Suttree(62)

You want this here wreath? said the man in the grave, raising up, just his head sticking out. He shook it. It’s got dirty, he said.

Get out of there, said Suttree.

He climbed out and stood back. Orville and them’ll be here in a minute, he said.

Suttree didnt answer. He labored on, shoveling the dirt, the two men watching. After a while they began to stir about, folding shut the chairs and stacking them against the corner pole of the canopy. Suttree stopped and took off his jacket and then bent to work again.

Before the grave was half filled a truck entered the cemetery gates towing a lowboy with a tractor chained to the bed. The tractor was rigged with a frontloader. They came up the hill and swung down alongside the tent. The driver of the truck looked down at Suttree, his chin on his arm. He spat and looked out over the cemetery grounds and opened the door and climbed down. I allowed you’d have this thing down, he called out.

Suttree looked. The other two men were smoking and grinning and shuffling their feet. The three of them looked over at him. He shoveled on. The driver in the lowboy climbed out and the four of them stood around talking and smoking. I dont know, one of them said. He just jumped up and went to shovelin.

I reckon he was. I dont know. No, he was settin up here on the side of the hill.

Hey, called one of the new men.

Suttree looked up.

We got a tractor here to do that with if you want to wait a minute.

Suttree wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve and kept on shoveling. The men trod out their cigarettes in the grass and set about uncleating ropes, gouging stakes from the ground. They hauled down the canopy and folded it out on the ground and Suttree worked on in the open air. They disjointed the pipework frame and loaded poles and ropes and canvas in the truck and passed the folded chairs in after.

We might as well leave the tractor on the float, one of the men said.

We goin to do them sods in the mornin?

We’ll have to. It’s done past quittin time now.

They sat in the grass watching him. Already it was evening and overcast and before he was done a small rain came cold and slowly falling out of the south autumn sky. Suttree pitched a final shovelful of clods over the little mound and dropped the spade and picked up his jacket and turned to go.

You can ride in with us if you want, one of the men said.

He looked up. They were squatting in the rear of the truck watching the rain. He went on.

Before he reached the cemetery gates a gray car with a gold escutcheon on the door came down the little gravel road and stopped alongside him. A paunchy man in tan gabardines looked up at him.

Your name Suttree?

Suttree said it was.

The man climbed out of the car. He wore a tooled belt and holster and his clothes were neatly pressed. He opened the rear door of the car. Get in, he said.

Suttree climbed into the back of the car and the door shut after him. There was a heavy screen mesh separating him from the front seat. As if the car were used for hauling mad dogs about. There were no door handles or window cranks. The driver looked at him in the mirror and the man in the gabardines looked straight ahead. Suttree leaned back and passed his hand over his eyes. As they came into town people watched him from the street.

Pull over here, Pinky, the man said.

They came to a stop at the curb.

Go get yourself a Coke.

I’m all right.

Go get yourself a Coke.

The driver looked back at Suttree and climbed out and shut the door. The sheriff leaned one arm across the back of the seat and regarded Suttree through the wire. Then he climbed out and opened the back door.

Get up here, he said.

Suttree climbed out and got into the front of the car. The sheriff walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat. He studied Suttree for a minute and then he said: Let me tell you something.

All right, said Suttree.

He reached down and tapped Suttree’s knee with his forefinger. You, my good buddy, are a fourteen carat gold plated son of a bitch. That’s what your problem is. And that being your problem, there’s not a whole lot of people in sympathy with you. Or with your problem. Now I’m goin to do you a favor. Against my better judgment. And it’s not goin to make me no friends. I’m goin to drive your stinkin ass to the bus station and give you an opportunity to get out of here.

I dont have any money.

I never reckoned that you did. I intend to put up five dollars cash money out of my own pocket to get you started. I aint interested in where you go, but I aim to see to it that you go five dollars’ worth in some direction and you and me both are goin to hope that you dont never come back. Now do you want to know why?

Why what?

Why I’m puttin up the five dollars.

No.

I thought maybe the economics of it might interest you. I hear tell you’re supposed to be real smart.