Quit looking so nervous, Gene.
Yeah yeah, sure sure, said Harrogate. He was staring at the gaudy cardboard placards above the fountain with their icecream sundaes and model sandwiches. He looked about and he leaned toward Suttree. I thought you said you didnt have no money, he whispered.
I thought you said you had some.
I’m gettin the fuck out of here.
Suttree took hold of his sleeve. I was just kidding, he said.
You sure?
Sure.
Harrogate unbuttoned his jacket and began to look about more easily. Coffee arrived.
How did you sleep last night?
He spooned great lavings of sugar. Not worth a shit, he said. You?
Suttree just shook his head. The stripling on the stool beside him with his heron’s legs dangling smelled like a smoked jockstrap. Even the waitress’s eyes went a little funny when she passed and she herself no rosegarden.
Looky here, said Harrogate.
She set before them each a white platter. Sliced turkey and dressing pooled over in thick gravy and steaming creamed potatoes and peas and a claretcolored dollop of cranberry sauce and hot rolls with pats of creamery butter. Harrogate’s eyes were enormous.
You all want some more coffee?
Yes mam.
Harrogate had his mouth so crammed with food his eyes bulged.
Take it easy, Gene. There’s no prize at the bottom of the plate.
Harrogate nodded, slumped over the plate and encircling it with one arm while he scooped falling forkfuls toward his underjaw. There was no conversation. Down the counter a man sat reading the newspaper. The waitresses lollygagged about, dragging foul dishclouts across the stainless steel equipment. Suttree took in this scene of stone eyed boredom while he ate. He’d have ordered second plates around had it not been for attracting attention.
With his belly full Harrogate’s countenance grew cute and his eyes began to sidle. They drank more coffee. He leaned toward Suttree.
Listen Sut. Let me have the checks and we’ll slip on around to the other side and look at the magazines till we see the coast is clear and then we’ll ease on out.
It’s all right.
Hell, save your money. We may need it. Listen, they’re easy here.
Suttree shook his head. They’re watching you, he said.
What all do you mean, watching me?
You look suspicious.
I look like it? What about you?
They can tell I’m all right just by looking.
Why you shit-ass.
Suttree was laughing with his mouth full of coffee.
Come on Suttree. Hell, you can go out first if you want and I’ll foller ye.
Suttree wiped his chin and looked down at the sharp and strangely wizened childsface rapt with larceny. Gene?
Yeah?
You waste me.
Yeah. Well.
In the street they stood facing downwind, picking their teeth.
What are you going to do?
I dont know. Freeze.
Dont you know anybody over on the hill you could sort of visit?
I dont know. I could go up to Rufus’s maybe.
Well get somewhere. I’m going over to see how the old man is. We’ll figure something out.
I believe it’s the end of the world.
What?
Harrogate was looking at the pavement. He said it again.
Look at me, Suttree said.
He looked up. Sad pinched face, streaked with grime.
Are you serious?
Well what do you think about it?
Suttree laughed.
It aint funny, said Harrogate.
You’re funny, you squirrely son of a bitch. Do you think the world will end just because you’re cold?
It aint just me. It’s cold all over.
It’s not cold by Rufus’s stove. Now get your ass up there. I’ll see you later.
A colder wind was coming upriver across the bridge. Suttree scurried along like a hunchback. When he got to the other side he scrambled down the frozen mudbank and ducked under the bridge. There was no fire.
Ho, he called.
Oh, said a voice from the arches.
He entered and looked about. The old man’s bed and the old man’s cart and the mounds of junk and rags and furniture. Frozen seepage hung from the bell joints of cesspipes overhead. Suttree turned and went back up the bank to the street and crossed the bridge again.
He went up Market and up the hill to Vine Avenue and the halfdollar dosshouse there, old darkened brick and gabley mansard roof shingled up in slates the shape of fishscales. He looked for a bell but there were just the wires hanging from a hole so he tapped on the glass of the sidelights. They gave soft and soundless in their lead muntins. He tapped on the door. After a while he tried the knob. The door was unlocked and he entered. Into a cold and narrow hallway. He shut the door and went down in the semidark calling out hello. No one was about. He paused at the coiled banister finial and gazed up the cold black stairwell. He listened. A sound of snuffling. Someone spat. He came back along the hall and opened a door. Upon a drawing room full of derelicts. It looked like the hatching of some geriatric uprising, this congregation of the ravaged on their rickety chairs all gathered about a patent iron stove, old graylooking men crouched by the warmth in the barren room, nodding and muttering and hawking gobbets of spit clogged with dust and blood against the hot iron to sizzle and stink. The ragpicker was crouched in the corner on the old hearth almost behind the stove. Suttree saw him look up, eyes that could not see far. The ragpicker didnt know who had come in until Suttree said his name.