They nodded and shivered in the fogged car while the gray dawn hovered without. They groaned and stirred and slept. Sometime in the night Sharpe had come awake freezing, coatless, and climbed out to stir about in the alleyway, gathering pieces of cratewood and paper. J-Bone reared up in the front seat. What’s that? he said.
What time is it Jim?
I dont have a watch. Where’s that smoke coming from?
This fire here.
J-Bone raised himself and looked over the back of the seat. Sharpe had a small fire going in the floor of the car and he was holding his hands over it. J-Bone leaned over the seat and held his own hands out for warmth. Watch Cabbage’s leg there, he said.
Sharpe jostled the bony knee.
Hey Cabbage, get your leg out of the fire.
Cabbage reared up wildly and subsided.
Better crack that window hadnt we? said J-Bone.
They grinned at each other across the smoke and the flames.
I’m about to freeze my ass off. What time do you reckon it is?
I dont know. What time’s it get light?
Shit if I know. You sure they open at five?
Yeah. Have for years.
Sharpe was peering out across the blueblack night, the buildings stark and tall, the few streetlamps encoiled in fog.
It’s gettin smoky in here, said J-Bone.
Does Suttree have a watch?
No. I dont think so. He bent to see. Suttree lay slumped under the wheel with his folded hands between his knees.
Sharpe cranked down the rear window. Smoke was rolling blackly through the car.
Cabbage raised up and looked at Sharpe with drunken sleepshot eyes. What’s happening? he said.
We’re waiting on that five oclock beer.
The fucking car’s on fire.
We’re tryin to get warm, Cabbage, said J-Bone.
Cabbage looked from one to the other of them. You sons of bitches are crazy, he said. He opened the door and lurched out into the alley.
J-Bone got out on the other side. Come on Sharpe. Let’s walk around some fore we freeze.
See if you can see some more wood out there.
Suttree woke and looked out the window. A garbage truck had gone down the alley. He sat up. He was alone in the car. He opened the glovebox and reached around inside and shut it again. He felt under the seat and he looked in the back. The remains of the fire lay in a blackened crust of burnt rubber on the floor. He looked out down the alley. He was shaking with the cold.
He climbed stiffly from the car and shut the door. Traffic was commencing in the murk, headlamps boring past in pale shrouds. A dog crossed in the hobbled lights. Suttree stove his hands deep in his pockets and hunched his shoulders and went toward the street.
They were seated in a row on stools within the watered windows of the Signal Cafe and they were drinking beer. An old newspedlar sat at the front of the counter humped over his coffee. Suttree swung through the door blowing on his hands and took a stool.
This goddamn Suttree is a five oclock alarm clock, said Sharpe.
Wasnt no danger of sleepin over with Sut along.
Let me have a Redtop, said Suttree to the counterman.
You rest well Sut?
You sons of bitches would let a man lay out there and freeze to death.
I was goin to come out there and get you, Bud.
We run out of firewood.
How long you all been in here?
This is our first one. Hell, he just opened this minute.
Suttree seized the bottle before him and drank and hiked his shoulders up and drank again. Across the street a neon sign that once said Earle Hotel said le Ho. Two workers with their lunchboxes in their armpits stamped and smoked on the corner. Suttree looked at his companions. Their bottles rose and fell like counterweights. I thought five oclock never would get here, said J-Bone.
By nine oclock that night they were twelve or more, all good hearts from McAnally. An hour later they were at a roadhouse called the Indian Rock.
They threaded their way among the tables, Billy Ray Callahan stopping where girls had gone to dance and left purses among the drinks. Callahan draining the glasses and taking the money from the purses and moving on, smiling and nodding to friends and strangers, past a table where a big boy was sitting, Callahan smiling at him invitingly.
What say, big boy.
Big boy looked away.
They pulled tables together and ordered Cokes and set out pints of whiskey. Under the tilting smoke the dancers whirled and the music with its upbeat country tempo scored like an overture the gatherings of violence just beneath the surface, the subtle exchanges in the heated air. Suttree and J-Bone made their way toward the men’s room. Cabbage on the floor already dancing mightily, the girl laughing. Kenneth Tipton at a nearby table holding out his hand.
We’ve got to get these cunts, said J-Bone.
Let’s not get too drunk.
When they got back their table was gone. The drinks lay in a pile of glass and icecubes on the wet concrete floor and the table lay caved in a corner. Suttree saw one of the legs in someone’s hand. The area was clearing fast, people moving along the walls. Suttree saw Hoghead move with stealth along the rear of a phalanx of battlers and draw back and hit a boy behind the ear and move on. Earl Solomon came pedaling backwards out of the line and slammed up against the wall. Paul McCulley was trading punches with three boys all by himself down by the ladies’ room door and the door kept opening and closing and girls looking out by turns.