Suttree

by Cormac McCarthy

  How'd it start?

  Suttree looked down. A little man was leaning to him with the question.

  I dont know, said Suttree. How all things start.

  He rose and went on.

  A police cruiser must ask his name, where is he going. Suttree proper and wellspoke, bridling the malice in his heart. Pass on. Down alleyways where cats couple, rows of ashcans and dark low doors. This pane of dusty light.

  Suttree stood in a kitchen among fugitives and mistried felons. A stout woman doled beers from a cooler and made change out of an apron pocket in which hung the shape of a small automatic pistol An emaciated whore eyed him as he entered, a stringy sloe-eyed cunt with false teeth and a razorous pelvis beneath the thin dress she wore. Wallace Humphrey stood in one corner with his eyes half closed and his hands dangling. In his oldfashioned suit he looked like one of those western badmen photographed hanging from barndoors or propped up in shopwindows shot full of holes.

  Let me have a Redtop, Suttree said.

  She handed him a bottle and held out her wet red hand. Suttree placed a halfdollar in it and got his change and went past the whore toward the living room.

  Hey sweetie, she said.

  Hey, said Suttree.

  Through the smoke he saw friends among the drinkers and he made his way toward them.

  Here's old Suttree, called Hoghead.

  Welcome to the Buffalo Room, said Bucket.

  Where's old J-Bone, Sut?

  He's still up in Cleveland.

  When's he comin back?

  I dont know. I had a letter from him said he was working as an assembler. He said every morning he assembles his ass in a corner and watches the proceedings for eight hours.

  Old Richard Harper is back from Chicago, him and Junior. Harper was supposed to get em staked up there and Junior said he like to got em burned at the stake.

  Junior said the windy city wasnt ready for Harper. He said they had enough wind as it was.

  Get ye a drink here, Sut.

  Bucket pulled a pint bottle from behind him and handed it to Suttree and he unscrewed the cap and drank.

  Bobbyjohn's old crazy uncle was in here a while ago, Bud, he was goin on about haulin whiskey back in the prohibition. Said they come into Knoxville early one mornin with a load, wasnt daylight yet. Old Tip said he was asleep in the front seat and they was a car backfired and he raised up and shot a woman waitin on the bus. Said he seen her feet stickin out of a hedge.

  Suttree grinned and drank from his beer. Figures slouched through the smoke like ghosts and there was about the room that eerie reverence felt in places where great crimes have been done. He stayed till the last cup was drained. Leaning in a doorway in the small hours watching a fat whore humping on a bed that bore the black shoetracks of many a traveler. Drifting with the last customers down the alley toward the street. Giggles and catcalls. The plastic purses of the whores cutting garish curves in the milkblue light of the streetlamps. Plates of white ice broken in the chuckholes. A small coalcolored owl trilled from a lightpole and Suttree looked and saw him fluff against the sky. He called again, called softly. Suttree sat on an old stone curb with his back to the pole, a silent dweller in a singing wood. Newsboys were putting forth with wagons through the murk, old feral fathers wading in the surf of older dawns to launch their tarred boats on some dark and ropy shoal.

  An empty beercan rolled in a light tin clank down the street before the dawn wind. Wind cold in his nostrils. He watched the graying in the east, a soiled aurora. The city's fabled salients rising through the mist.

  Sunday morning Suttree shuffled down a dim stairwell in the clothes in which he'd slept. Across the street the markethouse stood gaunt and dark in the easy rain. Hunched in front of the hotel in an uncanny silence he sucked his coated teeth. Old awnings covered the barren truckbeds and barrows. You could hear the small heeltaps of an idle whore receding in the streets. Claustral landscape of building faces even to the sky. The heelclicks sing with a stinging sound. Suttree looked upward. The baroque hotel front flaking a peagreen paint. A church clock tolling. Pigeons reel and flap in the bellpeal. In the gutted rooms sad quaking sots are waking to the problem of the Sunday morning drink.

  It seemed to rain all that winter. The few snowfalls turned soon to a gray slush, but the brief white quietude among the Christmas buntings and softlit shopwindows seemed a childhood dream of the season and the snow in its soft falling sifting down evoked in the city a surcease nigh to silence. Silent the few strays that entered the Huddle dusting their shoulders and brushing from their hair this winter night's benediction, Suttree by the window watched through the frosted glass. How the snow fell cherry red in the soft neon flush of the beersign like the slow dropping of blood. The clerks and the curious are absent tonight. Blind Richard sits with his wife. The junkman drunk, his mouth working mutely and his neck awry like a hanged man's. A young homosexual alone in the corner crying. Suttree among others, sad children of the fates whose home is the world, all gathered here a little while to forestall the going there.

  He spent a lot of time in the library reading magazines. An assortment of wildeyed freaks used to frequent the upstairs reading room, glancing furtively about, their cocks hanging out of their trousers beneath the tables, eyeing the schoolboys. One evening coming out of May's cafe and heading toward the B&J he passed two women sailing along in the other direction. He turned around and followed them back in. They spoke with yankee accents a jivy kind of talk he thought he'd listen to and he took the booth behind them and ordered a beer. Before he'd taken a sip of it one of them turned and fixed him with an up and down look of brazen appraisal. What's happening in this town? she said.

  Suttree hung his arm over the back of the booth and looked at them. Not much, he said. Where you all from?

  Chicago.

  How long you been here?

  Off and on for a couple of months.

  Off and on is right, sweetie, said the older one. The other one smiled at Suttree. We're hustlers, she said. But we wont hustle you.

  Suttree liked her.

  Well, he said. There's usually something going on at the Indian Rock.

  You want to go out there with us?

  He rubbed his jaw. The clock hanging from the ceiling turned on its gilt chain. 11:20.

  I'm Joyce and this is Margie, the nice one said.

  Hi Joyce. Hi Margie.

  What do you think?

  Okay, he said. I guess so.

  They went in a cab, the three of them in the back and him in the middle. They were all a little drunk.

  She pulled out a handful of money to pay the cab with but he pushed it back and paid himself. The cabdriver hissed at him to bend and hear.

  Them old gals is hustlers.

  Suttree patted him on the arm.

  When he danced with her she pressed her thigh between his legs and breathed against his neck. Hard impress of her pubic bone. She smelled very good. The older one kept cutting in on them and Suttree would have to dance with her. He saw no one he knew except Roop the drummer who kept winking huge hobgoblin winks at him.

  You never told me your name, she said.

  Bud.

  Bud.

  Yeah.

  Okay Bud.

  They'd been drinking whiskey and he found the floor a bit unmanageable but she didnt seem to notice. She nibbled his jugular with crimped lips. I like you, Bud, she said.

  How do you know.

  I can tell.

  Can you feel it in the marrow of your bones?

  That's not exactly the spot.

  How long are you going to be around?

  I dont know. A while. I cant go back to Chicago.

  Why not.

  A little indictment.

  Ah.

  I travel around. I'm in and out of Knoxville.

  In and out and off and on.

  She bit his neck.

  Do you want another drink?

  I'd love one. Let me get them.

 
I've got them.

  He walked her back to the table and called the waitress.

  That girl that was here said to tell you she had to go, the waitress said.

  They looked at each other. Suttree ordered ice and drinks and the waitress moved away, writing on her pad, her lips moving.

  You didnt say anything to her did you? said Suttree.

  No. You know I didnt.

  They watched each other over the rims of their half empty glasses. They started giggling.

  When they pulled up in the mouth of the alley she put her hand on his leg, apprehensive as a young girl.

  It's all right, he said.

  What's here?

  I live here.

  There's no lights.

  It's all right.

  Why dont we go to my hotel?

  Suttree was already out. He had one hand extended to help her out and the other lay on the cold steel top of the taxi. He looked up at the dim and midnight shadowworld of shapes above McAnally, dark nightscape of lightwires and chimneypots. He reached down and took her hand. Look, he said. I'm not Jack the Ripper. I live just down here. It's not much but it's clean and I've got something to drink, a couple of beers I know and a little in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey I think. Come on.

  She emerged cautiously from the cab and Suttree held her hand while he paid the driver. He slammed the door shut and the cab pulled away and he took her down the little cinderpath alleyway, taking his key from his pocket, showing her the way.

  He opened the door and turned on the light. She stood in a cellar. Fire showed in the slotted mouth of the furnace and a wild melee of piping reeled away over the ceiling, their own shadows dipping in the slight swing of the lightbulb from its cord. A deep musty smell. She turned and looked at him. I must be crazy, she said. Will someone tell me what I'm doing here?

  He crossed to the door of his room.

  What's that, the coalbin?

  He turned the light on in his cubicle and ushered her in. She leaned in the doorway with one hand on his shoulder. Well, she said.

  Go ahead.

  He closed the door. They sat on the bed and kissed. They fumbled with each other. Mmm, she said. She leaned and licked his ear and whispered in. What you dont do right, she said, you're going to have to do over. Winter sunlight parried from an upper wall fell over them from the high window. He lay awake in the narrow cot, one hand dangling on the floor. He turned to look at her. Pull back these covers from her chin. Is she gross? Is she horrid? Is she old?

  She lay slackmouthed in sleep and not unlovely. He laid his face against her full breasts and slept again.

  When he woke she was sitting on the edge of the bed in one of his shirts smiling down at him, her ashblond hair tumbled about her face. She was holding a cup of coffee for him.

  Hi, he said.

  Hello lover. Are you ready for liquids?

  Mggh.

  Yes, I know. Just sit up a bit. She fluffed the pillow with one hand and then held the cup to his lips.

  What time is it?

  Noon.

  Do you have to go?

  Yes. She brushed back his hair.

  He drank the coffee.

  I copped one of your shirts, she said.

  You wont leave those bumps in it will you?

  No, she said, taking the cup. She leaned over him. I wont leave anything messed up or marked on except you. She kissed him. She tasted of mint. She ran her hand down his belly. Oh my, she said.

  What do you want? said Suttree grinning.

  When he woke again she was dressed and sitting at the table combing her hair. He watched her. She put the comb in her purse and snapped it shut and turned around and came over to the bed.

  I've got to go, baby.

  Well.

  Is that laundry tub what you bathe in?

  Yes. Such as it is.

  I was stripped off out there washing my pussy when some spade came in. An old guy. He almost fainted.

  Marvelous, said Suttree. What did he say?

  Well, he had on this crazy hat and he took it off and began to bow and to back out the door saying: Scuse me mam, scuse me mam.

  God help him. He'll be more peculiar than ever.

  She brushed his hair back. When will I see you?

  I dont know.

  What are you doing tonight?

  Nothing. Are you asking for a date?

  Do you mind?

  No.

  May I see you this evening?

  It'll have to be someplace cheap.

  I've got some money. Baby dont. I've really got to go. Baby.

  She left in midafternoon. He lay in the bed a depleted potentate. He felt very good.

  A wan midwinter sun hung low and oblong under the leeward fishshaped clouds. A sun hotjowled and squat in the seeping lavender dusk. Down this narrow street where the chinese sign glows green. She is waiting, cupboarded in one of the high booths. A congenial oriental to bid good evening. Suttree saw her smile from a far corner.

  No. With the young lady there.

  The waitress smiled.

  Hello baby.

  Hello.

  He slid into the seat opposite but she took his hand. Come sit by me.

  He stood up again. Come over here, he said. So we dont bump elbows.

  You're a southpaw.

  Yes.

  She rubbed past him. Nice, she said.

  She was wearing a pale yellow knit dress that fit her all over and she looked very good. They sat and looked at each other and she leaned and kissed him.

  How long have you been here? he said.

  I dont know. Half hour.

  I didnt know I was so late.

  I dont care. I dont mind waiting for you as long as you come.

  Did you get wet?

  No. I got a cab. Is it still raining out?

  No. What shall we eat?

  Do you want me to make a suggestion? She was smiling at him and she had taken his elbow in both hands.

  No, he said.

  They sat together in the booth looking over the newspapersize menu.

  The butterfly shrimp are good.

  Why dont you order for us.

  Okay. What about the combination platter.

  That sounds good. Does it have the sweet and sour pork?

  Yes. And let's get some eggrolls.

  With hot mustard.

  You like hot mustard?

  Yes. Do you?

  I love it. They have some here that will completely remove your sinuses.

  I'm hip.

  There was no one else in the restaurant. It grew dark outside the window and she held his arm and they sipped tea and waited for the food to come.

  They went to a movie. He smiled at the memories induced. Sitting rigid and frightened alongside some girlchild trying to muster the courage to take her hand.

  The two of them whispering sexual slanders concerning the actors into each other's ear, vying to elaborate the most outrageous perversions. They had coffee at the Farragut coffee shop and they walked through the streets in the small rain and muted lights and looked in the shopwindows, wrapped in their coats and huddled close and the smell of her good perfume and her hair. And she who had not stopped smiling like a happy cat the evening long took him by the arm down Gay Street to her hotel and through the steamed glass doors into the lobby, the old white tiles and potted plants and polished brasswork. She sauntered to the desk and got her key and came back and took him by the arm and they went to the elevator with a small tancolored bellhop who had been reading the paper at a table in the lobby.

  The old brass lattice door clicked shut and they began to rise. A dim hum of mechanisms, cables that slithered in a steep brick well.

  You getting any of this white pussy, James? she said.

  James shook his head that he wasnt.

  She held Suttree's arm. They got off at the fifth floor and went down a long corridor, a black rubber rug. Past door and door alike with metal numbers nailed on them or mi
ssing or askew. She put the key in her door and opened it and held out her hand for him to enter.

  Go ahead, he said.

  He followed her in and she shut the door and took off her coat and hung it on the back of the door and turned to him and began to unbutton his peacoat. The room was neat and orderly with a great sprawl of cosmetics across the dressing table and bureau top and a portable hairdryer and curlers and some expensive looking clothes hung from the walls. A great stuffed ape with long arms and orange hair sat on the bed.

  That's Og, she said.

  Who named him that, you?

  My girlfriend. She gave him to me.

  Margie?

  No. Chick in Chicago. Christ, this thing weighs a ton.

  Let me get it.

  I've got it. You're not wet are you? Your head's wet.

  It's all right.

  She had a towel and was tousling his hair with it. You look like a little boy, she said. Here. Sit down. Let me see if there's any music on the radio.

  Suttree unzipped his shoes and kicked them off and scooted back on the bed and crossed his feet and lifted one of the ape's arms and let it fall again.

  You like hillbilly?

  Anything.

  I used to hate it.

  Find something else.

  There was a knock on the door and she went to answer it. The elevator man stood with a tin bucket of ice and a pint of whiskey in a paper bag.

  Baby, she said, do you want a Coke or something? I didnt think to ask you.

  I dont need anything.

  She paid the stolid yellow James and shoved the change back at him and shut the door with her elbow. She set the bucket and the package of whiskey on the bedside table and took a pair of glass tumblers from the shelf above the sink and brought them over and filled them with ice. She sat on the edge of the bed and started peeling at the seal on the bottle until Suttree took it from her and twisted the cap loose with his teeth. He poured the drinks and they sat on the bed opposite each other and sipped and looked at each other and smiled.

  I wonder if I'm already hungry again or if it's something else, she said.

  They say that's the trouble with chinese girls.

  What?

  An hour later and you're horny again.

  She smiled and sipped from her glass. There was altogether too much of her sitting there, the broad expanse of thigh cradled in the insubstantial stocking and the garters with the pale flesh pursed and her full breasts and the sootblack piping of her eyelids, a gaudish rake of metaldust in prussian blue where cerulean moths had fluttered her awake from some outlandish dream, Suttree gradually going awash in the sheer outrageous sentience of her. Their glasses clicked on the tabletop. Her hot spiced tongue fat in his mouth and her hands all over him like the very witch of fuck.