Suttree(64)

He must have slept. When he woke he was lying in the grass looking up at the heavens. A cloudless night strewn with stars. Salt taste of sorrow in his throat. He saw a star spill across the sky, a light trail of fire and then nothing. Hot spalls of matter rifling through the icy ether. Misshapen globs of iron slag.

The night had grown much colder. He lay in the grass shivering and he tried to sleep but he could not. After a while he rose and took the whiskey and went to the rear door of the church and tried it and it opened.

He was in a cellar. There were stacks of old newspapers and magazines along one wall and he stretched out on these and lay there. Then he sat up and took some to spread over him and lay down again. Then he started to cry again, lying there in the dark of the church cellar under the old newspapers.

It was midmorning when he woke. A truck gone out the pike had rattled the cellar door. He sat up in a flurry of newsprint and looked about. Light fell from a high window. Some kind of small bird was pecking in the grass there. Suttree rose and ran his hand through his hair. His throat was dry and his head hurt. The rest of the whiskey stood in the bottle on the floor and he fetched it up and held it to the light. It was about a third full and he unscrewed the cap and took a drink and shuddered and shook himself and then took another drink. Then he went out.

It took him all day to cross the state. He was unshaven and he looked bad. Toward evening he was in a nameless crossroads high in the Cumberland Mountains. A quarter mile down the road in the dusk stood a figure like his own, a wanderer longmirrored in the black asphalt, one arm aloft. Suttree walked on. It was a husky young boy and he had stationed himself in front of a small country store to try for a ride. Suttree walked on past. The store was closed and the windows boarded up and some twisted pipes grew from the concrete apron in front where a gaspump had been ripped up.

Hey, the boy said.

Hey, said Suttree.

You live around here?

No.

You aint got a cigarette on you have you?

The boy was walking down toward him, studying him with a kind of sly intensity that drifters seem to come by. No, Suttree said.

I saw you thumbin down there. Where you headed?

Knoxville.

I’m goin to Florida. I got a sister in Fort Lauderdale. He turned and spat. He had on a shortsleeved shirt and Suttree in his jacket was already cold. Dark as it was he could see him but poorly. Tattoos along one arm.

I’ll go on down, said Suttree.

The boy changed his tone. Listen, he said. Why dont we hitch together. We might have a better chance.

Suttree looked at him. He was dressed in jeans and his hair was wild and he wore a general look of dangerous filth. A big meanlooking kid. I’ll go on down, said Suttree. Let you have first shot.

You reckon anybody might stop along here after dark?

I dont know. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yeah?

Where did you come from?

The kid’s eyes shifted. St Louis, he said.

St Louis, said Suttree. I’ve been through there.

Aint this a hell of a place to get stuck?

Yeah. Good luck.

Listen. How far is it to the next town?

I dont know.

Suttree had started off. Listen, the kid called again.

What?

You got a quarter you could let me have?

Suttree shook his head no.

The kid was walking down toward him. Come on, man, he said. I aint eat in two goddamned days. Hell, fifteen cents. Somethin.

I aint got a dime, Suttree said.

Let’s see.

Suttree watched him. He was standing on the balls of his feet and he looked hungry. What? he said.

I said let’s see. Let’s see you turn your pockets out.

I told you I’m not holding anything.

The kid moved slightly to his left. That’s what you say, he said. I’d like to see.

That’s your problem, Suttree said. He stepped back and turned to go. As he did so the kid jumped him. Suttree ducked. They went to the ground together. Suttree could smell the stale sweat of him. The kid was trying to hit him, short chops with his big fists. Suttree pushed his face against his chest. Fear and nausea. The kid quit punching and tried to get him by the throat. Suttree rolled. They came up. The kid had hold of his jacket. Suttree swung at him. They closed, feet scrabbling in the gravel there in the near dark in front of the abandoned store. The kid turned loose of Suttree to hit him and Suttree dropped to one knee and seized the kid behind the calves and pulled him down hard on his rump. Then he was running down the highway. The kid’s shoes slapping after him. Taste of blood in his mouth. But the footsteps faded and when Suttree looked back he could see in the deeper dusk by the roadside the kid crouched to get his breath.

You yellow cocksucker, the voice came drifting up the highway.

Suttree put his hand to his heart where it boomed in the otherwise silence of the wilderness. He went on up the road in the dark.