Suttree(30)

Whoops from the drinkers. Hoghead leaning to see. Wait a minute, he said.

But she had flipped her skirt down with an air of contempt and swaggered past with her beer.

I told you about that Suttree, called Cabbage. He’s a hole findin fool.

Let’s see that rabbit hole Ethel.

Let’s see one of you loudmouthed fuckers buy a beer.

Buy her a beer Worm.

Fuck her. She’s got a beer.

Give us a fishbowl Mr Hatmaker.

Ever who’s playin get your dime up.

What are we playin for?

Make it light on yourself.

Who got my beer. Hey, Red?

Late summer darkness fell and lights came on within the tavern, the beerlamps and plastic clocks with country scenes. Suttree fell in among the winners from the bowling game and they set forth in a huge old Buick.

Idling in an alleyway under a yellow lightbulb by a clapboard wall where a man naked to the waist palmed to them a pint bottle in a paper bag. On to other taverns where in the smoke and the din and the music the night grew heady. At the B & J Suttree became enamored of a ripe young thing with black hair who wrought on the dancefloor an obscene poem, her full pale thighs shining in the dim light where she whirled.

He stood to dance, took two steps sideways and sat again.

He began to grow queasy.

He was looking down into a tin trough filled with wet and colorful gobbets of sick. Scalloped moss wept from a copper pipe. A man sat sleeping on the toilet, his hands hanging between his knees. There was no seat to the toilet and the sleeper was half swallowed up in its stained porcelain maw.

Hey, said Suttree. He shook the man by the shoulder.

The man shook his head in annoyance. A foul odor seeped up between his lardcolored thighs.

Hey there.

The man opened one wet red eye and looked out.

Sick, Suttree said.

They glared at each other.

Yeah, said the man. Sick.

Suttree stood spraddlelegged before him, swaying slightly, one hand on the man’s shoulder. The man squinted at him. Do I know you?

Suttree turned away. Two other men come in were standing at the trough. He tottered into the corner and vomited. The men at the trough watched him.

They rolled through the dim shires of McAnally singing rude songs and passing a bottle about in the musty old car.

Wake up, Sut, and take ye a drink.

What’s wrong with old Suttree.

Suttree’s all right, said J-Bone.

He waved them away, his wheeling skull pressed for coolness against the glass of the quarterwindow.

I believe he’s been taken drunk.

Get ye a drink here to sober up on. Hey Bud.

Suttree groaned and fended away with one hand.

At the door of the West Inn they were halted by a shaking head. Suttree hung between friends.

Dont bring him in here.

Callahan pushed past them through the door.

I didnt know that was you, Red. Just bring him on in and set him in the booth yonder.

A group of musicians played with fiddle and guitar a rustic reel and a drunk had taken the floor and begun to waltz like a mummer’s bear. One shoesole was pared from its welt and gave to his shuffle a little offbeat slap. In a daring pirouette, vacanteyed and face agrin, he overlisted and careered sideways and crashed among a table of drinkers. They flushed like quail from under the spilled bottles and mugs, wiping at their laps. One had the drunk up by the collar but he saw Callahan smiling at him and grew uncertain and let him go.

Suttree, roused by the commotion, looked up. His friends were drinking at the bar. He reared from the booth and staggered into the center of the floor, looking about wildly.

Where you goin Sut?

He turned. To see who’d spoke. The seeping roachstained walls spun past in a wretched carousel. Two thieves at a table watched him like cats.

J-Bone had him under one arm. Where you goin, Bud?

Sick. Sicky sick.

They staggered toward the washrooms, a shed at the rear of the building and barren save for a toilet bowl. An opaque smoketarred lightbulb that looked like an eggplant screwed into the ceiling. A maze of corroding pipes and conduits.

The walls were papered in old cigarette signs and castoff cardboard up which piss rose wicklike from the floor in dark and flameshaped stains. Suttree stood looking down into the bowl. A beard of dried black shit hung from the porcelain and a clot of stained papers rose and fell with a kind of obscene breathing. J-Bone was holding him by waist and forehead. Hot clotted bile flooded his nostrils.

Walk him around.

Come on Sut.

He looked. They were going toward a dimlit shack. Somewhere beneath him his feet were wandering about. Fuck it, he said.

Old Sut’s all right.

I’m an asshole, he told a wall. He turned, seeking a face. I’m an asshole, J-Bone. A photograph of a family of blacks in some sort of ceremonial robes went past. He raised a hand and fondled the wallpaper’s yellowed sleavings.

He was entering a room. Most stately. Nothing to be alarmed. Dark faces watched him through the smoke. Must nods to each. Appear plausible.