Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

Harrogate. What the fuck do you want? he said.
    Where am I supposed to sleep?
    The man groaned and closed his eyes. Harrogate waited for him to open them again but he did not. After a while he jostled the foot again. Hey, he said.
    The man did not open his eyes. He said: If you dont get the fuck away from me I'm going to kick the shit out of you.
    I just wanted to know where I'm supposed to sleep.
    Anywhere you like you squirrely son of a bitch now get the hell away from here.
    Harrogate wandered on up the aisle. Some of the bunks had pillows as well as blankets. He picked one out that had only a bare tick and climbed up and spread his blanket and sat in the middle of it. He sat there for a while and then he climbed down again and went to the bars and peered out. Someone in a suit like his was coming backward down the hallway towing a bucket on wheels by a mop submerged in the black froth it held. He glanced at Harrogate as he went past, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He didnt look friendly. Across the hall another prisoner was peering from his cage. Harrogate studied him for a minute. Then he gave sort of a crazy little wave at him. Hidy, he said.
    Sure, said the other prisoner.
    Harrogate turned and went back and climbed into his bunk and lay staring at the ceiling. Concrete beams painted green. A few half blackened lightbulbs screwed into the masonry. It had grown dim within the room, the early winter twilight closing down the day. He slept.
    When he woke it was dark out and the bulbs in the ceiling suffused the room with a sulphurous light. Harrogate sat up. Men were filing into the cell with a sort of constrained rowdiness, not quite jostling one another, lighting or rolling cigarettes, speaking only once they were inside. A rising exchange of repartee and shaded insult. One spied Harrogate where he sat up in his cot like a groundsquirrel and pointed him out.
    Looky here, new blood.
    They filed past. Toward the end came men hobbling with what looked like the heads of pickaxes welded about one ankle. The door clanged, keys rattled. Two men turned in at the bunks beneath Harrogate. One of them lay down and closed his eyes for a minute and then sat up and shucked off his shoes and lay back and closed his eyes again. The other stood with his head bent a few inches from Harrogate's knee and began to unload his pockets of various things. A pencil stub, matchbooks, a beercan opener. A flat black stone. A sack of tobacco. He saw Harrogate watching him and looked up. Hey, he said.
    Hey, said Harrogate.
    You dont piss in the bed do you?
    No sir.
    You smoke?
    I used to some. Fore I got thowed in the jailhouse and couldnt get nary.
    Here.
    He pitched the sack of tobacco up onto Harrogate's blanket.
    Harrogate immediately opened the sack and took a paper from the little pocket under the label and began to roll a cigarette.
    You get one of those every week, the man said.
    When do I get mine?
    Next week.
    You aint got no match have ye?
    Here.
    Harrogate lit the cigarette and sucked deeply and blew out the match and put it in his cuff.
    Keep em.
    He put the matches in his pocket.
    How old are you?
    Eighteen.
    Eighteen?
    Yessir.
    You just made it didnt you?
    That's what they keep tellin me.
    What's your name?
    Gene Harrogate.
    Harrogate, the man said. He had one elbow on the upper bunk and was holding his chin in his fingers, studying the new prisoner with a rather detached air. Well, he said. My name's Suttree.
    Howdy Mr Suttree.
    Just Suttree. What are you in for?
    Stealin watermelons.
    That's bullshit. What are you in for.
    I got caught in a watermelon patch.
    What with, a tractor and trailer? They dont send people to the workhouse for stealing a few watermelons. What else did you do?
    Harrogate sucked on his cigarette and looked at the green walls. Well, he said. I got shot.
    Got shot?
    Yeah.
    Whereabouts? Yeah, I know. In the watermelon patch. Where did you get hit.
    Pret near all over.
    What with, a shotgun?
    Yeah.
    For