Al Capone Does My Shirts

  “So, Moose, we’re friends, right?” Piper corners me as I come out of the bathroom right after the last bell at school.

  “Whatever you say, Piper.” I pick up my books and head out the door into the bright sunshine.

  “And friends help each other, right?”

  I don’t like the sound of this.

  “I need your help.” She touches my hand.

  I close my eyes, blow air out of my mouth and walk faster.

  She keeps pace with me. “I want your help with 105. You have an in now. Natalie does, anyway.”

  “You are unbelievable.” I spit the words out at her.

  “Moose, wait! Come on!”

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Piper. I just don’t.” I keep walking fast, my head down.

  “This is going to help you too. Because otherwise you’ll always wonder. You’ll never know what happened between Natalie and 105.”

  “I know what happened. I was there,” I lie.

  “No, you weren’t,” she says.

  “Go cram your head in the crapper, Piper,” I yell in her face, and cross the street to get away from her. How does she know everything?

  “Look,” she wheedles, keeping pace with me. “You’ve been driving yourself nuts with this, haven’t you, Moose? But we can fix that. We’ll let Natalie go to meet 105 and then we’ll spy on them. Then you’ll know. And if 105 tries anything, you can pound him, right, Moose? Won’t that feel good?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, 105 does not exist.”

  “We came so close to getting into the cell house with Mrs. Capone,” Piper says.

  “No, we didn’t,” I say.

  “What if they’d used Jimmy or Theresa to translate instead of Mrs. Mattaman? And then they’d need to take them up to the cell house, because cons can’t talk to visitors in a foreign language.”

  “What if, what if, what if. None of that even came close to happening.”

  “Didn’t you learn anything? Just be there. Just be close and it will happen. You can’t catch a ball unless you’re in the ballpark! Take 105 for example,” she tries again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shout, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Natalie certainly does. That’s all she talks about is 105.”

  I glare at her. “How would you know?”

  “I heard her one day when she was with your mom. Your mom had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew,” Piper says.

  My neck gets stiff. I can hardly move it. “She loves numbers is all. That’s always what she talks about.” I start walking again.

  “Oh, yeah, right. Look, what’s the harm of just talking to the guy, 105?”

  “No harm. Go ahead. You don’t need me and you don’t need Natalie.”

  “Ahhhh.” She makes a disgusted noise and cuts in front of me.

  “Well, you don’t.” I sidestep her.

  She cuts me off again. There’s an odd expression on her face, both eyes looking left, not at anything in particular.

  “What?” I ask.

  She scratches her back. “Well . . .” She sighs.

  “Well what?”

  “I tried to talk to 105, but he wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “No kidding. You know, you really charmed Mrs. Capone too. I mean, dropping your purse on her toe. What a nice touch!”

  “Shut up.”

  “What did the guy do, anyway? Homicide? Kidnapping?” I can’t stop myself from asking this.

  “I dunno, but he’s only got one more year. Not even that, half a year, I think. That’s why he has so much freedom. They figure he wouldn’t run with six months to go. It wouldn’t be worth it to jeopardize that. You think they’d let just any old convict wander around the place gardening? Plus, the guy—they call him Onion because the way his hair is greased down makes his head look like an onion—he’s put together a whole slew of good time. He’s like some kind of Boy Scout choir boy.”

  “Choir boy?” I ask.

  “Kind of like you . . . convict choir boy from the root vegetable family.” She smiles.

  “How’d you find out?”

  “I looked in my dad’s files. Couldn’t find what he was in for, but I found out he was on gardening detail. I went to the gardens. There he was. Surely, if Nat could find him, I could too.”

  “Nat’s not stupid!” I shout.

  “Did I say she was?”

  “Say it! Say she’s not stupid.”

  “She’s not stupid.” Piper shrugs and we start walking again.

  I know I shouldn’t talk to her anymore, but I can’t help it. I have to know. “That true about him being a good guy . . . ?”

  “Yep,” Piper says. She looks me square when she says this.

  I think about what a liar Piper is. Even so, what she says makes sense. Why would they let an escape risk have the run of the place? “If he won’t talk to you, what makes you think he’ll talk to Natalie?” I ask.

  “Because he did already, idiot!”

  “Jeez, Piper, why do you go sticking your nose in this?”

  “What are you all bent out of shape about?” Piper asks, shifting her books to the other arm. “She’s not pregnant, right?”

  “Piper! For crying out loud!”

  “You do know about the birds and the bees, don’t you?”

  “Shut up, Piper! Just shut up!”

  “Did you ask her at least?”

  “Look, this is off limits.” I make a flattening gesture with my hands. “I just have to keep her safe until the Esther P. Marinoff interview.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then she’ll get in and get better and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

  “What if she doesn’t get in, though? I mean, she didn’t before, right? What makes you think she will this time?”

  This is the question my whole family has been avoiding. Just hearing Piper ask it out loud makes me feel disloyal.

  “She will,” I say. My voice comes out in a funny jerk.

  Piper raises her eyebrows and studies me. “There’s a chapel in the basement of the cell house. If she doesn’t get in, then maybe she and 105 can get married. He’s getting out soon.”

  “Piper, SHUT UP,” I shout.

  “Get mad all you want, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. They could have babies.”

  “SHUT UP!” I feel a blinding urge to grab hold of Piper’s throat.

  “If she gets in, how long till she starts there? Can you at least tell me that?” Piper asks.

  “I dunno for sure.”

  “So we better get going!” she says.

  “PIPER, FORGET IT!”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know what happened?” Her eyes are burrowing inside me now.

  “It’s not safe, Piper.”

  “Why not? You’re going to be right there. We’re going to be right there.”

  “What is it to you, for chrissakes?” I glare at her.

  “I want to meet Al Capone.”

  “This is just some guy. Some criminal choir boy Onion guy. It isn’t Al Capone.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a start. Who knows where it will lead.”

  I stare at Piper. Those squinty eyes. That cute little movie star mouth. That long straight hair. Then I get it. It isn’t just about Al Capone. “You like to play with fire. You love being around all of this criminal stuff, don’t you?”

  “And you don’t?”

  I stare out at the water, busy with ferries and fishing boats. “Not half as much as you do,” I say.

  30. Eye

  Tuesday, May 7, and Wednesday, May 8, 1935

  All I think about is telling my mom about 105. She’ll say ugly things, but then it will be done. I’ll never be given this kind of responsibility again. I’ll go back to being a kid—the way I was before moving to this stupid turd-covered rock. Natalie will be safe and we can all move somewhere else. I would do this in a flash if it weren’t for my father.

 
I can’t stand to disappoint him again.

  I try to forget all of this—try to stop the churning in my mind—but as soon as I do, Natalie mutters “105” and I’m back into it again. She’s always had a “number of the week,” as my father calls it. It’s usually the number of buttons in her collection or shoes in my mother’s closet or spools of thread in the drawer. Ever since the day I lost her, the number has been 105.

  “105!” she says almost every day now, her hand on the doorknob and the hard force of her whole self headed out. But somehow I keep her inside. I let her play with her buttons and feed her four pieces of lemon cake while she sits by the door.

  On Tuesday when my mother comes home, she seems to know we’ve stayed inside again. Of course, I’ve managed to separate Natalie from her buttons before my mom walks up the stairs from the dock. Even so, my mother knows. And when Natalie refuses to eat one bite of supper, so stuffed is she with lemon cake, my father knows too.

  I hover around my father. When he says he has to help the warden with a project after supper, I offer to go with him—beg him, actually. I don’t want to be left alone with my mom. But he says he can’t take me. There’s a problem in the cell house kitchen, where I’m not allowed to go.

  “Moose,” my mom says as soon as my father is gone.

  “I have a lot of homework,” I say.

  My mother nods.

  I can’t bear this. It’s in my head, the sentences I plan to tell her. The truth. I let my sister hold hands with a convict. They were alone together. Twice? Three times? I don’t even know how many. I was over there looking six, seven times.

  I wish I could make my mother understand how much more complicated this is than she thinks. But the only way to do this is tell her what happened, which I can’t seem to do.

  My mother doesn’t yell about us staying inside. Not one critical word comes out of her mouth. She doesn’t have to say anything. The air itself carries her blame. I feel it when I breathe.

  We both keep our space, never passing close to one another, like magnets set to repel.

  The next day, when the door closes behind my mother, Natalie says what she’d said all day long the day before. “105.”

  “No, Natalie. Not today. Today we’re doing buttons,” I say.

  But the buttons aren’t in her bureau drawer. They aren’t on top of the icebox or in the cupboard by the stove. They aren’t in my mom’s closet or the bread box either. I turn the place upside down, searching every drawer twice. But I know I won’t find them, because they aren’t there. My mother has taken them with her. I didn’t see her do this, but I know she has.

  The only thing I can do is keep Natalie inside. I look for cake. One slim piece of lemon is all I find. Half a piece, really.

  Natalie looks up at me. She has watched my feet as I’ve looked for her buttons. I can’t tell if she knows exactly what’s going on, but she knows something.

  “Fine,” I say, pulling open a drawer for the third time now. “Fine. We’ll . . .” I let the sentence drift off, then I march to my room and get my math books and stack them by the door. We’ll read math books all afternoon. I’ll stand in front of the door. I won’t let her pass. I’m stronger. I have forty, maybe fifty pounds on her.

  Natalie is rocking wildly, like a little boat in a ship’s wake.

  “105,” she says.

  “No,” I say.

  “Buttons,” she says.

  “Numbers,” I say, cracking open a book and offering it to her. “Look, Natalie, you can read about numbers.”

  “Buttons 105!” She’s rocking crazy hard.

  Why not just let her throw a fit? Why try so hard?

  “OUTSIDE, buttons. 105.” She’s spinning now.

  I try to ignore her. I open my book, but I read the same sentence over and over. The meaning won’t go into my head. “Stop it, Natalie!” I yell.

  But she’s losing herself. The scream has started. It begins low, like a piece of machinery that needs time to warm up.

  “Stop it, Natalie!” I holler loud in her face. “Stop being like this! Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re not a little kid, stop acting like one!”

  She throws herself on the floor. She kicks the coffee table.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to us? To Mom and Dad? You’re making them old. They worry about you all the time. At least you can try. At least you can do that. Sometimes I think you don’t even try and I hate you for it, Natalie. We try so hard and you don’t. I hate you, Natalie! I do!”

  A vase hits the rug. It thumps hard, but doesn’t break.

  She’s near the windows now, twisting, banging feet, hands flailing on the floor. The more I yell, the more she screams, like we’re trying to top each other. My shouts are full of words, hers are only sound. Animal sounds. Piercing and terrified.

  There’s banging outside. I see through the window Mrs. Trixle’s brand-new red hair and short round Mrs. Caconi trying to see what’s happening. I’m surprised she made it up the stairs so fast. Someone else is banging too.

  “Moose! It’s me, Theresa! Let me in!”

  “Open up, Moose. What’s going on in there?” Bea Trixle calls.

  “I can help! You need me!” Theresa again.

  “Theresa! Go back inside!” Bea Trixle cries.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” I have my hands on Nat’s arms. I want to shake her, shake her hard. My arms tremble with the effort not to.

  Natalie screams louder. I look into those trapped eyes. Wherever she is, she can’t get out, which only makes her scream louder. And suddenly I’m not angry anymore.

  “Open the door, Moose!”

  “We’re okay!” I call, though I know how ridiculous this sounds.

  “Please, Nat, don’t do this.” I run to the kitchen. “How about some lemon cake?” I plead. But she’s well beyond lemon cake. She takes the cake, mashes it in her hand and throws the plate against the wall, busting it into a billion pieces. Her whole body is moving in all directions, as if each limb has its own plan.

  All of a sudden I remember what my mother used to do. I pick Natalie up, screaming and fighting, her skull bashing against my chin, and set her as gently as I can on her back on one corner of the rug. She’s moving so wildly, she kicks me in the shin, her hand boxes my ear.

  It’s hard to keep her in one place, but I grab hold of her waist and pin her down at one corner. I hold her and the corner of the rug and roll, tightly, gently, using my knees to keep her in. When the rug is all the way around her, I wait. And slowly the fight begins to leak out of her. With the tightness surrounding her, she feels safe, secure somehow.

  She lays shaking, grateful and forlorn in the stained red carpet. I breathe in a dust-rug-sweat smell.

  Mrs. Caconi and Mrs. Trixle are still banging on the door. They have gotten Mrs. Mattaman now. She’s tall enough to see what’s happening inside. She’s holding baby Rocky.

  I ignore them and talk to Natalie in a sweet calm voice, as if she were a baby too.

  “Natalie, how can I help you?”

  Natalie is quiet. Breathing hard. She’s calm now except for her eyes, which seem to be moving back and forth in her head, as if they are still searching for a way out.

  “You’re okay now, Natalie.” I stroke her tangled hair, my hand brushing against her hot wet forehead.

  “Moose, Natalie outside,” she says.

  “Oh, Natalie.” I shake my head.

  “Eye,” Natalie says.

  “What? Something in your eye?” Her eyes have slowed down. I look to see if something is in them. I can’t see anything.

  “Eye.”

  “Yes, I know you were upset. That’s why your eyes are moving around that way,” I say.

  “Eye,” she says. She’s calm now. I unroll the rug. She sits up. Both hands on her chest, petting it as if it has a full coat of fur. “Eye,” she says again.

  “That’s not your eye, Natalie,” I say. “That’s your chest.”

  “E
ye outside,” Natalie says.

  “You want to look outside?” I check to see if Bea Trixle and Mrs. Caconi and Mrs. Mattaman are still there. They’re gone. Maybe they realized we were okay and went away. Or maybe they’ve gone to get a crowbar or my father. I look back at Natalie. Her face is scrunched up. It’s crushed, as if she wants me to understand and I won’t.

  “Eye outside,” she says loud, like I’m deaf.

  I say nothing. I don’t know what she wants.

  Her face seems to close in with the effort. “Eye want to go outside,” she says finally.

  We’re working on pronouns. My mom said this. Pronouns. Natalie, who never called herself anything but Natalie my whole life, just called herself “I.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I want to go outside?” My voice breaks.

  “I want to go outside,” she says, the look of relief on her face as big as thirty states.

  I open the door then. I do. How could I not?

  31. My Dad

  Same day—Wednesday, May 8, 1935

  We go to the parade grounds. Natalie gets on the swings. There’s a mom there with her four-year-old son. She pushes him. I push Natalie. She’s too big and too old for this. Her hips are too large for the seat. I ignore this. I ignore them. She can pump herself, but I know she prefers to have me push. After a few minutes I notice her head is tipping to the side. I run around to the front, just in time to catch her as she falls forward. She’s sound asleep. Tantrums exhaust her. I can sure see why. They exhaust me too.

  I carry her home as best I can. She seems so solid. So big. A real grown-up person in my arms. I stop often, leaning her weight on a cement wall, the edge of a building, the banister.

  I’m almost to the back stairwell when my dad finds us.

  He doesn’t ask what happened. He simply takes Natalie from me and I follow him to our apartment. We walk through the wild mess of our living room. Rug pulled out from the coffee table, vases upended in a puddle of water, broken plate slivers and lemon cake scattered everywhere. My foot crunches the china pieces as I follow my father to Natalie’s room. He places her gently on her bed and covers her with her favorite purple blanket.