Suttree(172)

Oh well. She shook her head and smiled. No. They dont come a whole lot.

Does Martha?

No. John comes much as anybody. He took me out. He took me out in his motorcar.

The old woman with them nodded her head. He did, she said. Her John did. Come in a car and fetched her.

The aunt leaned toward Suttree in confidence. He’d been a drinkin some. But I’d rather for him to of come drunk as for nobody to come sober.

Suttree smiled. They were speaking in hushed tones like people in church. The room was enormously silent. He could hear labored breathing, the rattle of osiers among the basketmakers. The clink of a bucket bail out in the hall somewhere. He looked around at the old room, the pale midwinter light that carried the windows tall and slant to the opposite wall and the plaster banded with the bones of lathing.

I never thought to end my time in such a place as this is, she said. If Allen had lived he never would of let no such a thing happen. He was always so good to me. I was like his little girl almost. I was just little when Daddy died.

What was his name? Your father. I never knew his name.

It was Jeffrey. My brother Jeffrey was Jeffrey Junior. Daddy was old when I was born. I know he’d been too old for service in the war between the states. He was a … He was wild. Pretty wild. They always said about him anyways. He was shot in a fracas of some kind. Long fore he married. Come near dyin. So I always wondered about that, had he died none of us would never have been at all and I never could … Well, that’s a funny thing to think. Maybe we would have just been somebody else. But they said he was, that he had been in trouble, I dont know. I reckon it was so and I reckon Jeffrey must of took after him. I never knew Jeffrey. I was just a baby when … When he died.

He was hanged in Rockcastle County Kentucky on July 18 1884.

She didnt answer. She said: Allen always said that Robert favored him. But of course Robert never come back from the war. Lord he wasnt but eighteen poor baby. Allen never got over it. They say he died of cancer and that may be but he never had hardly a well day after they brought Robert home. I believe it killed him as much as anything did. They was nine of us you know. Me and Elizabeth outlived all the boys and now she’s gone and I’m in the crazy house. Sometimes I dont know what people’s lives are for. She looked at Suttree. Her eyes moved and she smiled.

Daddy kept store you know, and we had this horse his name was Captain and he used to pull the wagon delivered the groceries and he was my pet. He’d foller me around, just foller me around like a dog would. We lived in Sweetwater then. And they was hard times then and we had to sell the store and Daddy had to sell Captain. And they took me up to Nanny’s because the man was comin to take him, you see. I was just a little thing. Years later when I was a young girl I was in Knoxville one Saturday and I seen this horse standin in front of a feedstore hitched to a wagon and it was Captain. I run over to him and thowed my arms around him and kissed him and I reckon everbody thought I was crazy, me about full growed standin there in the street huggin a old horse and just a bawlin to beat the band.

She pushed the palm of her hand hard against one cheek. She looked up at Suttree and smiled and she looked at the woman by her side who now was weeping and she gave her a great nudge with her elbow. Lord amercy, she said. You’re the silliest thing in here.

The woman shook her head and snuffled and Suttree’s aunt smiled at him. I want you to look at this old crazy thing, she said. She dont even know what all she’s bawlin about.

Do too, said the woman.

It wasnt the first word she’d said but it was the first Suttree’d heard. She had her hand across her forehead and was rubbing it as if she’d have the skin off. She wore a faint mustache and her gray hair stood about her head electrically. Aunt Alice looked down at her with soft amusement. She brushed her cheeks again and turned to Suttree. Her eye was bright and her expression full of sauce. You’re a good lookin somethin, she said. I believe you favor E C. You dont have a motorcar do you?

Suttree said he didnt. He felt himself being drawn into modes for which he had neither aptitude nor will. They were both watching him. The tears were gone. Their eyes seemed filled with expectation and he’d nothing to give. He’d come to take. He pulled away from them and they leaned toward him with their veined old hands groping at the emptiness. He rose. Casting his eyes over this wreckage. What perverted instinct made folks group the mad together? So many. He was the only person in the room standing and now they were watching him, eyes vacant or keen with suspicion or incipient hatred. Or eyes betrayed of any earnestness at all. An air of possible insurrection in the room, wanting just the cue to set these wretches clawing at their keepers. He looked down at the old ladies at his feet. They had their hands to their mouth in identical attitudes. I have to go, he said. I cant stay. He tore his look from theirs and wheeled off through the room. An old man in a striped railroader’s hat was holding a huge watch in his hand and following Suttree with his eyes as if he’d time him. Their eyes met across the dayroom and Suttree’s face drained to see the old man there and he almost said his name but he did not and he was soon out the door.