Did you really have to swim for it?
I dont know nothin about it Sut. I keep tellin ye.
Okay. What was it you wanted to ask me.
Well.
Go ahead.
Shit, I dont know where to start.
Start at the beginning.
Well you know the old man’s been sick a long time.
Okay.
And you know the old lady draws that welfare.
All right.
Well she draws so much for everbody. I mean she wouldnt let Sue move out on account of it would cut it down and she gets medical for the old man and he draws unemployment on top of that so she draws good money.
All right.
Well if the old man was to die she wouldnt get but about half what all she’s gettin.
Suttree sipped from his bowl again and nodded.
Well …
Go on.
Well he’s done died.
Suttree looked up. I’m sorry to hear that, he said. When was it?
Leonard passed the top of his closed fist across his forehead and looked around uneasily. That was what I wanted to talk to you about.
Okay. Go ahead.
Well. Shit.
Hell Leonard, go on.
Well. He died see?
I do see.
And Mama stands to lose about half her check.
Well, she wont have the expense of him.
He aint been no expense. She’s been savin to get her some things she needs. She done got a steamiron.
Well Leonard if he’s dead he’s dead. You cant keep him in the back room and make out like …
Leonard’s finger traced along the top of the table through the water pooled off the frozen mug. He didnt look up.
I mean he wont keep with hot weather coming on. Suttree smiling, smile slowly fading. Leonard gave him a funny little look and went back to scribbling in the water.
Leonard.
Yeah.
When did he die?
Well. He sat erect and rolled his shoulders. Well, he died …
Yeah, you said. When?
Last December.
They sat in silence, looking at their mugs of beer. Suttree passed his hand over his face. After a while he said: Did you ever get her refrigerator back?
Naw. She got her anothern.
What did you do, run an ad in the paper?
You mean on her old one?
On her old one.
Naw. Hell fire Sut, I never meant to sell it. This old guy stopped me in the street ast me did I know anybody had one for sale. I told him no but I kept thinkin about it and I got to drinkin whiskey with Hoghead and them and we run out of whiskey and I knowed where the old guy lived and went on over there and then we went to the house on account of she was at work and he offered to give me fifteen dollars for the refrigerator and I said twenty and he said okay. Fore I knowed what happened he had it dollied up and out the door and loaded and gone. I wouldnt of done it had I not been drinkin.
Leonard?
Yeah?
What the fuck are you going to do about your old man?
I wanted to talk to you about it. If we could just get him out of there without anybody bein the wiser we could still draw on him.
You’re crazy.
Listen Sut. We’re painted into a corner anyways. I mean what if we was to just call up and say he died? I mean hell fire, you caint fool them guys. Them guys is doctors. They take one look at him and know for a fact he’s been dead six months.
How does it smell in there?
It smells fuckin awful.
Leonard took Suttree’s empty bowl to the bar and refilled it. When he came back they sat in silence, Leonard watching Suttree. Suttree shrugged his shoulders up. Well, he said. He couldnt think of anything to say about it.
Leonard leaned forward. Listen, he said. I just need somebody to help me with him. I can get a car …
Suttree leveled up a pair of cold gray eyes at him. No, he said.
If I could just get you to help me load him, Sut. Hell, it wouldnt be no risk to you.
Suttree looked across the table at that earnest little face, the blond hair, the pimples, the eyes too close together. Strange scenes of midnight stealth and mummied corpses by torchlight, old snips from horror movies, flickered through his head. Listen Leonard, he said.
I’m listening.
What does your mother think about all this? I mean, I cant see her going for this crazy hustle.
She aint got no choice. See, what it was, it got out of hand Sut. We left him in there just to finish out the week. You know. So we could draw on him for the full week? Well, the week ended and I said hell, wont hurt nothin to let it go a few more days. You know. And draw that. Well. It just went on from there.
Aint that the way though? Suttree said.
It wasnt nobody’s fault Sut. It just got out of hand.
Suttree lifted his beer and sipped it and set it back and looked at Leonard. You’re not shitting me are you? he said.
About what?
This whole thing. Are you telling me the truth?
Goddamn Sut. You think I’d kid about a thing like this? Hell, even Lorina dont know he’s dead.
What does she think is going on in the back bedroom?
She just thinks he’s sick and she caint see him. That’s all.
How old is she?
I dont know. Six I guess. She starts school this year. Maybe seven. Look Sut, we can get him out while she’s in bed of a night. The old lady’ll help us. We’ll just haul him out and put him in the trunk. I got some wheelrims and some chains we can use.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Some old rims and stuff. To weight him with.
Weight him with?
Yeah. We’ll have that old fucker so loaded down he wont even show up for judgment day.
Where the hell are you going to put him?
Leonard straightened up and looked around. We got to hold it down, he whispered.
Okay.
We’ll dump him in the fuckin river of course. You got a better idea?
I sure do.
Okay. Let’s hear it.
Forget this goofy goddamned notion and just call the police or whatever and tell them to come and get his stinking ass.
Leonard looked at Suttree. He shook his head. You dont understand, he said.
I understand I’m not getting mixed up in it.
Listen …
Get Harrogate to help you. Loonies ought to stick together.
He aint got a boat. Listen Sut …
The hell he aint got a boat.
You got to be shittin me Sut. I wouldnt set foot in that fuckin thing.
Suttree drained his mug and stood. I’ve got to go, he said. You do what you want but count me out.
In the cool of the mornings he’d run his lines, out with the sun on the foggy river. Afternoons he’d walk in the city but he kept much to himself. He came upon Smokehouse uptown and the old derelict pawed him and begged for a coin. Suttree was holding his pocket with one hand while he reached in with the other but then he looked at Smokehouse and said no. He moved past the old cripple but found him fallen in at his elbow, hobbling along on his twisted legs like a broken disciple. Hey, called Smokehouse, though he wasnt a foot away.
Hey yourself, said Suttree.
Hell fire, let me have somethin. A dime. Goddamn, Bud, you got a dime aint ye?
Mine’s the greater need, said Suttree.
This brought the old man up short. He watched Suttree go on up Market Street. He called out again but Suttree didnt turn. That’s right, called the derelict. That’s the way to treat a old cripple man never done nothin but favors for ye.
He made his way down Vine among blacker mendicants but he kept his silver to himself such as he had of it. An old negress in rags washed up on the paving beneath the Human Furniture Company like a piece of dark and horrid flora ran her wasted leg over the walkway before her and invited whomever to walk upon it. It lay there like a charred treelimb. Whomever smile wanly and look away and she calls down upon them the darker curses of a harried god. Her eyes are red with drink, her geography is immutable. Whereas the quick are subject to the weathers of a varied fate and know not where a newer day will find them she is fixed in perpetuity, steadfast, a paradigm of black anathema impaled upon the floor of the city like a medieval felon.