From all old seamy throats of elders, musty books, I’ve salvaged not a word. In a dream I walked with my grandfather by a dark lake and the old man’s talk was filled with incertitude. I saw how all things false fall from the dead. We spoke easily and I was humbly honored to walk with him deep in that world where he was a man like all men. From the small end of a corridor in the autumn woods he watched me go away to the world of the waking. If our dead kin are sainted we may rightly pray to them. Mother Church tells us so. She does not say that they’ll speak back, in dreams or out. Or in what tongue the stillborn might be spoken. More common visitor. Silent. The infant’s ossature, the thin and brindled bones along whose sulcate facets clove old shreds of flesh and cerements of tattered swaddle. Bones that would no more than fill a shoebox, a bulbous skull. On the right temple a mauve halfmoon.
Suttree turned and lay staring at the ceiling, touching a like mark on his own left temple gently with his fingertips. The ordinary of the second son. Mirror image. Gauche carbon. He lies in Woodlawn, whatever be left of the child with whom you shared your mother’s belly. He neither spoke nor saw nor does he now. Perhaps his skull held seawater. Born dead and witless both or a terratoma grisly in form. No, for we were like to the last hair. I followed him into the world, me. A breech birth. Hind end fore in common with whales and bats, life forms meant for other mediums than the earth and having no affinity for it. And used to pray for his soul days past. Believing this ghastly circus reconvened elsewhere for alltime. He in the limbo of the Christless righteous, I in a terrestrial hell.
Through the thin and riven wall sounds of fish surging in the sinking skiff. The sign of faith. Twelfth house of the heavens. Ushering in the western church. St Peter patron of fishmongers. St Fiacre that of piles. Suttree placed one arm across his eyes. He said that he might have been a fisher of men in another time but these fish now seemed task enough for him.
It was late evening before he woke. He did not stir, lying there on the rough army blanket watching the licking shapes of light from the river’s face lapse and flare over the ceiling. He felt the shanty tilt slightly, steps on the catwalk and a low trundling sound among the barrels. No shade, this. Through the cracks he could see someone coming along the walk. A timorous tapping, once again.
Come in, he said.
Buddy?
He turned his head. His uncle was standing in the doorway. He looked back at the ceiling, blinked, sat up and swung his feet to the floor. Come in, John, he said.
The uncle came through the door, looking about, hesitant. He stopped in the center of the room, arrested in the quadrate bar of dusty light davited between the window and its skewed replica on the far wall, a barren countenance cruelly lit, eyes watery and half closed with their slack pendules of flesh hanging down his cheeks. His hands moved slightly with the wooden smile he managed. Hey boy, he said.
Suttree sat looking at his shoes. He folded his hands together, opened them again and looked up. Sit down, he said.
The uncle looked about, pulled the one chair back and sat carefully in it. Well, he said. How are you Buddy?
Like you see. How are you?
Fine. Fine. How is everything going?
All right. How did you find me?
I saw John Clancy up at the Eagles and he said that you were living in a houseboat or something so I looked along the river here and found you.
He was smiling uncertainly. Suttree looked at him. Did you tell them where I was?
He stopped smiling. No no, he said. No. That’s your business.
All right.
How long have you been down here?
Suttree studied with a cold face the tolerant amusement his uncle affected. Since I got out, he said.
Well, we hadnt heard anything. How long has it been?
Who’s we?
I hadnt heard. I mean I didnt know for sure if you were even out or not.
I got out in January.
Good, good. What, do you rent this or what?
I bought it.
Well good. He was looking about. Not bad. Stove and all.
How have you been John?
Oh, I cant complain. You know.
Suttree watched him. He looked made up for an older part, hair streaked with chalk, his face a clay mask cracked in a footman’s smile.
You’re looking well, said Suttree. A tic jerked his mouthcorner.
Well thanks, thanks. Try to keep fit you know. Old liver not the best. He put the flat of his hand to his abdomen, looked up toward the ceiling, out the window where the shadows had grown long toward night. Had an operation back in the winter. I guess you didnt know.
No.
I’m pulling out of it, of course.
Suttree could smell him in the heat of the little room, the rank odor of his clothes touched with a faint reek of whiskey. Sweet smell of death at the edges. Behind him in the western wall the candled woodknots shone blood red and incandescent like the eyes of watching fiends.
I dont have a drink or I’d offer you one.
The uncle raised a palm. No, no, he said. Not for me, thanks.
He lowered one brow at Suttree. I saw your mother, he said.
Suttree didnt answer. The uncle was pulling at his cigarettes. He held out the pack. Cigarette? he said.
No thanks.
He shook the pack. Go ahead.
I dont smoke. You used to.
I quit.
The uncle lit up and blew smoke in a thin blue viper’s breath toward the window. It coiled and diffused in the yellow light. He smiled. I’d like to have a dollar for every time I quit, he said. Anyway, they’re all fine. Thought I’d let you know.
I didnt think you saw them.
I saw your mother uptown.
You said.
Well. I dont get out there much, of course. I went at Christmas. You know. They left word at the Eagles for me to call one time and I dont know. Come to dinner sometime. You know. I didnt want to go out there.
I dont blame you for that.
The uncle shifted a little in his chair. Well, it’s not that I dont get along with them really. I just …
You just cant stand them nor them you.
A funny little smile crossed the uncle’s face. Well, he said. I dont think I’d go so far as to say that. Now of course they’ve never done me any favors.
Tell me about it, said Suttree dryly.
I guess that’s right, the uncle said, nodding his head. He sucked deeply on his cigarette, reflecting. I guess you and me have a little in common there, eh boy?
He thinks so.
You should have known my father. He was a fine man. The uncle was looking down at his hands uncertainly. Yes, he said. A fine man.
I remember him.
He died when you were a baby.
I know.
The uncle took another tack. You ought to come up to the Eagles some night, he said. I could get you in. They have a dance on Saturday night. They have some goodlooking women come up there. You’d be surprised.
I guess I would.
Suttree had leaned back against the raw plank wall. A blue dusk filled the little cabin. He was looking out the window where nighthawks had come forth and swifts shied chittering over the river.
You’re a funny fella, Buddy. I cant imagine anyone being more different from your brother.
Which one?
What?
I said which one.
Which what?
Which brother.
The uncle chuckled uneasily. Why, he said, you’ve just got the one. Carl.
Couldnt they think of a name for the other one?
What other one? What in the hell are you talking about?