Suttree(38)

Hey, he said, standing in the door of the shack again.

What now?

I caint get in. The doors is jammed.

You may have to jack em open. Go in through the top and take one of them jacks yonder and some blocks. And quit botherin me.

He went back out, small apprentice, clambering up on the decklid and climbing down through the bows and stays and rags of canvas into the interior of the car. It smelled richly of leather and mildew and something else. The windshields were broken out and along the jagged jaws of glass in the channels hung cured shreds of matter and small bits of cloth. The upholstery was red and the blood that had dried in spattered shapes over it was a deep burgundy black. He propped his feet against one door and gave it a good kick and it fell open. Some kind of globular material hung down over the steering column. He climbed out of the car and bent down to find the heads of the bolts beneath the seats. The carpeting had been rained on and was lightly furred with pale blue mold. Something small and fat and wet with an umbilical looking tail lying there. A sort of slug. He picked it up. A human eye looked up at him from between his thumb and forefinger.

He set it carefully back where he’d gotten it and looked around. It was hot and very quiet in the little yard. He reached and picked it up again and studied it a minute and set it back and rose from his knees and went toward the gate, holding his hand before him, down the road toward the river.

After he’d washed his hand for a while and squatted and thought about things he started back toward the bridge. There was a lower path that kept to the very brim of the river, winding over roots and along blackened shelves of stone. Fragile mats of trampled growth hanging over the water. Harrogate studied the shape of the city crossriver as he went.

Under the shadow of the bridge the bare red earth lay in a strip of sunless blight. Rusty baitcans, tangled strands of nylon fishline among the rocks. He came out of the weeds and up past the ragpicker’s firepit with its stale odor of smoked stones and stopped to study the darkness under the concrete arch. When that ragged troll appeared from behind his painted rock Harrogate nodded affably. Hidy, he said.

The ragpicker scowled.

I guess it’s done took in under here, aint it?

The old hermit made no answer but Harrogate seemed not to mind. He came closer, looking things over. Boy, he said. You got it fixed up slick in under here, aint ye?

The ragpicker raised slightly up like a nesting bird disturbed.

I’ll bet that there old bed sleeps good, said Harrogate pointing.

You better look out, spoke a voice from the high arches. That old man is mean as a snake.

Harrogate craned his neck to see who’d said it. Fat birds the color of slate crooned among the concrete trusses overhead. Who’s that? he called, his voice returning all hollow and strange.

You better run. He’s known to carry a pistol.

Harrogate looked at the ragpicker. The ragpicker flapped about and bared his teeth. He looked up again. Hey, he called.

There was no answer. Where’s he at? said Harrogate. But the ragpicker just mumbled and withdrew from sight.

Harrogate approached closer and peered into the gloom. The old man was seated in a burst chair at the rear of his quarters. There were odds and ends of furniture standing all around on the rank dirt floor and there was a vaguely eastern carpet with a raw cord warp that was eating away the serried minarets and there were oil lamps and stolen roadlanterns and cracked plaster statuary that stood like ghosts in the semidark and earthen crocks and crates of bottles and bricabrac and mounded troves of shoddy and great tottering sheaves of newsprint and heaps of rags. The bed was old and ornate with crown and finial in cast brass.

Caint you read, boy? the old man’s voice piped sepulchral from his lair.

Not real good.

That there sign says to keep out.

They lord, I wouldnt come in without bein asked. You got it fixed up slick in here, I’ll say that.

The ragpicker grunted. He had his feet up in the chair with him and his thin polished shins shone like naked bones crossed there.

Dont they nobody bother ye down here?

I get a loose fool or two come by ever now and then, said the ragman.

How long ye been here?

About that long, the old man said, spacing a random measure between his palms.

Harrogate grinned and rose to the challenge. You know the difference tween a grocery store fly and a hardware store fly?

The ragman’s eyes grew even colder.

Well, the grocery store fly lights on the beans and peas, and the hardware store fly lights on the nails and screws. Harrogate folded suddenly and slapped his thigh and cackled like a stricken fowl.

Boy why dont you get on down the road wherever you come from or was goin to one and leave me the son of a bitching hell alone?