Suttree(167)

I dont see how that would pay very much, said Suttree.

Harrogate grinned slyly.

How many phones do you have?

He took the cigar from his teeth. Two hunnerd and eight-six, he said.

What?

I had a twenty-six dollar day Saturday. I just barely could walk for the fuckin nickels in my pockets.

Good God, said Suttree. You’ve got half the telephones in Knoxville plugged up.

Harrogate grinned. It takes me all day to run em. I put on a few new ones ever day. You get away from uptown they’s a lot of hard sidewalk tween telephones. I done wore out two pair of brand new Thorn McAn shoes.

Suttree shook his head.

Harrogate tipped the ash from his cigar into his palm and looked up. Listen, he said. You ever lose any money in a telephone why you just let me know. I’ll make it back to ye. You hear?

Okay, said Suttree.

Or anybody you know. You just tell me.

All right.

You the only other son of a bitch in the world I’d tell. I mean anybody could get on my route and run it if they knowed about it. They aint no way for me to protect myself.

No.

I got some other deals in mind too. There’ll be a deal for you if you want in, Sut. You aint never been nothin but decent to me. I dont mind takin a buddy with me on the way up.

Gene.

Yeah.

You’re on your way up to the penitentiary is where you’re on your way up to.

Shit, said Harrogate. I have me another day like Saturday I’ll buy the goddamned penitentiary.

It’s not like the workhouse. They have these coalmines up there for you to work in.

Harrogate smiled and shook his head. Suttree watched him. Smiling a sadder smile.

I saw Leonard the other day and he said he saw you uptown with some girl on your arm.

Shit, said Harrogate easily. Man has a little money about him he can get more pussy than you can shake a stick at.





Suttree tapped at the dosshouse door. The keeper shuffled along the hall and unlatched the door and peered out. He shut one eye, he shook his head. No ragman here. Suttree thanked him and descended into the street again.

It was still raining a cold gray rain when he eased himself down the narrow path at the south end of the bridge and made his way over the rocks to the ragman’s home. As he came about the abutment and entered the gloom beneath the bridge three boys darted out the far side and clambered over the rocks and disappeared in the woods by the river. Suttree entered the dim vault beneath the arches. Water ran from a clay drain tile and went down a stone gully. Water gushed from a broken pipe down the near wall and water dripped and spattered everywhere from the dark reaches overhead.

Hello, called Suttree. An echo echoed in the emptiness. He shaded his eyes to see. Hey, he called. He could make out the shape of the old man’s bed dimly in the cool dank.

He stood at the foot of the ragpicker’s mattress and looked down at him. The old man lay with his eyes shut and his mouth set and his hands lay clenched at either side. He looked as if he had forced himself to death. Suttree looked about at the mounds of moldy rags and the stacked kindling and the racks of bottles and jars and the troves of nameless litter, broken kitchen implements or lamps, a thousand houses divided, the ragged chattel of lives abandoned like his own.

He moved along the side of the bed. The old man had his shoes on, he saw their shape beneath the covers. Suttree pulled a chair up and sat and watched him. He passed his hand across his face and sat forward holding his knuckles. Well, he said. What do you think now? God, you are pathetic. Did you know that? Pathetic?

Suttree looked around.

These boys have been at your things. You forgot about the gasoline I guess. Never got around to it. Did you really remember me? I couldnt remember my bear’s name. He had corduroy feet. My mother used to sew him up. She gave you sandwiches and apples. Gypsies used to come to the door. We were afraid of them. My sisters’ bears were Mischa and Bruin. I cant remember mine. I tried but I cant.

The old man lay dim and bleared in his brass bed. Suttree leaned back in the chair and pushed at his eyes with the back of his hand. The day had grown dusk, the rain eased. Pigeons flapped up overhead and preened and crooned. The keeper of this brief vigil said that he’d guessed something of the workings in the wings, the ropes and sandbags and the houselight toggles. Heard dimly a shuffling and coughing beyond the painted drop of the world.

Did you ask? About the crapgame? What are you doing in bed with your shoes on?

He passed his hand through his hair and leaned forward and looked at the old man. You have no right to represent people this way, he said. A man is all men. You have no right to your wretchedness.

He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

There’s no one to ask is there? There’s no … He was looking down at the ragman and he raised his hand and let it fall again and he rose and went out past the old man’s painted rock into the rain.