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.