Suttree was sitting at the foot of the bed. He took a sip of the beer and held the bottle between his hands.
You see a man, he scratchin to make it. Think once he got it made everthing be all right. But you dont never have it made. Dont care who you are. Look up one mornin and you a old man. You aint got nothin to say to your brother. Dont know no more’n when you started.
Suttree could see the huge veined hands in the gloom, black mannequin’s hands, an ebon last for a glovemaker’s outsize advertisement. They were moving as if to shape the dark to some purpose.
I used to work on the river. The Cherokee. Then I was on the Hugh Martin. The H C Murry. It had a better store than them uptown. After the first war they wasnt no more packetboat trade. I was born in nineteen and hundred. Of a night you could hear them boats howlin on the river like souls. The old Martin had a steamhorn could and used to did bring the glass out of folks’ sashes. I went on the river when I was twelve. I weighed a hunnerd and eighty pound then. This white man shot me cause I whipped him. I didnt know no better. I was older then, must of been fourteen. Dumb as shit. I went home and got better and fore I could see him to kill him somebody had done done it. Cut his head off. Wasnt no friend of mine. Thowed my black ass in the jailhouse. Went up the side of my head with they old clubs and shit. I laid there in the dark, they aint give me nothin to eat yet. That was my first acquaintance of the wrath of the path. That’s goin on forty year now and it dont signify a goddamn thing. These bloods down here think it’s somethin to whip up on some police. They think that’s really somethin. Shit. You aint got nothin for it but a busted head. You caint do nothin with them motherfuckers. I wouldnt fight em at all if I could keep from it.
Suttree bent to see his face. Jones blinked, eyeballs like eggs in the mammoth black skull. He must have read his pale friend’s look because he said almost to himself: That’s the truth.
How did you get out?
They found his head. Man had it in a shoebox.
He was unscrewing the bottlecap, taking a drink. His eyes closed and opened slowly in the gloom. This man was a gambler and a whoremaster. He never drunk nor smoked. Run a whorehouse on Front Street that was well known in them days. Boats come in, the hands would all turn out for his place. Streets full of whores, queers any color. Thieves. They come out like roaches whenever you had a dockin. Then this feller cut his head off and carried it around in a shoebox with him. He got drunk one night down on Central Avenue and started showin the old head around. Folks runnin screamin into the streets. Next day I’s out.
Was he crazy?
Who?
The murderer.
I dont know. He didnt kill him to rob him. I guess he was a little bit crazy.
Would you have killed him?
I dont know. I reckon I would if that was how he’d of wanted it.
Suttree took a sip of his beer. He could hear Smokehouse in the outer room again, puttering about, glass clinking. He looked at Jones. Have you ever killed anyone? he said.
Not on purpose, said Jones.
It was dark when he came in from running his lines. The nose of the skiff broaching rafts of drifted trash and skeins of shorelight in the black river. Radio music from a shack on Front Street carrying clearly over the night waters. The slamming of a door. He could see the lights at Ab Jones’s and downriver he could see the fire at the goatman’s camp with the goatman’s cart in silhouette and dark goat shadows shifting in the forward reach of light. He boated the oars and stalled against the tirecasings alongside his houseboat and stood up in the skiff and made fast.
He had a livebox made from angleiron and chickenwire hanging in the river by a rope and he hauled this up and opened the top and transferred the fish from the boat to the box and lowered it into the river again. Then he hefted a small catfish up from the floor of the skiff, holding it by the gills, and climbed over the rail and went down the walk to the river path and down to the goatman’s camp.
A few people were gathered at the fire. When Suttree came up the goatman turned as if he’d sensed him there and he smiled and nodded.
I thought you’d forgot me.
I brought your fish.
I see you did.
You’ve not eaten supper have you?
No no. You?
Suttree shrugged.
You welcome to share with me if you like.
I dont much like fish.
That there is a nice one.
Suttree handed down the fish and the goatman took it and held it to the fire to see.
What do I owe you?
I dont know, said Suttree. We can trade it out if you like.
Trade it out, said the goatman. I dont know what I’d trade. Aint got nothin but some picture postcards I sell.
That’ll be okay.
Postcards?
Sure. Why not?
The goatman looked at Suttree, then rose and turned toward the wagon. The eyes of the visitors at his fire followed him. He rummaged through his duffel and called out to Suttree. How many you want?