Did you not know she was in there?
I disremember. I dont know what I was thinkin. She come out and run to the well and drawed a bucket of water and thowed it at the side of the house and then just walked on off towards the road. I never got such a whippin in my life. The old man like to of killed me.
Your daddy?
Yeah. He was alive then. My sister told them deputies when they come out to the house, they come out there to tell her I was in the hospital over them watermelons, she told em I didnt have no daddy was how come I got in trouble. But shit fire I was mean when I did have one. It didnt make no difference.
Were you sorry about it? The old lady’s house I mean.
Sorry I got caught.
Suttree nodded and tilted his beer. It occurred to him that other than the melon caper he’d never heard the city rat tell anything but naked truth.
In the long windy days of fail Harrogate joined the blacks to fish for carp at the point, smiling and incompetent. A pale arm among darker waving from the shore to Suttree as he set forth in the cool mornings.
Suttree busy caulking up the batboards of his shanty with old newsprint. The cooler days have brought a wistful mood upon him. The smell of coalsmoke in the air at night. Old times, dead years. For him such memories are bitter ones.
Trippin Through The Dew has a muskrat coat bought in a junk-shop on Central Avenue which he has dyed purple.
Mother She has come from upcountry with sacks and jars of the season’s herbs. Her little yard lies deep with sere brown locust pods. In the trees small victims struggle, toad or shrewlet among the thorns where they have been impaled and the shrike who put them there trills from a nearby lightwire and it has begun to rain again.
And from his fleerglass window the shut-in watches for idle travelers on the path below, gripping the worn oak arms of his wheelchair, wishing all on to a worse hell yet.
The ragman hurried home with dark hard at his heels. When he reached the end of the bridge the lights went up behind him and he turned to look back for a moment before he ducked past the railing and down the red clay path to his home. Crouched before his fire he could see the stars come out in the darkening river. He kneaded his bony hands and watched the shapes flame took among the sticks of wood as if some portent might be read there. He smacked his gums and spat and gestured with his hands. He’d stood off a family of trashpickers in the alley that morning. There under the deepwalled shadows where the windows were barred and iron firestairs hung in chains overhead. Setting the dark brick corridor full of voices, aged but spoken with authority. Run them off like rats. And out of there you. And dont come back. Suttree rose from the rock where he’d been sitting and shook the stiffness from one knee. The old man looked up at him. From under the whites of his eyeballs peeked a rim of the red flame that raged in his head. You come back and find me dead, he began. Find me layin here dead, you just thow some coaloil on me and set me alight. You hear?
Suttree looked off toward the river and the lights and then he looked at the ragman again. You’ll outlive me, he said.
No I wont neither. Will ye do it?
Suttree wiped his mouth.
I’ll pay ye.
Pay me?
What will ye take? I’ll give ye a dollar.
Good God, I dont want a dollar.
What would you have to have?
You wouldnt burn. He gestured with his hands. You wouldnt burn up with just coaloil thrown on you. It’d just make a big stink.
I’ll get some by god gasoline then. I’ll get five gallon and have it settin here at all times.
They’d send out the firetrucks when they saw that.
I dont give a good shit what they send. Will ye?
All right.
You wont take no dollar?
No.
I hold ye to your word now.
Whatever’s right, said Suttree.
I aint no infidel. Dont pay no mind to what they say.
No.
I always figured they was a God.
Yes.
I just never did like him.
As he was going up Gay Street J-Bone stepped from a door and took his arm. Hey Bud, he said.
How you doin?
I was just started down to see you. Come in and have a cup of coffee.
They sat at the counter at Helm’s. J-Bone kept tapping his spoon. When the coffee was set before them he turned to Suttree. Your old man called me, he said. He wanted you to call home.
People in hell want ice water.
Hell Bud, it might be something important.
Suttree tested the cup rim against his lower lip and blew. Like what? he said.
Well. Something in the family. You know. I think you ought to call.
He put the cup down. All right, he said. What was it?
Why dont you call him.
Why dont you tell me.
Will you not call?
No.
J-Bone was looking at the spoon in his hand. He blew on it and shook his head, the distort image of him upside down in the spoon’s bowl misting away and returning. Weil, he said.