I like to think all these years have been part of her plan too. And one day Nat will tell me it’s all a crazy game she made up to see if we really loved her.
My father jogs ahead. Yesterday the boatman told us, “We don’t wait for nobody. Even God himself has to get down here on time.” But somehow the big ex-army steamship called the Frank M. Coxe is still there.
My mother walks through the snitch box—a metal detector designed to make sure no one is bringing guns on the island.
“This new school is a good opportunity for you, Natalie,” my mother tells her as I watch the boat guy unwind a rope, as thick as my arm, from the cleat. “You are such a lucky girl to have this chance.”
Natalie says nothing. Her eyes are trained on a gull wiggling a potato chip out from the wood slat bench. I look up at another bird high in the blue sky. And another skimming low over the green blue sea.
My father has a book with him, McGregor’s Illustrated Animal Book. He’s brought it because it has a good index. Nothing pleases Natalie more than having him read the index of a book to her.
“American Leaf-Nosed Bat, page 48,” my father reads. “American Quail, page 232, American Spiny Rat, page 188 . . .”
Tons of gulls are flying above our boat. We watch them, Natalie and I. Natalie is rocking more than usual, but it doesn’t look out of place here. The boat rocks anyway.
“I count 229 birds,” I say, pointing at the gulls.
“Bad Moose,” Natalie says. “Nine birds. Nine.”
I smile at her. “I count forty-seven people on the deck.”
“Bad Moose, eleven peoples. Eleven.” Natalie loves catching my mistakes.
Once when I was seven or eight, she started bringing books to me—big old ones like the dictionary and the encyclopedia. She’d turn to the back and plunk the book on my lap. I couldn’t figure out what she wanted. One day, just to get her to go away, I started reading the page she had opened. It was a history book, and the index was full of names of people and places. I got to this one, Machu Picchu, and I said something like, “Mack-who. Pick-you.” “Bad Moose,” she said. “Ma-chew, Pee-chew.” I thought she was nuts until my mom informed me that is how it is pronounced. My mother went straight to the library and checked out a big stack of history books for Natalie. But it didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t history Natalie was interested in. It’s indexes she loves. Any subject will do. We still don’t have any idea how she learned the correct pronunciation of Machu Picchu, though.
We’re coming into the dock in San Francisco now. Twelve minutes to get to Alcatraz, twenty years to get back, my dad says the cons say.
We sit a minute watching a churchgoing family walk down the gangplank. The toddler goes backward, hanging on the handrail and cautiously moving his squat legs down plank by plank. Everyone smiles at how careful he is. “Going to be an insurance man when he grows up.” His dad winks at my mom.
“All right, troops, move ’em out,” my father says, but my mom seems stuck in her seat. She’s staring at the toddler, who is walking across the dock, holding tight to his mom’s hand. My mom blows her nose with her handkerchief. She’s blinking fast, trying to keep back her tears.
When Natalie sees this, she curls up in a tight little ball on the wood slat seat and will not move. My mother pulls herself together and tries to sound cheerful again.
“Natalie, honey, I have a little cold. That’s all, sweet pea. Now, come on, sweetheart! This is a wonderful day!”
Her voice sounds fake and Natalie knows it. She pulls her knees tighter into herself. My father whispers that he hopes he won’t have to carry her.
He squats down on one knee and talks to Nat for a long time. The boatman nods to my mother and taps his wrist, to signal time to get off. My mother fusses with her gloves, pulls her hat brim low and walks across the deck to talk to him.
I shift my weight from one leg to the other and back. Finally my father’s head pops up. He looks at me. “Moose, can you get her up?” he asks.
“Everyone who is getting off needs to GET OFF!” the boatman booms as people begin boarding for the trip back to Alcatraz.
I look around, searching for an idea. I grab the book and flip to the back. “American Laugh-Nosed Beet, page 3,000,” I say.
Natalie is still curled up tight. But her head cocks a fraction of an inch.
“Australian Quill, page 200,” I say.
Now she makes a noise deep in her throat and bolts up. “No, Moose! American Leaf-Nosed Bat, page 48. American Quail, page 232!” she says.
I take a step toward the gangplank. “American Spiny Rot, page 18,” I say.
“Bad Moose. Bad, bad, bad. American Spiny Rat, page 188.” She shakes her head. But she is standing now, following me.
Step by step, page by page, I get her off the boat. Now my dad has the brown suitcase, my mom is smiling and Natalie is next to me. She finds my hand. She grips my fingers together so hard, it hurts.
Natalie has held my hand maybe once before in my whole life. Why does she pick now for this?
This is the right thing to do, I tell myself. But I don’t believe it. This is another one of my mother’s crazy ideas.
I feel sick to my stomach. I want to pull my hand away, but I don’t. I keep walking. Good Moose. Obedient Moose. I always do what I’m supposed to do.
5. Murderers Darn My Socks
Same day—Sunday, January 6, 1935
I keep thinking about when my mom’s second cousin Mrs. McCraw came to visit. “Put her in an asylum, Helen. It’s the humane thing to do,” Mrs. McCraw said between bites of cinnamon nut cake. My mom turned ashen. She told Mrs. McCraw she wasn’t welcome in our home ever again. Mrs. McCraw took giant gulps of air and tried to apologize, but my mom stood firm, holding the door open. She didn’t say a word until Mrs. McCraw limped out, her handbag bumping against her side. After she was gone, my mom found Mrs. McCraw’s knitting bag. She sent me running after her to give it back.
“I can’t help if your mom can’t see the forest for the trees. She’s got one good boy, why not focus on him? But no, she goes on these wild-goose chases. It’s too bad the child is sick. But cut your losses. No use throwing good after bad.”
I nodded then. I didn’t mean to. Really I didn’t. My neck nodded without my telling it to. But once I’d nodded, I couldn’t un-nod. I was too stiff to move. When Mrs. McCraw drove off, I still had her knitting bag in my hand.
The thing is, we didn’t do that, right? We didn’t put her away. The Esther P. Marinoff will help her, right?
When we get back, I tromp up the stairs to our apartment wondering if Theresa’s family has a radio that works. Then I see the note hanging from our door.
Cam,
Send your boy up to talk to me at 1700 today.
Warden Williams
“The warden?” I croak.
My dad takes the note out of my hand. “Looks like it,” he says.
“Couldn’t I do this tomorrow?”
“When the warden says jump,” my father says, “you ask, how high?”
“Dad, we gotta talk.”
“Give me a little time to rest, then we’ll play ball, then you’ll go.” He winks at me.
I don’t remember ever seeing him look so tired. The extra guard duty shifts are killing him. It’s too much work and being a prison guard is the exact wrong job for him. He’s too nice. My mother would make a much better jailer than my father.
I’ve just finished my book when my father comes out of his room with his glove and the ball in his hand. My mother is still sleeping. He closes the door as quietly as he can. “Dock?” he asks.
“Yep.” I search for my glove. It’s not in my room, maybe it’s in Natalie’s. Lately she’s decided the glove is hers.
The door to Nat’s room is closed. I can’t bring myself to open it. I glance back at my dad.
“I’ll get it,” he whispers.
From the doorway, I see Nat’s soft purple blanket in a tangled heap. Why d
idn’t my mom pack it? How will Nat go to sleep without it? I feel like marching into my parents’ room and shaking my mom. How could you send her to that place without her blanket?
My dad finds the glove on a crate by her bed. He puts it under his arm and heads for the door.
“Dad? What about her blanket? What if she needs it?”
“I think your mom was worried it would get lost.” He presses his lips together so hard, they go white.
Neither of us says anything as we walk down the stairs. The dock smells like sardines and it’s pretty deserted—unless you count the birds, which I don’t because it makes me think about Natalie.
We decide to throw parallel to 64 building, where we live. This way, if somebody misses, we aren’t as likely to lose the ball in the bay or bust out any apartment windows. The gulls scatter to the dock posts and wood pilings at the water’s edge. They sit watching us like fans.
It’s so nice to have my dad again. I was angry at him for looking for a job up here and angry all over again when he found one. I’ve been angry at my mom for making us do this, and at Pete and all my friends at home because I had to move and they didn’t. I’ve been mad at everyone except Natalie. I always try really hard not to get angry at her.
Once, when I was little, I yelled at her for smashing a dugout I’d constructed out of cardboard and my mom didn’t speak to me for a month. My father told me having Natalie as a sister is like playing ball when you’re 100 times better than your opponent. You’ll always win, but it will make you feel like a louse. I didn’t see what that had to do with my sister ruining my stuff and my mother going mute. But it was pretty clear that getting mad at Natalie was the one thing that would never be forgiven.
My dad’s not a great ballplayer, but he’s a lot of fun to throw with because he’s always trying something tricky. He sends a high ball I have to run like crazy for, then a fast glove-pelting stinger, then a low burner. I know all his tricks.
After a few minutes, when my arm is good and loose, I start talking. “So,” I ask, “how long we here?”
My dad catches the ball and walks up closer so we don’t have to shout. “We live here now, Moose, you know that.”
“But what if I don’t want to live here.”
He shrugs. “Nobody wants to come to Alcatraz. But at least you don’t have a number printed on your back and no bracelets either.”
“Bracelets?”
“Handcuffs.”
“Oh.” I send him an easy ball with a high arc. “Natalie doesn’t like it either. She doesn’t like it one bit,” I say, although I know this is a cheap shot.
My father catches the ball and waits a beat before returning a stinger. I’m surprised how hard and fast it is. It stings my hand through my glove. “If you want to talk about yourself, that’s fine. But I’m not going to discuss your sister.”
“Does the warden know?”
“Does the warden know what?”
“About Natalie.”
“Of course.”
“What’s he want to talk to me about, then?”
“Just wants to meet you is my guess. It’s decent of him to take the time to talk to you, Moose.”
“Have you met his daughter?”
“Piper, yes. Seems like quite a nice young lady.”
I blow air out of my mouth and roll my eyes.
He laughs. “The pretty ones are always trouble, Moose, but I think you can handle her.” He winks at me.
“She told me she was going to tell the warden about Natalie.”
“Like I said, he already knows.”
“She wasn’t nice,” I say.
“Sounds to me like she was just trying to help out her dad. No crime there.”
“Tell me again why we can’t go home?”
“We saw where that was going, Moose. Natalie sitting on Gram’s back step counting her buttons day after day. We wanted to see—just see—if there was another way. This school has skilled teachers working with these kids around the clock. It’s an impressive place.”
The gulls are starting to edge closer now. I stamp my foot and they scatter.
“You saw how she was when we left.”
“Change is hard. It’s hard for you, it’s hard for me, it’s murder on your sister.” His voice breaks.
“You heard her screaming, Dad—”
My dad’s hands go up to block my words. “Look, son,” he interrupts, “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
“I want to know for certain this is going to work out.”
My dad sighs. He looks out at the water to where they’re building the Bay Bridge—two toothpicks held together by a thread of steel. He’s quiet for a long time. “Nobody knows how things will turn out, that’s why they go ahead and play the game, Moose. You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it’s hardly ever what you expect.
“Now”—he checks his watch—“you can’t go see the warden looking like that. Go put on a clean shirt.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Cleaner then. We don’t put the laundry out until Wednesday. Comes back Monday.”
“Mom doesn’t have to do it?”
He shakes his head. “The convicts do the washing here.”
“The convicts wash my shirts, as in murderer convicts and kidnapper convicts, and then I’m supposed to wear them?”
He laughs.
“They darn socks too?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Do a better job than your mom too. Though don’t you dare tell her I said that.”
“Murderers outsew my mother?”
“Apparently so.” My dad laughs.
6. Sucker
Same day—Sunday, January 6, 1935
I’m walking by the cell house now. Row after row of dark barred windows, all spooky quiet. What goes on in there?
I know the convicts aren’t allowed to talk, but how could some 300 men not make more sound? Just breathing makes noise, you know. And all those windows? The cons don’t sit around watching us . . . do they?
Across the road from the cell house is a fancy mansion with flowerpots on the steps and curtains in the windows. The only thing missing from the house is a lawn and a tree. That’s the only tip this is Alcatraz. There’s nothing but cement clear up to the door. Even so, it’s strange how one side of the road is so different from the other—high society on the left, grim and grisly on the right. But somehow this seems like the perfect place for Piper.
I trip going up the steps and have to brush myself off and tuck my shirt in again. I comb my hair with my hand, take a deep breath and ring the bell. The door opens a split second later and there is the warden rising to fill the doorway. “Young Mr. Flanagan,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Just making myself a cup of tea. Care to join me?”
“No, sir. I mean yes, sir, I want to join you, but no, sir, I don’t like tea.”
The warden nods. His eyes look me up and down. After a long minute, he gives up command of the entrance and motions me in. “My library is upstairs. The door’s open. You go on ahead.”
I take an uncertain step forward and peek in at the living room. The couches and chairs look perfect, like nobody’s ever sat in them. It smells like ammonia and there’s opera music playing somewhere. This is not the kind of house where you can burp freely and run around in your bare feet.
The warden’s library is a big dark room with heavy red drapes drawn closed and floor-to-ceiling books—the kind of official volumes with thick indexes Natalie likes.
The warden comes in after me and closes the door. He sets his teacup on the desk, settles into a huge winged desk chair and begins to work.
“Sit down, Mr. Flanagan,” he says without looking up from his ledger. He sounds annoyed, like I’ve flunked his first test.
I sit down, only my aim is a little off and I clonk myself on the wooden arm of the chair. “Ouch. I mean ouch, sir,” I say.
His face gets red. His sharp eyes
seem to poke into me. He leans back in his chair and opens his mouth to say something, but just as he does, someone knocks on the solid oak door. “Yes?” the warden calls. The latch slides open and there is Piper. Her hair is curled. Her dress is starched. She’s wearing white short socks and shiny white shoes.
“Piper, did you want to sit in?” the warden asks, his big face shining.
“Yes, sir.” She smiles sweetly.
“We’d be delighted. Wouldn’t we, Mr. Flanagan?” the warden asks.
“Yes . . . sir.” My throat closes around the words.
The warden doesn’t seem to notice, beaming as he is at her. “Piper, you feel free to chime in, now.”
“Yes, sir.” Piper smiles. She doesn’t look at me.
“When convicts first arrive on Alcatraz, I speak with them personally. Let them know what I expect. I don’t usually talk to new civilians, but Piper felt I should make an exception in your case,” the warden says.
Oh, swell. I’m getting the convicted-felon treatment.
I try to look only at the warden. Try not to notice Piper. But this seems impossible.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“I don’t know what you did in Santa Monica, Mr. Flanagan, but children on Alcatraz follow the rules. Exactly. Precisely. Without exception. Isn’t that right, Piper?”
“Yes, sir,” she says.
“We’re a small town here. A small town with a big jail. The track record of the convicts we have includes seventy-nine successful escapes, nineteen unsuccessful escapes and twenty-four escapes that were planned but not carried out.That’s before these men came to Alcatraz, of course. We’ve made certain there will be no escapes here, but I don’t fool myself. These convicts are the very best at what they do. They have twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to figure out how to get out of here. These are men who have been tried and convicted of the most heinous crimes imaginable—terrible men with nothing but time on their hands.”
He waits for this information to sink in.