Suttree Read Online Free PDF Page A

from some stained sepia, posting time at cards prevenient of their dimly augured doom. Suttree passed on through.
    In the front room was a broken sofa propped on bricks, nothing more. One wonky spring reared from the back with a beercan seized in its coils and deeply couched in the mousecolored and napless upholstery sat a row of drunks.
    Hey Suttree, they called.
    Goddamn, said J-Bone, surging from the bowels of the couch. He threw an arm around Suttree's shoulders. Here's my old buddy, he said. Where's the whiskey? Give him a drink of that old crazy shit.
    How you doing, Jim?
    I'm doin everybody I can, where you been? Where's the whiskey? Here ye go. Get ye a drink, Bud.
    What is it?
    Early Times. Best little old drink in the world. Get ye a drink, Sut.
    Suttree held it to the light. Small twigs, debris, matter, coiled in the oily liquid. He shook it. Smoke rose from the yellow floor of the bottle. Shit almighty, he said.
    Best little old drink in the world, sang out J-Bone. Have a drink, Bud.
    He unthreaded the cap, sniffed, shivered, drank.
    J-Bone hugged the drinking figure. Watch old Suttree take a drink, he called out.
    Suttree's eyes were squeezed shut and he was holding the bottle out to whoever would take it. Goddamn. What is that shit?
    Early Times, called J-Bone. Best little old drink they is. Drink that and you wont feel a thing the next mornin.
    Or any morning.
    Whoo lord, give it here. Hello Early, come to your old daddy.
    Here, pour some of it in this cup and let me cut it with Coca-Cola.
    Cant do it, Bud.
    Why not?
    We done tried it. It eats the bottom out.
    Watch it Suttree. Dont spill none on your shoes.
    Hey Bobbyjohn.
    When's old Callahan gettin out? said Bobbyjohn.
    I dont know. Sometime this month. When have you seen Bucket?
    He's moved to Burlington, the Bucket has. He dont come round no more.
    Come set with us, Sut.
    J-Bone steered him by the arm. Set down, Bud. Set down.
    Suttree eased himself down on the arm of the sofa and sipped his beer. He patted J-Bone on the back. The voices seemed to fade. He waved away the whiskeybottle with a smile. In this tall room, the cracked plaster sootstreaked with the shapes of laths beneath, this barrenness, this fellowship of the doomed. Where life pulsed obscenely fecund. In the drift of voices and the laughter and the reek of stale beer the Sunday loneliness seeped away.
    Aint that right Suttree?
    What's that?
    About there bein caves all in under the city.
    That's right.
    What all's down there in em?
    Blind slime. As above, so it is below. Suttree shrugged. Nothing that I know of, he said. They're just some caves.
    They say there's one that runs plumb underneath the river.
    That's the one that comes out over in Chilhowee Park. They was supposed to of used it in the Civil War to hide stuff down there.
    Wonder what all's down in there now.
    Shit if I know. Ast Suttree.
    You reckon you can still get down in them Civil War caves, Sut?
    I dont know. I always heard there was one ran under the river but I never heard of anybody that was ever in it.
    There might be them Civil War relics down there.
    Here comes one of them now, said J-Bone. What say, Nigger.
    Suttree looked toward the door. A gray looking man in glasses was watching them. I caint say, he said. How you boys? What are ye drinkin?
    Early Times, Jim says it is.
    Get ye a drink, Nig.
    He shuffled toward the bottle, nodding to all, small eyes moving rapidly behind the glasses. He seized the whiskey and drank, his slack gullet jerking. When he lowered it his eyes were closed and his face a twisted mask. Pooh! He blew a volatile mist toward the smiling watchers. Lord God what is that?
    Early Times, Nig, cried J-Bone.
    Early tombs is more like it.
    Lord honey I know they make that old splo in the bathtub but this here is made in the toilet. He was looking at the bottle, shaking it. Bubbles the size of gooseshot veered greasily up through the smoky fuel it held.
    It'll make ye drunk, said J-Bone.
    Nig shook his