Wait here a minute, he said.
The guard went away and returned with another man who looked down at Harrogate suspiciously.
How old are you son?
I’m still eighteen, said Harrogate. He had one black tooth in the front of his mouth and he sucked at it nervously.
The two men looked at each other. The younger one shrugged. I dont know, he said.
Well hell. Take him on back and let Coatney have him. You. You go on back with Mr Williams. You hear?
Yessir.
Get in that pickup over yonder and wait, the other man said.
Harrogate nodded and hobbled up the road to the truck and climbed up into the bed and sat there in his outsized togs watching the men in the ditch. He saw Suttree shoveling dirt up over the rim of the excavation and Suttree looked his way once sitting there alone in the truck but he did not nod or gesture. After a while the guard came up. He motioned to him and opened the door of the truck. Get up front, he said.
Harrogate climbed over the side of the truck and opened the door and got in. There was a speaker hanging by a cord from the dashboard and there was a pumpaction shotgun hung in a rack over the rear window. The guard started the truck, glanced down at Harrogate and pulled away shaking his head.
When Suttree came in that night the smallest prisoner was not in the cell. He saw him at supper. Half obscured behind tottering tiers of pans smoking a homerolled cigarette and firing thin pipes of smoke from his nostrils in disgust. He was moved that night to the kitchen cell. When he came to get his blanket Suttree was lying stretched on his cot with his shoes off. His socks were streaked with red clay.
Guess what, said Harrogate.
What.
They got me warshin fuckin dishes.
I know. I saw you.
Shit, said Harrogate.
Hell, that’s no bad shake. It beats swinging a pick all day.
It dont to me. I’d rather to do anything as to warsh dishes.
You’ll appreciate it more when the weather turns colder.
Shit.
Harrogate gathered up his blanket in his arms. Someone down the cell called up to Suttree was he through with the newspaper.
Yeah, said Suttree. Come and get it.
Fold it and pitch it here.
Suttree folded the paper and tried to remember how you tucked them in for throwing.
Goddamn Suttree, was you not ever a paperboy?
No.
I guess you was on a allowance.
The man had turned out of his cot and come up the hall.
I used to know how to roll them but I’ve forgotten.
Here. Let me have it. Fuckin educated pisswillies. He goes to college but he cant roll a newspaper. What do you think of that, little buddy?
The man was standing alongside the bunk. Redheaded, freckled, pumpkintoothed. The nose he talked through spread all over his face.
Howdy Mr Callahan, said Harrogate.
Suttree poked his head out from under the bunk. Mr Callahan? he said.
You heard him.
Oh boy, said Suttree, lying back down.
Callahan grinned his gaptooth grin.
Mr. Callahan’s got a lot of pull around here, said Suttree. Ask him if he can do something for you.
Do what?
He wants to get out of the kitchen. He thinks washing dishes is beneath his dignity.
Hell fire little buddy. You got the best job in the joint.
I dont like it, said Harrogate sullenly. They got me workin with a bunch of old crippled fuckers and I dont know what all.
Specially in the guard’s mess, said Callahan.
Guard’s mess? Goddamn, said Suttree.
That’s what they promised him, said Callahan. I guess he dont like steak and gravy. Ham. Eggs ever mornin.
Shit, said Harrogate.
It’s true, said Suttree.
Hell Suttree, I dont want to be no goddamned dishwarsher. I got to get up at four oclock in the mornin.
Yeah. We sleep in here till five thirty.
You get to fuck around in the afternoon, said Callahan.
Well we dont get done till seven at night.
Well if you dont want to work in the guard’s mess ask if they’ll put you back on the trucks.
What if they say no?
Say yes.
What happens then? I guess they beat the shit out of ye.
No they wont. Will they, Red?
Nah. Put ye in the hole. Less you get real shitty. Then you go in the box.
Well that’s where they’d put me. What is it?
Just a concrete box about four feet square.
You ever been in there Suttree?
No. You’re talking to a man that has though.
What did they put you in there for Mr Callahan?
Aw, slappin a little old guard.
He slapped a vertebra loose in his neck, said Suttree.
Goddamn, said Harrogate. When was this?
When was it Red? Two years ago?
Somethin like that.
They hell fire, how long you been in here Mr. Callahan?
That was another offense, said Suttree. He’s been in and out.
They dont give ye nothin to eat but bread and water, said Callahan. In the box they dont.
I believe you’ll like the guard’s mess better than the box.
I aint warshin no more goddamned dishes.