed grin spread over Hoghead's freckled face. Suttree looked from one to the other of them. They were all drunk.

  You sons of bitches havent been to bed.

  Early Times, called out J-Bone.

  J-Bone's crazy, Hoghead said.

  Boneyard's black eyes darted about from one to the other.

  The Greek set down a glass of water and a carton of milk and an empty glass.

  Bring us another Coke, Jimmy, J-Bone said.

  He nodded, collecting dishes.

  Suttree took a drink of the water and poured the water into the empty glass and opened the milk and poured it into the cold glass and sipped it. J-Bone was fumbling around under the seat. When the Greek came back he straightened up and cleared his throat loudly. The Greek set down a plate with two hamburgers and a Coke with a glass of ice and shuffled off again. Suttree lifted the sandwiches open and poured salt and pepper. The meat was seasoned and thinned with meal and there were scoops of coleslaw on top.

  J-Bone had come up with a bottle from under the booth and was pouring whiskey over the ice, holding the glass in his lap and looking about cunningly. He slid the bottle partly from the sweatwrinkled bag that held it and checked the level of the contents and slid it back.

  We're on that good stuff now, Sut. Here. Have a little drink.

  Suttree shook his head, his mouth full of hamburger.

  Go on.

  No thanks.

  J-Bone was looking at him crazily. He leaned a little, as if to lift one leg. His eyes wandered in his head. An enormous fart ripped through the lunchroom, stilling the muted noontime clink of cutlery and cup clatter, stunning the patrons, rattling the cafe to silence. Boneyard rose instantly and took a stool at the counter, looking back wildly. The Greek at his steamtable tottered backwards, one hand to his forehead. Hoghead staggered into the aisle, strangling, his face a mask of anguish and the lady in the next booth rose and looked down at them with a drained face and made her way to the cash register.

  Hee, crooned J-Bone into cupped hands.

  Goddamn, said Suttree, rising with his plate and glass.

  Hurt yourself Jim? called Boneyard past the back of his hand.

  Whew, said Hoghead, sitting at the counter. I believe somethin's crawled up in you and died.

  The Greek was glaring toward the rear of the cafe. J-Bone, in the booth alone, wrinkled his face. After a minute he climbed out into the aisle. Lordy, he said. I dont believe I can stand it my ownself.

  Get away from here.

  I'm trying to eat, Jim.

  Lord, said J-Bone. I believe it's settled in my hair.

  Let's get out of here, said Boneyard.

  Suttree looked at the grinning faces. Just a minute and let me finish this, he said.

  The interior of the Huddle was cool and dark, the door ajar. They came down the steep street and turned in two by two.

  Dont bring no whiskey in here, said Mr Hatmaker, pointing.

  J-Bone turned and went out and took the near empty bottle from under his shirt and drained it and threw it across the street where it exploded against the wall of the hotel. A few faces appeared at the windows and J-Bone waved to them and went in again.

  The light from the door fell upon the long mahogany bar. A pedestal fan rocked in its cage and huge flies droned back and forth beneath the plumbing hung from the ceiling. Whores lounged in a near booth and light in dim smoked palings sloped in through the dusty windowpanes. Blind Richard was sitting at the corner of the bar with a mug of beer before him and the wet duck end of a cigarette smoldering in his thin lips, his blownout eyeballs shifting behind squint lids, his head tilted for news of these arrivals. J-Bone walloped him on the back.

  What say, Richard.

  Richard unleashed his wet green teeth in the semidark. Hey Jim. I been lookin for you.

  J-Bone pinched his sad dry cheek. You sly rascal, you found me, he said.

  Suttree tapped him on the elbow. You want a fishbowl? Give us three, Mr Hatmaker.

  At a table in the rear a group of dubious gender watched them with soulful eyes. They tucked their elbows and their hands hung from the upturned stems of their wrists like broken lilies. They stirred and subsided with enormous lassitude. Suttree looked away from their hot eyes. Mr Hatmaker was drawing off beer into frozen bowls. Suttree handed back the first of them beaded and dripping and dolloped with thick foam. Richard's nose tw
itched.

  How are you, Richard?

  Richard smiled and fondled the facets of his empty mug. He said that he was only fair.

  Well, said Suttree, give us one more. Mr Hatmaker.

  Watch old Suttree spring, said Hoghead.

  You want a Coca-Cola?

  What for? Jim drank all the whiskey didnt he?

  Ask Jim.

  Here you go Richard.

  Looky here, said Jim.

  What?

  Look what's loose.

  They turned. Billy Ray Callahan was standing in the door smiling. Hey Hatmaker, he said.

  Mr Hatmaker raised his head, whitehaired and venerable.

  Is Worm barred?

  The barkeeper nodded dourly that he was.

  How about lettin him back in?

  He set the last schooner on the bar and wiped his hands and took the money. He stood looking toward the door, weighing the bill in his hand. All right, he said. You can tell him he's not barred no more.

  What about Cabbage and Bearhunter?

  They aint barred that I know of.

  Come on, assholes.

  They entered grinning and squinting in the gloom.

  Red On The Head like the dick on a dog, sang out J-Bone.

  Callahan whacked him in the belly with the back of his hand. Hey Jim, he said. How's your hammer hangin? He glanced about. The whores looked up nervously. He bequeathed upon them collectively his gaptoothed grin. Ladies, he said. He crouched slightly to peer toward the back of the room. Hey, he called. The queers is back. He punched Worm playfully on the shoulder and pointed toward the group at the table. They turned to one another in elaborate indignation, drawing their wandlike arms to their breasts. With the unison of the movement those pale and slender limbs mimed dancing egrets in the gloom. Callahan extended a hand into the air. Hidy queers, he said.

  Suttree was standing against the bar watching all this with something like amusement. When Callahan saw him he gathered his head into the crook of his arm. Goddamned old Suttree, he said.