Suttree(29)

Ask Jim.

Here you go Richard.

Looky here, said Jim.

What?

Look what’s loose.

They turned. Billy Ray Callahan was standing in the door smiling. Hey Hatmaker, he said.

Mr Hatmaker raised his head, whitehaired and venerable.

Is Worm barred?

The barkeeper nodded dourly that he was.

How about lettin him back in?

He set the last schooner on the bar and wiped his hands and took the money. He stood looking toward the door, weighing the bill in his hand. All right, he said. You can tell him he’s not barred no more.

What about Cabbage and Bearhunter?

They aint barred that I know of.

Come on, assholes.

They entered grinning and squinting in the gloom.

Red On The Head like the dick on a dog, sang out J-Bone.

Callahan whacked him in the belly with the back of his hand. Hey Jim, he said. How’s your hammer hangin? He glanced about. The whores looked up nervously. He bequeathed upon them collectively his gaptoothed grin. Ladies, he said. He crouched slightly to peer toward the back of the room. Hey, he called. The queers is back. He punched Worm playfully on the shoulder and pointed toward the group at the table. They turned to one another in elaborate indignation, drawing their wandlike arms to their breasts. With the unison of the movement those pale and slender limbs mimed dancing egrets in the gloom. Callahan extended a hand into the air. Hidy queers, he said.

Suttree was standing against the bar watching all this with something like amusement. When Callahan saw him he gathered his head into the crook of his arm. Goddamned old Suttree, he said.

How’s it feel to be on the street again?

Feels thirsty. You holdin anything?

Give us another fishbowl, Mr Hatmaker.

Callahan reached past Suttree and gave Blind Richard a great whack on the shoulders. Richard’s cigarette hopped from his mouth and expired in his beer. What say Richard old buddy! screamed Callahan.

The blind man raised up coughing. He put one finger to his ear. Goddamn, Red. I aint deaf. He was groping about on the bar with long yellow fingers.

Where’d my cigarette get to, Jim?

Red got it, Richard.

Give me my cigarette, Red.

Suttree passed the mug of beer from the bar and Callahan sucked down about half of it and belched and looked about. Someone had put a coin in the jukebox and pastel lights exchanged within the plastic fascia. Bearhunter and Cabbage composed a light impromptu dance. Boneyard watched, his anthracite eyes shining.

Tell him to give me my cigarette, Jim.

An enormous whore had come to the bar with empty mugs for filling. She stood against Suttree and gave him a sidelong look of porcine lechery.

Watch out, Suttree, called Cabbage.

Your buddy was supposed to of got out with us, said Red.

Harrogate?

Yeah. They couldnt find him no clothes. He says he’s comin to the big city to make his fortune.

He’s as crazy as a shithouse rat.

That old big gal’s after you, called Cabbage, punching buttons at the jukebox.

The whore grinned and took the filled mugs to the table.

J-Bone turned to the room with outspread hands. All right now. Who got Richard’s cigarette?

Richard tugged at his sleeve. Here, Jim. Let it go.

Hell no. Nobody leaves the room.

Callahan leaned and called to a thin woman among the whores. Hey Ethel. How’s that rabbit hole?

Somebody told me you were a fisherman now, said Bearhunter.

Damn right he is, said Cabbage. Catches them big ones.

Piss on you, Cabbage.

Cabbage put one hand to his mouth. That old Suttree, he called. He knows where the good holes is at.

Listen at old Cabbage hammer, said J-Bone.

Old Cabbage, said Red, he beat that morals charge they had him on. They caught him and this girl parked in a car buck naked but old Cabbage, he ate the evidence.

Aw shit, said Richard. Who put a danged old cigarette out in my danged beer?

Who done that? called J-Bone.

A small owlfaced man was trying to get up a game on the bowling machine. Here’s my horse, said Boneyard, raising J-Bone’s arm aloft.

I’m too drunk. Who was it put a duck out in Richard’s beer when he wasnt lookin?

Bill, you and me partners, said Worm.

Here’s my horse, said Red, hugging Richard’s thin shoulders.

Where’s Ethel? She’ll play. Get her.

Ethel was at the end of the bar with her empty mug. She snapped her fingers and pointed at her crotch with her thumb. Get this, she said.

Suttree studied her. Her bony sootstreaked arms were bare to the shoulder and one bore a slaverous and blueblack panther. He could see part of a peacock, a wreath with the name Wanda and the words Rest In Peace 1942. He had his head tilted studying the blue runes on her legs when she turned with her beer. She hiked her skirt up around her waist with one hand and cocked her leg forward. A hound was chasing a rabbit down her belly toward her crotch. She said: When you get your eyes full, open your mouth.