Mm-hmm, she said.
By the time he reached the street the ice was gone and he stopped in Howard Clevinger’s to get another piece. Lifting the rusty lid of the drinkbox and sorting through the cold water for a rightsized chunk, the smooth shapes sliding about among the bottlenecks with bits of paper and flakes of fallen paint. Gatemouth was watching him from the rocker and when he raised up from behind the lid and clapped the piece of ice to his forehead he laughed and wheezed and rocked and shook his head.
Ho ho, said Suttree.
Who went up the side of yo head, baby?
Suttree leaned back. On the cardboard ceiling were tacked odd shaped bits of paper.
Who you jump salty with, Sut?
I ran into a door.
Hee hee, chuckled Gatemouth.
Where’s all your nutwagon friends today?
Out amongst em.
Good, said Suttree. He held the ice to his head and went out. Clevinger, slouched in his chair with his arms crossed, opened one eye when he passed the counter and closed it again. Suttree went up the hill toward town.
It was late afternoon when he returned. He sat on the porch and watched the river pass. Before dark fell he rose and went up the river to Ab Jones’s.
Two white men were drinking beer in the corner and Doll was frying hamburgers on the little burner in the galley. He went through the room and pushed back the curtain. The bed was empty. He pushed back the plastic shower curtain on the other side. Jones was standing at the urinal, bracing himself up with one hand against the wall. He was wearing a pair of khaki undershorts and even in the dim light from the small window on the river Suttree saw such galaxies of scars and old rendings mended and slick and livid suture marks as made him gasp. He looked like some dusky movie monster patched up out of graveyard parts and stitched by an indifferent hand. Suttree let the curtain fall.
What did she say, Youngblood?
She said for you to come up there.
He was looking at the floor, waiting for an answer. Jones didnt answer.
I told her you needed her to come but she wouldnt have any part of it.
Well.
You want me to try again?
Naw. Go on out there and get you a beer.
Do you think you could make it up there?
I’ll get up there one of these days.
Suttree went back to the front room.
You want a hamburger? Doll said.
Suttree said he would.
He got a beer from the cooler and crossed to the far corner and sat down. The two men watched him. Suttree took a long pull from the bottle and set it on the marble at his elbow. She came shuffling over in her houseshoes and set a thick plate before him with a hamburger and some pickles and went back.
Hey, said one of the men.
Suttree looked at them.
How come he gets his first? He come in after us.
She looked up from behind the plywood counter. Her one eye blinked. She looked enormously tired. He work here, she said.
They looked at Suttree. He raised the hamburger and took a good bite. It was heavily seasoned with pepper. Rich grease and mayonnaise dripped to the plate.
Hey buddy, you work here?
Suttree looked at them. They didnt look good.
How about bringin us a couple more beers, good buddy.
He pointed toward Doll Tell her, he said.
Hell, she said you worked here. Do you not wait tables?
Shit boy, we might be heavy tippers and you not know it.
Suttree set the beer down and leaned forward in his chair. I’m going to tell you goofy pricks something, he said. If you cause that big son of a bitch to come out here as bad as he feels he is going to kill you where you sit.
They looked toward the rear where he’d pointed. One turned to the other. Is he back there? he said.
Shit if I know.
I thought he was in jail.
Suttree looked at Doll. She was turning the pats of meat, her sullen face shining with grease and steam.
We’ll see you outside, motherfucker, said the man at the table.
Sure, said Suttree. He finished his hamburger and drained the beer bottle and rose. He set the plate and bottle on the counter and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
What do I owe?
You dont owe nothin.
Thanks Doll.
Dont you bring that witch down here.
Suttree grinned. She wouldnt come, he said.
Mm-hmm. She came from behind the counter with the plates and Suttree went on to the door. He listened for the men to say something but they didnt.
He crawled into bed without lighting the lamp and he was up not much past daybreak and out to run his lines.
When he came back upriver with his catch the Indian’s skiff was moored to the rocks under the bluff and the Indian hailed him from the top with a piercing whistle.
Suttree waved.
The Indian cupped his hands and called for him to pull in. Suttree feathered the left oar and came up under the shadow of the rocks. The Indian was working his way down the path. Suttree sat the oars and waited.
I got us a turtle, the Indian said. He bent to look at Suttree. What happened to you?
What?
He pointed at Suttree’s head. Suttree put a finger gently to his wound. I got that yesterday. Your buddies.
My buddies?
When I was coming back up after I left you somebody cut loose at me with a flipper.
He was a hell of a shot.
Suttree looked up to see if he was smiling but he wasnt. He rose and went down the rocks. Come on, he said. I’ll show you your supper.
Suttree climbed from his skiff with the rope and made fast. The Indian had taken up a cord from among the rocks and was hauling it in hand over hand. A hulking shape loomed and subsided. It entered the shadowline of the rock pool and scuttled slowly among the ebbing fish heads. Suttree shaded his eyes. It rose up, dragged by its head, a mosscolored shadow taking shape, a craggy leathercovered skull. The Indian braced his feet and swung it up dripping from the river and onto the rocks and it squatted there watching them, its baleful pig’s eyes blinking. It was tied through the lower jaw with a section of wire and the Indian took hold of the wire and tugged at it. The turtle bated and hissed, its jaws gaped. The Indian had out his pocketknife and now he opened it and he pulled the turtle’s obscene neck out taut and with a quick upward motion of the blade severed the head. Suttree involuntarily drew back. The turtle’s craggy head swung from the wire and what lay between the braced forefeet was a black and wrinkled dog’s cunt slowly pumping gouts of near black blood. The blood ran down over the stones and dripped in the water and the turtle shifted slowly on the rock and started toward the river.
The Indian undid the wire and flung the head into the river and reached up the turtle by its tail and swung it trailing blood toward Suttree for him to heft.
Suttree reached to take it by one hindfoot but when he touched the foot it withdrew beneath the scaly eaves of the shell.
Here, you can get him by the tail.
He reached past the Indian’s grip and took the headless turtle. Blood dripped and spattered on the stones.
What do you think he’ll weigh?
I dont know, said Suttree. He’s a big son of a bitch. Thirty pounds maybe?
May be. Lay him down here and we’ll dress him.
Suttree laid the turtle on the rock and the Indian scouted about until he came up with a goodsized stone.
Watch out, he said.
Suttree stepped back.
The Indian raised the stone and brought it down upon the turtle’s back. The shell collapsed with a pulpy buckling sound.
I never saw a turtle dressed before, said Suttree. But the Indian had knelt and was cutting away the broken plates of shell with his pocketknife and pitching them into the river. He pulled the turtle’s meat up off the plastron and gouged away the scant bowels with his thumb. He skinned out the feet. What hung headless in his grip as he raised it aloft was a wet gray foetal mass, a dim atavism limp and dripping.