Uptown one evening in the Huddle Suttree found Leonard fresh from the workhouse. Leonard had a job as dishwasher and he had gonorrhea of the colon and was otherwise covered with carbuncles. He hobbled over to Suttree’s table and sat uneasily. He told how he had seen the lies run down the lawyer’s tongue. Vague but of a substance, they came down like mice and looked about a moment before scuttling off. Leaning over Leonard and wagging a long finger, and is it not true that you sought to conceal the death of your father for the purpose of extorting monies unlawfully from the state? Wild in the eye, thrusting his sweating face into Leonard’s smaller one and fixing him with a lidless look of triumph until Leonard half rising from his chair seized the lawyer’s cold skull in his two hands and pulled his face down and parted those thin lips with a smoking kiss.
He come up, Sut. Draggin all them chains with him.
Fathers will do that, said Suttree.
I hunted you everwheres.
Suttree didnt ask what for.
The catamite tucked his chair closer and leaned in confidence. I need to ast ye somethin Sut.
Okay.
If you buy somethin and dont pay for it can they take it back?
Sure. Of course they can.
I mean no matter what it is?
Well. I dont know. I guess there are some things it would be hard to repossess. What is it?
Well this guy’s been comin to the house …
Okay.
Well. You know after they found the old man and we had all that trouble with the law.
Okay.
Well, the old lady went and bought this plot out in Woodlawn so they wouldnt bury him down here in the whatever thing it is here and she bought this whole deal, this guy come out to the house, and he sold her this deal, this plot with anothern alongside of it for her and it had this pet, pet …
Perpetual care.
Petual care and got her to sign for it all and she didnt have to pay nothin down nor for the first sixty days I think it was and now she’s three months behind on her payments and she owes em sixty-two fifty …
Leonard.
Yeah.
Are you trying to tell me they’re going to repossess your old man’s grave plot?
Can they Sut?
I dont know.
Well I know a guy one time they come and got his teeth he never made the payments.
I’ll check on it for you. Did they really say they were going to repossess it?
What they tell me, Sut, if she dont make a payment by the tenth up he comes.
Suttree looked at the earnest pinched face. He shook his head in wonder.
Times been rougher’n a old cob, said Leonard. At our house they have.
What’s become of Harrogate? said Suttree.
Leonard grinned. I dont know. I seen him uptown about a month ago he had some old country girl on his arm was about a head taller’n him. I hollered at him was he gettin any of that old long stuff but he didnt know me.
Maybe it was his sister.
May be. She favored him some.
Suttree closed his eyes as if he were trying to picture such a person. He opened them to see Leonard watching him. He looked about him as if he could not place how he came to be there.
And this was Harrogate. Standing in the door of Suttree’s shack with a cigar between his teeth. He had painted the black one and it was chalk white and he had grown a wispy mustache. He wore a corduroy hat a helping larger than his headsize and a black gabardine shirt with slacks to match. His shoes were black and sharply pointed, his socks were yellow. Suttree in his shorts leaned against the door and studied his visitor with what the city rat took for wordless admiration.
What say Sut. How in a big rat’s ass are ye?
I was okay. Come on in.
Harrogate pinched his hat up by the forecrown and swept it to his chest and entered, ducking slightly as he did so though the lintel of the doorframe was two feet above his head. He laid the hat on the table and hitched his trousers and tucked in his shirt with his thin little hands and puffed on the cigar and grinned and looked about. Good God, said Suttree.
I seen old Rufus said you was back down here.
Suttree shut the door. Sit down, he said.
I hunted you up at Comer’s. They said you was into the tall cotton.
Yeah. Well, the market collapsed. Sit down, sit down.
Harrogate pushed his hat to one side to make room for his elbow and sat. You fishin again? he said.
Suttree leaned back on the cot. Fishing again, he said.
I thought you’d give it up.
I did too.
I come by a time or two. Your old boathouse was about in under.
What are you doing, Gene?
Hmm?
I said what are you doing.
Harrogate grinned. I got me a few little routes, he said. He turned the cigar in his teeth and gave Suttree a look of fey cunning. Got me a few little routes.
Suttree waited. The story must be elicited with care. It is that the city rat has a telephone route. With small dimestore sponges through which he’s fastened wire loops. He runs his routes with a special hook taped to his forefinger, fetching down the blocks from inside the coinreturns of the telephones, a few nickels clattering into the slot, the sponge poked back.
I dont see how that would pay very much, said Suttree.
Harrogate grinned slyly.
How many phones do you have?
He took the cigar from his teeth. Two hunnerd and eight-six, he said.
What?
I had a twenty-six dollar day Saturday. I just barely could walk for the fuckin nickels in my pockets.
Good God, said Suttree. You’ve got half the telephones in Knoxville plugged up.
Harrogate grinned. It takes me all day to run em. I put on a few new ones ever day. You get away from uptown they’s a lot of hard sidewalk tween telephones. I done wore out two pair of brand new Thorn McAn shoes.
Suttree shook his head.
Harrogate tipped the ash from his cigar into his palm and looked up. Listen, he said. You ever lose any money in a telephone why you just let me know. I’ll make it back to ye. You hear?
Okay, said Suttree.
Or anybody you know. You just tell me.
All right.
You the only other son of a bitch in the world I’d tell. I mean anybody could get on my route and run it if they knowed about it. They aint no way for me to protect myself.
No.
I got some other deals in mind too. There’ll be a deal for you if you want in, Sut. You aint never been nothin but decent to me. I dont mind takin a buddy with me on the way up.
Gene.
Yeah.
You’re on your way up to the penitentiary is where you’re on your way up to.
Shit, said Harrogate. I have me another day like Saturday I’ll buy the goddamned penitentiary.
It’s not like the workhouse. They have these coalmines up there for you to work in.
Harrogate smiled and shook his head. Suttree watched him. Smiling a sadder smile.
I saw Leonard the other day and he said he saw you uptown with some girl on your arm.
Shit, said Harrogate easily. Man has a little money about him he can get more pussy than you can shake a stick at.
29
Suttree tapped at the dosshouse door. The keeper shuffled along the hall and unlatched the door and peered out. He shut one eye, he shook his head. No ragman here. Suttree thanked him and descended into the street again.
It was still raining a cold gray rain when he eased himself down the narrow path at the south end of the bridge and made his way over the rocks to the ragman’s home. As he came about the abutment and entered the gloom beneath the bridge three boys darted out the far side and clambered over the rocks and disappeared in the woods by the river. Suttree entered the dim vault beneath the arches. Water ran from a clay drain tile and went down a stone gully. Water gushed from a broken pipe down the near wall and water dripped and spattered everywhere from the dark reaches overhead.