Not much. How you?
Just tiptoein.
Feylovin motherfucker, said Jabbo.
I guess I goin to have to slap a black pumpknot on somebody’s old bony head, said Oceanfrog. He didnt even look at Jabbo.
Shit, said Jabbo. He jerked his jacket up on his shoulders and reeled toward the door. Bungalow looked after him. To go or stay? He spread his feet and held his hands to the warmth while he thought about it.
What’s wrong with him? said Suttree.
He thinks he’s bad. Gets on them reds. Old Bungalow here, he dont do that shit. Do you, Bunghole?
Bungalow looked shyly at the floor. Naw, he said.
You look like you been hit with a blivet, Bunghole.
Bungalow didnt answer. He stepped back to make room for the old lady who had come to the stove again and was pulling at the basket and adjusting her skirts to sit. Suttree looked down at her as she refolded the shawl, at the thinly grizzled crown of her small skull. A few graybacks retreated in the rancid wool.
You aint got a turkey staked out somewheres today have you Bungalow?
I wisht I did.
I bet old Suttree does.
Not yet I dont.
Shit, said Bungalow. You know he is.
I guess in a bind we can eat at Bungalow’s, said Suttree.
Shit. Aint nothin to eat at my house.
Oceanfrog had turned around to warm his backside. Suttree heard a little choking sob and looking down he saw that the old woman was crying to herself, dabbing at her nose with a bony knuckle.
That old Suttree, said Oceanfrog. You got to watch him. He’s a rathole artist. Tell him open his coat there Bungalow, see if he aint got a turkey under it. He looked at Suttree, then he looked down at the dollshaped pile of sticks at his feet. He stooped. Hey, he said. What’s wrong with you, little mama?
She was muttering and talking and sobbing to herself and she didnt seem to notice she’d been spoken to.
Hey Howard, said Oceanfrog. Who is this old woman?
How would I know.
How would Howard know? said Oceanfrog. He went to the box and lifted the lid and poked around and came back with a half pint of milk and opened it and bent and put it in the old woman’s hands. When Suttree left she was still holding it and she was still talking but she wasnt crying anymore.
He went on up the street. Two small boys were coming along. Hey boys, he said.
What’s your name? said one.
Suttree. What’s yours?
No answer. The other one said: His name’s Randy. He’s my brother.
Suttree looked at them. They were wreathed in steam and small sacs of mucus hung from fcheir nostrils. Who’s the oldest?
Randy’s brother looked at the ground a minute, Allen is, he said.
Suttree grinned. How many of you are there?
I dont know.
You better come on, said Randy.
We’ll see you, Suttree said.
He watched them. Skipping down the street, one look back. Ashcolored children hobbling down the gloom. This winter come, gray season here in the welter of sootstained fog hanging over the city like a biblical curse, cheerless medium in which the landscape blears like Atlantis on her lightless seafloor dimly through eel’s eyes. Bell toll in the courthouse tower like a fogwarning on some shrouded coast. A burnt smell in the air compounded of coalsoot and roast coffee. Small birds move through the glazed atmosphere with effort.
He crossed the street at the top of the hill and went through the rimey grass toward the post office. Down the long marble corridor and out the far side. Up this alley. Sheer brick walls the color of frozen iodine. Slow commence of traffic, pitch and clang of trolleys. Newsmen stamping at their corners, fingers stirring the coinage in their soiled changeaprons. On Market Street beggars being set out like little misshapen vending machines. Whole legions of the maimed and mute and crooked deployed over the streets in a limboid vapor of smoke and fog. The carlights seemed to tunnel through gauze. Pigeons gurgled and gaped from their ledges on the markethouse, winged shapes flapped forth through the gray haze. Shivering, he made his way toward the dewy neon windowlight that bears the painted ham.
Suttree studied the breakfast through the glass, stroking the lavender lunule on the side of his jaw. None there he knew save one, Blind Richard at coffee. He shrugged up his coat about his shoulders and entered.
A few heads turned. Old codgers bent above their gruel. A clack of china teeth. In a shroud of cold he stood within the door, then made his way down the counter.
Richard, he said.
Gray head goggling fowlwise on a scarious neck, turning. The soapfilled eyesockets.
Hey Suttree. How you doin?
Okay. How are you.
Other’n bein froze I caint complain. The blind man cracked a squaloid smile all full of toothblack and breakfast scraps.
Are you holding anything?
Smile draining. Aye, gape those barren lightshorn eyeballs.
What did you need, Sut?
Let me have a dime.