What we owe ye, old buddy?
Let me have five. That'll get the whiskey and everthing.
Reese paid and they stepped out into the gravel. The taxi slewed about in a cloud of dust and flying stones and went back out to the highway. Reese tucked in his shirt and hitched up his trousers and seized the doorhandle to make his entrance but the door was locked.
Ring the buzzer, said Suttree.
He pushed the button and almost immediately the door opened and a man looked at them and stepped back and they entered.
A concrete floor, a horseshoeshaped bar upholstered in quilted black plastic, a gaudy jukebox that played country music A few sloe-eyed young whores in stage makeup and incredible costumes, ballroom gowns, bathing suits, satin pajamas. They lounged at the bar, they sat in the booths by the wall, they danced with clowns dressed up like farmers wooden clown dances in the shifting jukebox lights. Through a door to the rear Suttree could see thicker smoke yet and the green baize of gaming tables.
Godamighty damn, said Reese reverently. Looky here.
Suttree was looking. He'd been in places like this but not quite. A whole new style seemed to be seeking expression here. They crossed to the bar and were immediately set upon by whores. A blackhaired girl in a chiffon dress with a train that followed her about the floor sweeping up the cigarette butts had Suttree by the elbow. Hidy cutie, she said. Why dont you buy me a drink? Suttree looked down into a pair of enormous painted eyes dripping a black goo. A pair of perfectly round white tits pushed up in the front of her gown. You'll have to see this man here, he said. He's the last of the big spenders.
She immediately turned loose of Suttree and got hold of Reese's arm even though there were two other girls hanging onto him. Hidy cutie, she said. Why dont you buy me a drink?
I'll buy ye'ns all a drink quick as I get done at the tong table, cried Reese.
The bartender was standing at the ready and Suttree held up one hand and caught his eye. He raised his chin to know what Sut would have.
Bourbon and gingerale, said Suttree.
Where you all from, honey? said a blonde who appeared out of the smoke.
Suttree looked at her. Web City, he said.
You're a smart son of a bitch, aint ye?
He watched Reese at the cardtable until he became bored and went back out to the bar. But the whores had thickened and he got another drink and went back into the gambling room again. Reese seemed to have won some money and Suttree tapped him on the shoulder to get some quarters and dimes for the slotmachines. The dealer raised up and eyed him narrowly and told him to back off from the table if he wasnt playing. Reese handed him two dollars over his shoulder and Suttree took the money and went into another room and got change from a lady at a cardtable by the door. There were eight or ten slotmachines along the walls and several young men in dark gabardine shirts and their heads almost shaven were feeding money to the whores and the whores were operating the machines. Suttree won about seven dollars and went back out to the bar and got another drink. He was beginning to feel a little drunk. He bought the blackhaired girl a drink and she took him by the arm and they sat in a booth at the far wall and she immediately ordered two more drinks from a waitress dressed in a swimsuit and black net stockings. The blackhaired girl put her hand on Suttree's leg and got him by the neck and ran her tongue down his throat. Then she stuck her tongue in his ear and asked him if he wanted to go out in the back.
Reese came reeling through the smoke and the din with a painted childwhore on his arm. She had an eyetooth out and smiled with her cigarette in her mouth to hide the gap.
Looky here, Sut.
Hidy.
Aint that a purty little old thing?
Suttree smiled.
Reese had her by the hand. He leaned toward Suttree. Listen, he said, you wouldnt tell on a feller would ye?
Maybe not. Where's the whiskey?
Here. Hell fire, get ye a drink. He brought the bottle forth from his overalls and handed it over.
You raise tobacco too? the girl said.
Sure, said Suttree.
Reese was making peculiar faces and jerking his shoulder at Suttree. Suttree spun the cap back on the bottle and slid from the booth. I've got to talk to my partner here a minute, he told the girl.
They conferred a few feet from the table. Let's hear the bad news, said Suttree.
Bad news's ass. Looky here.
He was cupping his hand at the mouth of his pocket, a roll of bills crouched there like a pet mouse. Old buddy, I strictly slipped it to em in yonder, he said.
The whore on his arm leaned across to whisper in Suttree's ear. You ought to get with Doreen yonder, she said, nodding toward a puffy blonde at the bar. She's real sweet.
We got to get us another bottle of whiskey, said Reese. Both she and Reese had taken to hoarse stage whispers and Suttree had to bend his head forward to hear them at all what with the howl of electric guitars from the jukebox. As he did so the old man seized him by the head and pulled him close and rasped in his ear: Go on and get her Sut. We'll strictly put the dick to em.
When he woke a light had come on in the cabin and a man and a girl were standing in the door. That goddamned Doreen leaves her goddamned dates in the cabins all the time, the girl said. Suttree groaned and tried to put his head beneath the pillow.
Hey, said the girl. You caint stay here.
His head was at the edge of the thin mattress. He looked down at the floor. The floor was pink linoleum with green and yellow flowers. There was a glass there and a halfpint bottle with a drink in the bottom. He reached down and got the bottle and held it against his naked chest.
Hey, said the girl.
Okay, said Suttree. Let me get my clothes.
He wandered off through the weeds in the dark. Out on the highway the sound of trucktires whined and died in the distance. He fell into a gully and climbed out and went on again.
When he woke it was daylight and he was lying in a field. He rose up and looked out across the sedge. Two little girls and a dog were going along a dirt lane. Beyond them the sunhammered landscape veered away in a quaking shapeless hell. A low gray barn, a fence. A fieldwagon standing in milkweed. Yonder the town. He rose to his feet and stood swaying, a great pain in his eyeballs and upon his skull like the pressure of marine deeps. He tottered off across the fields toward the roadhouse.
He found Reese asleep in a wrecked car behind the cabins. Suttree shook him gently awake into a world he wanted no part of. The old man fought it. He pushed away and buried his head in one arm there on the dusty ruptured seat. Suttree could not help but grin for all that his head hurt so.
Come on, he said. Let's go.
The old man moaned.
What? Suttree said.
You go on and I'll come later, tell em.
Okay. You comfortable?
I'm all right.
You want a sip of this cold lemonade fore I go?
An eye opened. The musty gutted hulk of the car stank of mold and sweat and cheap whiskey. Wasps kept coming in the naked rear window and vanishing through a crack in the domelight overhead.
What? said Reese.
I said would you like a sip of this cold lemonade?
The old man tried to see without moving his head but he gave it up. Shit, he said. You aint got no lemonade.
Suttree pulled him around by one arm. Come on, he said. Get your ass up from there and let's go.
A bloated face turned up. Ah God. Just leave me here to die.
Let's go, Reese.
Where are we at?
Let's go.
He struggled up, looking around.
How you feeling, old partner? said Suttree.
Reese looked up into Suttree's grinning face. He put his hands over his eyes. Where you been? he said.
Come on.
Reese shook his head. Boy, we a couple of good'ns aint we?
You dont have a little drink hid away do you?
Shit.
Here.
He lowered his hands. Suttree was holding the almost empty bottle at him. Why goddamn, Sut, he said. He reached for the bottle with both hands and twisted off the cap and drank.
Leave me corners, said Suttree.
Reese closed his eyes, screwed up his face and shivered and swallowed. He blew and held the bottle up. Goddamn, he said. I dont remember it bein that bad last night.
Suttree took the bottle from him and let the little it held fill up one corner and then he tilted it and drank and pitched the empty bottle out through the open window into the weeds. Well, he said. Think you can make it now?
We'll give it a try.
He pulled himself painfully from the doorless car and stood squinting in the heat little pleased with what he saw. Where do you reckon they sell beer on Sunday up here?
Right here probably, Suttree said, nodding toward the roadhouse.
They passed among the cabins and staggered across the dusty waste of gravel and trash with their tongues out like dogs. Suttree tapped at a door at the rear of the premises. They waited.
Knock again, Sut.
He did.
A slide shot back in the side of the building and a man peered out. What'll you have, boys? he said.
You got any cold beer?
It's all cold. What kind?
What kind? said Suttree.
Any goddamned kind, said Reese.
You got Miller's?
What you want, a sixpack?
Suttree looked at Reese. Reese was looking at him blandly. Suttree said: Have you got any money?
No. Aint you?
He felt himself all over. Not a fucking dime, he said.
The bootlegger looked from one to the other of them.
Where's that pearl? said Suttree.
The old man raised his foot and put it down again. He leaned against the side of the building and raised his foot and reached down in his sock. He held up his purse.
How come you to still have that, said Suttree. Did you not get any poontang last night?
You daggone right I got me some. But I never took off my shoes. He undid the mouth of the thing and rolled out the pearl and held it up. Looky here, he said.
What's that supposed to be? said the bootlegger.
A pearl. Go on. Take a look at it.
You sons of bitches get on away from here, said the bootlegger, and slammed the little window shut.
They looked at each other for a minute and then Suttree squatted in the dust among the flattened cans.
Shit, said Reese.
Suttree palmed his knees and shook his head. We're hellatious traders, he said.
Boy I hate a dumb son of a bitch like that that dont know the value of nothin.
Let's get the hell out of here. It's a long way home.
Coming over the Pigeon River Bridge into Newport a county police cruiser passed them. The old man saw them coming. Wave like they know ye, he said.
Fuck that, said Suttree.
The cruiser went by and Reese waved real big. The cruiser turned at the edge of the bridge and came back and pulled up alongside. A fat deputy looked them over. Who you think you wavin at buddy?
Suttree groaned.
Reese smiled. I thought you was somebody I knowed, he said.
Is that right? Maybe you'd like to come uptown and get a little better aquainted.
He didnt mean anything by it, officer.
The deputy eyed Suttree up and down, little joy in the beholding. I'll be the judge of that, he said. Where you two goin?
Both reckoned one more wrong answer would be all that the law allowed. They looked at each other. Suttree could hear the river beneath them. He saw himself in a swandive, heedless, lost. Under gray swirling waters. He could hear the cruiser's motor idling roughly with its high camshaft. Home, he said.
The driver had said something to the deputy. The deputy looked them over again. Well, he said, you'd better be gettin on there.
Yessir, Suttree said.
Much obliged, your officer, said the old man.
They pulled away and turned at the end of the bridge and came back. The driver glanced at them in passing but they were both looking at the ground.
Bastards, Suttree said. I thought for a minute there we were gone.
I knowed how to handle it, Reese said.
I told you not to wave, goddamnit. And what the hell is your officer supposed to mean?
I dont know. Shit, my head hurts.
He was stumbling along holding the top of his head with both hands. Suttree looked at him in disgust. We'd better get the hell out of here, he said.
We better not go through town.
Dont worry, said Suttree. We're not.
They turned down along the river and Suttree took bearings by the sun and plotted a course crosscountry that should bring them out on the highway on the other side of town. They went wandering mournfully down little dirt tracks and across fields. They went through a shantytown strung out along the edge of a branch, all grass and growing things about the creek and the encampment gone, a land of raw clay strewn with trash, with chickens and scabrous dogs. A cadaverous and darkeyed people watched mutely, furtive and dimly defined in their doorways. Such squalid folk as not even a weed grew among. Reese nodded and howdied to them but they just stared.
They crossed a pasture where grackles blue and metallic in the sun were turning up dried cowpats for the worms beneath and they went on past the back side of a junklot with the sun wearing hard upon them and upon the tarpaper roof of the parts shack and upon the endless fenders and lids of wrecked cars that lay curing paintlorn in the hot and weedy reeks.
They ended up lost in a big alfalfa field. On three sides were woods and on the fourth was where they'd come from.
Which way? Reese said.
Suttree squatted and held his head. Will some son of a bitch please tell me what I'm doing here?
I got to get out of this sun fore my old head pops, said Reese. He looked down. Suttree had tilted forward onto his knees. They looked like castaways. Dont lay down, said Reese, or ye never will get up.
Suttree looked up at him. You would absolutely pull the pope under, he said.
He probably dont even drink. Which way, do ye reckon?
Suttree struggled up and looked around and struck out again.
They crossed into heavy woods and began to climb. The ground was covered with random limestone and there were sinkholes to be fallen into.
You take poison ivy, Sut?
No. Do you?
No. Thank the Lord. I believe this here must be under cultivation.
They went on. They rested more and more going up the ridge. Just sitting in the undergrowth like apes eyeing one another with little expectation of anything and breathing hard. When they got to the top they looked out and they could see below them through the trees a piece of black highway about two miles away.
I dont think I can make it without a drink of water, Suttree said.
Dont drink no water, Sut. It'll make ye drunk all over again.
Suttree glared at him.
When they reached the highway they were staggerfooted and crazylooking. As far as you could see in either direction there was not so much as a billboard. Suttree sat down by the edge of the road with his feet spread and began to pick at gravels and little straws and things.
Here comes a car, Sut.
Thumb it.
Well get up. He wont stop with somebody setting down.
They watched the driver's eyes. He looked like a skittish horse the way he rolled them and the car swerved out as if he'd keep from being leapt upon by these roadside predators who possibly fared on the flesh of motorists in lonely places.
An hour later they were still standing there. Three cars and one truck had passed. They looked at each other and at themselves. The old man fell to combing his hair with his hands.
We better start walking, Suttree said.
How far from home you reckon we are?
&nbs
p; I dont know. Twenty miles. Thirty maybe. Suttree's eyes looked burnt and a crusty paste had formed over his lips.
What time do you reckon it is?
Suttree looked at the sky. Gently quaking like a vat of molten cobalt. Past noon. Maybe two oclock. Let's walk on down around this next curve. Maybe there's a store or something.
The old man shaded his eyes and looked down the hot and smoking road to where it dissolved in a distant haze. The landscape subsequent seemed to shift and veer so that he batted his eyes and made little gestures with his hands as if to shape things right again. I reckon we can try for it, he said.
They set off, stumbling along the roadway with their eyes down. If you keep from looking up for a long time you can surprise yourself with how far you've come. Suttree fell to counting the bottlecaps in the dusty roadside gravel. Then he began to divide them into the rightside ups and the upside downs. Before they reached the curve he called for them to stop.
Reese when he looked at him seemed almost in tears. We nearly to the curve, Sut, he said.
I know. I just want to get rested a minute so that when we look down that next stretch of road and there's nothing there I wont faint.
How long you reckon a feller can sweat like this and nothin to drink without dryin up?
Suttree didnt answer. He was looking back up the road, the accrued flat of the surface making mirages of standing water on the heat-bleared black macadam. A truck was coming down. A phantom truck that augmented itself out of the boiling heat by segments and planes, an old black truck that rode down out of a funhouse mirror, coalesced slowly in the middle distance and pulled to a stop alongside them.
Shithouse mouse, cried Reese, staggering toward the truck.
Suttree thought that if he reached for the vehicle it would resolve itself back into the cooking lobes of his skull from whence it came. But the old man was climbing up, jabbering mindlessly to the driver. Suttree followed. He pulled the door shut after them and it bounced open again.
Raise up on it, said the driver.
He raised up on it and it shut and they pulled away. As bad as they looked, bad as they smelled, this saint seemed not to notice.
How far are you going? Suttree asked.
Sevierville. How far you all?
He was a young boy, hair almost white, a light down at his chin and side jaws. We'll ride on in with you if you dont mind, Suttree said.
You more'n welcome.
Whew, said Reese. We was about give out.