Al Capone Shines My Shoes (8 page)

I get a vanilla soda out of the icebox and press my nickel into Jimmy’s hand.

He puts it in the cash box, without looking at me.

“Hey, Jimmy.” I close my mouth, not sure what to say now. “How are the flies?”

Jimmy’s eyes soften. “I got a new idea,” he says. “I’m freezing ‘em.”

“Frozen flies?”

“Then I can get a little leash and collar on them. And it will be like pet flies on a leash.”

“Won’t it kill them?”

“Jimmy, Rocky has a stinky!” Theresa interrupts, holding her nose. “And it’s your turn.”

“You bring a diapy?” Jimmy asks. “Like Mom said?”

Theresa shakes her head. “Maybe we could use toilet paper?”

“We can’t use toilet paper. Bea will charge us for it,” Jimmy tells Theresa. “You figure it out. I’m gonna show Moose the flies.”

Theresa sighs. Her face puckers up. “Rocky, oh come on, be quiet, will ya?” She kneels down to give Rocky a toy and pops out the door.

Jimmy opens the icebox and takes out a little box he made out of folded newspaper. It’s wet and cold on the bottom. Jimmy bends back a corner of the well-worn lid and I peek in, holding back the damp newspaper with my thumb.

“See, he’s still moving around too much. When they get a little colder, they go to sleep and you can slip the thread around their middles,” Jimmy explains. He shows me the tiny harness made out of red and yellow braided thread and demonstrates how he plans to slip the harness around the fly. “Trouble is, they die. That’s why I need so many.

“Five more minutes,” Jimmy decides, latching the icebox with the fly box safely inside as the canteen bell announces a new customer. Jimmy scurries back inside, Theresa right behind him. By the time I get there I see Piper drumming her fingers on the counter.

I take an unexpected gulp of air. I always forget how beautiful she is. Piper plunks her dime down. “Two root beers,” she says. “And when’s Scout coming back anyway?”

Theresa hops behind the counter, takes the dime and inspects it. “Dime’s real,” she announces, plunking it in the cash register.

“Of course it’s real.” Piper takes the pop and uncaps it with the opener tied to the counter with a string. She takes a swig. I’m watching her. Staring at her, actually.

“Jiiiimmmmmmmmmmyyy!” Theresa screams, her voice high and twisted like she’s being strangled by invisible hands.

She’s standing over Rocky, who isn’t crying now. He isn’t making a sound. His eyes are panicky and his skin is almost blue. Why isn’t he moving?

Jimmy hops the potato bins, knocking over the Cream of Wheat. I’m right behind him, leaping the rolling cylinders of cereal.

“Rooockky! MOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEEEE!” Theresa screams.

Jimmy scoops Rocky up in his arms. “Oh jeepers! Doc Ollie! Moose! You’re fast. Run him up to Ollie’s! TAKE HIM! NOW!” Jimmy’s shaking me hard like I’ve fallen into a stupid sleep.

Piper jams in between us. “Me! Let
me
!
I’m
faster!”

“NO, NOOOOOOOOO!” Theresa pounces on Piper and shoves her against the wall.

Jimmy plunks Rocky in my arms. “Go!” he shouts in my ear. My legs take off.

“I think he swallowed it!” I hear Theresa shout.

The weight of Rocky is warm and heavy against my chest. The screen door slams behind me, ringing the canteen bell.

“MOOOOOMMMMMEEEE!” Theresa is still screaming, but her voice is falling off in the distance.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Jimmy outside Mrs. Caconi’s door, where the only phone for 64 building is located.
Call Doc Ollie
. The words float through my mind in a blur of my own pounding feet.

Rocky’s blanket is flying around my legs. I wind the blanket around my hand as I run, keep running. Don’t trip. Don’t stop.

“What’s the matter? What happened?” somebody yells behind me.

But I’m not stopping. Not answering. I’ve got Rocky in my arms, I’m not going to look at him, I can’t look at him. He’s too quiet, too still. I’m afraid of what I’ll see. Something is wrong with this baby. Really wrong like he might die. He can’t die.

The hill is steep, the air is thick, my lungs are bursting. Past the switchback. The water tower. Gulls scatter out of my way.

“The back way! Go the back way!” someone yells.

“How do I get in?” The words come choking out of my mouth. I hear them as if someone else has said them. I’ve seen Doc Ollie go into the cell house here. But how can I get in?

Somebody’s there now. Up ahead. Somebody will help me. A baby can’t die while I’m holding him.

“Moose!” My dad’s voice, then Mr. Mattaman’s. Somebody else’s too. They rush toward me and sweep me through the entrance. One, two, three doors open. Stairs appear. I can’t stop running, don’t stop, don’t let go.

There are walls made of bars. The smell of bandages. More bars.

And then I see him. The big round gray-haired man in his clean white uniform. “Doc Ollie!” I gasp. “He’s not breathing.”

In the narrow hospital room, Doc takes Rocky from me. He flips him on his back on the narrow cot.

“Jimmy said he may have swallowed something. That right?” Doc Ollie asks.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

I shake my head, gasping, doubled over from the pain in my side. “I dunno.”

Doc Ollie props open Rocky’s jaws with a bent tongue depressor.

“I didn’t see,” I wheeze. “I think Theresa gave him something . . . to play with.”

Doc Ollie flips down the silver magnifier on his head. He looks in Rocky’s throat, takes a long pair of silver forceps, and gently pulls Rocky’s propped-open mouth toward him.

Ollie cocks Rocky’s chin this way and that, then firmly brings the forceps down his gullet, wiggles them slightly, his eye squinting in the magnifier. “Okay, okay, don’t move now, little guy, don’t move. Just a little, yes!” He pulls the forceps out and Rocky begins to howl.

“Woo.” Doc Ollie rocks back on his heels, lets out a huge sigh. Then he opens his hand and shows us one shiny Lincoln head penny. “Here’s the culprit, right here.”

9.

THAT YOUR BOY, BOSS?

 

 

 

 

Mr. Mattaman is holding his baby son as gently as he can while Rocky howls.

“That’s okay, little feller. You go ahead and give us heck.” Doc Ollie smiles his big reliable smile. “It’s when they don’t yell you worry. Gonna have a mighty big sore throat. Don’t suppose it’s fun having those forceps stuck down a tiny larynx like that. Would have had the right size on hand, if I’d a known you was coming.”

Rocky’s hollering so loud I bet they can hear him clear over on Angel Island. His little face is red as a comic book devil.

“He sure didn’t like that,” my dad says. “Can’t say I blame him.”

I’m making agreeing noises but I’m hardly listening to what he’s saying, because it’s suddenly occurred to me . . . I’m standing
inside
the cell house hospital!

Two long rows of cells mirror each other. Our cell has been converted to Doc Ollie’s office with clear canisters filled with syringes, cotton balls, wooden sticks. Slings hang from a hook, a wheelchair with a cane seat is parked in the corner, and crutches of different sizes lean against the wall.

“Poor little guy, he’s mad as a hornet. I’m gonna give him a little whiskey and milk. Let him sleep it off,” Ollie says as he searches through a glass-faced cabinet.

“Thanks, Ollie.” Mr. Mattaman steals a glance up from his baby son. His voice is steady, but his chin is puckered from all he’s holding back.

Doc Ollie pats my shoulder with his big soft hand. “Good work there, son. Hives didn’t slow you down any I’m glad to see. That salve help?”

I’m too stunned to do much else but nod, although the answer is no.

“Cam . . .” Ollie tips his head, like he’s pointing with it out the door. “You reckon this boy of yours deserves a little treat?”

My dad holds the cell door open. “Ollie thinks I should give you a tour.”

“A tour
of the cell house
?”

He half laughs at this. “Not the cell house, no sir. If I took you down Broadway Warden Williams would give me my walking papers.”

Broadway is what they call the center row of the cell house. Even the littlest kid on Alcatraz knows this. Janet Trixle’s fairy prison has a Broadway too.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own little surprise.” My dad smiles now, clearly pleased with himself.

I follow my father down the hospital corridor with cells on one side and cells on the other. Each one is painted mint green with four cots scooted against the walls or side by side in the center. It smells vaguely of shoe polish and bleach and something acid like pee. The cells are all empty at first, then, as we walk deeper into the building, I see men sitting on beds, hanging against the bars, all of them wearing prison blue shirts, all of them watching me.

They’re the ones in prison, but I’m the one being stared at like a zoo animal. I don’t like this.

My father stops near the bars of a cell on the west side. Just one man in this cell, a big beefy guy with dark black hair, dark eyes, a round face, big lips, and the kind of smile that makes you like him without thinking twice about it. He’s got shoe polish and a buffing rag on his bed along with a pair of shiny black guard’s shoes.

The man stands up and sticks his pudgy hand through the bars. In the shadow of his left side a jagged line cuts across his face—a scar. “That your boy, boss?” he asks.

My father nods. “Moose, meet Al Capone.”

I take hold of Capone’s hand. His handshake is firm, solid, trustworthy. I squeeze his hand with more strength than I planned. My mouth opens. “Thank you” pops out. As soon as the words hit my ears, the temperature in my face rises.

Capone smiles his broad, warm smile and chuckles deep in his throat. “He’s thanking me, boss.”

My father frowns. “Say hello, Moose.”

“Hello,” I parrot like I’m Natalie.

Capone angles his chin in the direction of Doc Ollie’s office. “I heard you brought the Mattaman baby in. He doin’ okay?”

“Looks that way.” My father points his toothpick toward the shoes. “Who you doin’ those for?”

“Officer Trixle,” Capone says. “Got me a special touch. You know that.”

My father snorts his disapproval.

“They like to tell people their shoes been shined up all nice by me. Looks like yours need some shining there, boss. Could do your boy’s too.” Capone winks at me.

“No thanks,” my father answers.

Capone seems to take this in. “They gonna give me a roommate in here, boss?”

“Wouldn’t know ’bout that.”

“Just as soon be on my own. One or two guys don’t like me too much.”

“Like I said, I don’t know. Depends on who’s sick,” my father says.

“Is that so?” Capone stares hard at my dad. “Seems to me a man’s got as much power as he can wrap his mind around.”

“Is that how it seems to you?”

“You bet. And I’ve done good for myself. I don’t mind saying.”

“Until now.”

Capone chuckles. “Minor setback. Now your boy here . . . he don’t know his own strength, but he sure can keep his head on straight when the pressure is on.” He points at me with his big beefy hand. “When I get out, you look me up. I got a job waiting for you.”

“He will do no such thing,” my father snarls.

Al laughs a good long laugh, deep down in his belly. “Don’t you worry, boss. You got yourself a good boy there. Kinda person keeps up his end of a deal.” Al leans in so close the bars press against his face. “I’d be mighty proud if you were my boy,” he says.

“Say goodbye, Moose,” my father barks, stepping between Capone and me.

“Goodbye, Mr. Capone,” I say to Al’s big beaming face. I turn and follow my father down the hallway, the smell of shoe polish strong in my nose.

I’m almost out of Capone’s sight when I hear it. The words drift to me in a whispery voice. “Bye, son,” he says.

10.

A DANGEROUS GAME

 

 

 

 

It isn’t until I’m heading down the cell house hospital stairs into the fresh air that it really hits me. I just met Al Capone, the most powerful gangster ever to live. He called me
son
!

My skin tingles as my mind replays his words.
Seems to me a man’s got as much power as he can wrap his mind around.
He was talking about my dad. He thought my dad had the power to make sure he didn’t have a cellmate.

And that other bit about a person who keeps up his end of things? That was a message for me. He expects me to get his wife flowers. No doubt about that.

My father looks at me. “It’s a shame he went bad. Could have used somebody like that on our side. Who knows, he might have been mayor, president even.”

“He’d a got my vote,” I admit.

“I noticed that.” My dad motions with his head toward the cell house. “You gotta watch the cons like him—the ones with brains. Starts innocent enough. He shines your shoes. Pretty soon, he wants something for his efforts. A stick of gum maybe. You gonna give it to him? Well, you owe him now . . .” He sucks his cheek in, watches a pelican fly over our heads. “Maybe you say no and he tells you, get the gum or he’ll make certain the warden finds out he’s been shining your shoes. So you get him his gum. Now he has two things on you. What does he do then? He ups the ante . . . that’s what.”

I’m shrinking. I have lost eight inches in height and begun to sweat so much my skin is slippery clear down to my shoes. My father has nailed me and he doesn’t even know it.

“Moral of the story?” my father continues. “Shine your own shoes, you don’t have to worry about any of that.” He smiles at me.