Suttree(7)

No. I was just wondering about it. What the doctor says for instance. I mean, you have to take them both home, only one you take in a bag or a box. I guess they have people to take care of these things.

Just dont say anything.

Suttree was leaning forward looking down at his cheap and rotting shoes where they lay crossed on the floor. God, John, dont worry about it. I wont.

Okay.

Dont tell them you saw me.

Okay. Fair enough. That’s a deal.

Right John. A deal.

I dont see them anyway.

So you said.

The uncle shifted in the chair and pulled at his collar with a long yellow forefinger. He could have helped me, you know. I never asked him for anything. Never did, by God. He could have helped me.

Well, said Suttree, he didnt.

The uncle nodded, watching the floor. You know, he said, you and me are a lot alike.

I dont think so.

In some ways.

No, said Suttree. We’re not alike.

Well, I mean … the uncle waved his hand.

That’s his thesis. But I’m not like you.

Well, you know what I mean.

I do know what you mean. But I’m not like you. I’m not like him. I’m not like Carl. I’m like me. Dont tell me who I’m like.

Well now look, Buddy, there’s no need …

I think there is a need. I dont want you down here either. I know they dont like you, he doesnt. I dont blame you. It’s not your fault. I cant do anything.

The uncle narrowed his eyes at Suttree. No need to get on your high horse with me, he said. At least I was never in the goddamned penitentiary.

Suttree smiled. The workhouse, John. It’s a little different. But I am what I am. I dont go around telling people that I’ve been in a T B sanitarium.

So? I dont claim to be a teetotaler, if that’s what you’re getting at.

Are you an alcoholic?

No. What are you smiling at? I’m no goddamned alcoholic.

He always called you a rummy. I guess that’s not quite as bad.

I dont give a damn what he says. He can …

Go ahead.

The uncle looked at him warily. He flipped the tiny stub of his cigarette out the door. Well, he said. He dont know everything.

Look, said Suttree, leaning forward. When a man marries beneath him his children are beneath him. If he thinks that way at all. If you werent a drunk he might see me with different eyes. As it is, my case was always doubtful. I was expected to turn out badly. My grandfather used to say Blood will tell. It was his favorite saying. What are you looking at? Look at me.

I dont know what you’re talking about.

Yes you do. I’m saying that my father is contemptuous of me because I’m related to you. Dont you think that’s a fair statement?

I dont know why you try and blame me for your troubles. You and your crackpot theories.

Suttree reached across the little space and took his uncle’s willowing hands and composed them. I dont blame you, he said. I just want to tell you how some people are.

I know how people are. I should know.

Why should you? You think my father and his kind are a race apart. You can laugh at their pretensions, but you never question their right to the way of life they maintain.

He puts his pants on the same way I do mine.

Bullshit, John. You dont even believe that.

I said it didnt I?

What do you suppose he thinks of his wife?

They get along okay.

They get along okay.

Yeah.

John, she’s a housekeeper. He has no real belief even in her goodness. Cant you guess that he sees in her traces of the same sorriness he sees in you? An innocent gesture can call you to mind.

Dont call me sorry, said the uncle.

He probably believes that only his own benevolent guidance kept her out of the whorehouse.

That’s my sister you’re talking about, boy.

She’s my mother, you maudlin sot.

Sudden quiet in the little cabin. The uncle rose shaking, his voice was low. They were right, he said. What they told me. They were right about you. You’re a vicious person. A nasty vicious person.

Suttree sat with his forehead in his hands. The uncle moved warily to the door. His shadow fell across Suttree and Suttree raised his head.

Maybe it’s like colorblindness, he said. The women are just carriers. You are colorblind, arent you?

At least I’m not crazy.

No, Suttree said. Not crazy.

The uncle’s narrowed eyes seemed to soften. God help you, he said. He turned and stepped onto the catwalk and went down the boards. Suttree rose and went to the door. The uncle was crossing the fields in the last of the day’s light toward the darkening city.

John, he called.

He looked back. But that old man seemed so glassed away in worlds of his own contrivance that Suttree only raised his hand. The uncle nodded like a man who understood and then went on.

The cabin was almost dark and Suttree walked around on the little deck and kicked up a stool and sat leaning back against the wall of the houseboat with his feet propped on the railing. A breeze was coming off the river bearing a faint odor of oil and fish. Night sounds and laughter drifted from the yellow shacks beyond the railspur and the river spooled past highbacked and hissing in the dark at his feet like the seething of sand in a glass, wind in a desert, the slow voice of ruin. He wedged his knuckles in his eyesockets and rested his head against the boards. They were still warm from the sun, like a faint breath at his nape. Across the river the lights of the lumber company lay foreshort and dismembered in the black water and downriver the strung bridgelamps hung in catenary replica shore to shore and softly guttering under the wind’s faint chop. The tower clock in the courthouse tolled the half hour. Lonely bell in the city. A firefly there. And there. He rose and spat into the river and went down the catwalk to the shore and across the field toward the road.