Al Capone Does My Shirts Read online

  “I don’t know, Mom. We . . . I . . . tipped over her buttons.”

  “Why did you let her take them out?”

  “I dunno. She wanted them.”

  “How long has she been like this?”

  “Half an hour, maybe.”

  My mom kneels down. She strokes Nat’s face gently, gently, and pushes the hair out of her eyes.

  “Get them out of here.” My mom spits the words out.

  “Mom, it’s—”

  “I won’t have her made a spectacle.”

  “It’s really not like that. They like her,” I say.

  “NOW, Moose!”

  “Annie, could you . . .” My mouth hangs open waiting for the rest of the sentence to come out.

  Annie looks at my mom and Natalie. I see in Annie’s small blue eyes that she understands. “Theresa, Jimmy, get a move on. We can’t stay down here,” Annie commands.

  Theresa stamps her skate so hard, she bends the wheel. “That stinks! Why do we have to leave?” she says as Jimmy and Annie pull her up the hill.

  I find my dad at the electrical shop. He carries Nat home and puts her in bed. At first she has her eyes open that weird way, but then pretty soon she closes them.

  When my mom comes out of Nat’s room, her face is as white as flour.

  “Honey, you should lie down,” my father says.

  My mother nods and heads for her room.

  “I don’t know how much longer she can take this,” my father says. I don’t know if he means Natalie or my mother.

  When Mr. Trixle knocks on the door, my mom and Natalie are sound asleep. The set of Mr. Trixle’s jaw and his formal, military nod makes me wish more than anything that I’d talked to my father about what happened with the warden before he heard it from someone else.

  Too late. He and Mr. Trixle are out the door. When my dad comes back, he chomps his toothpicks hard and angry.

  “Moose.” He motions with his head like I should follow. We go down to the dock and around to the southern tip of the island past the sixteen-foot sign that says WARNING: PERSONS PROCURING OR CONCEALING ESCAPE OF PRISONERS ARE SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION AND IMPRISONMENT. Jagged lines of orange and pink carve up the sky.

  My father throws a stone in the orange-tinted water. “Please tell me you didn’t know anything about this,” he says.

  I open my mouth to explain how it wasn’t me, then his words register in my brain. I close my mouth.

  He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

  “I didn’t sell the laundry,” I say. “I didn’t get any money.”

  “But you knew about it.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not a—you don’t want me to be a snitch, do you?”

  “I don’t want you to be a snitch? This isn’t some school-yard game. I almost lost my job here, Moose. Do you know what that means to us?”

  I look out at the darkening sky. “If you lost your job, we could go home.”

  “Is that what you think? That we can waltz back home?” He snorts.

  “We could live in our old house and you could work at Sam Jensen Electric like you have my whole life.”

  “Sam’s got a new guy working for him, and some other family lives at 2828 B Montana Avenue. That isn’t our life anymore. It isn’t our home. We live here. And if I lose my job, who knows where we’ll live. Check out the lines of men looking for work someday, Moose.”

  “Dad—”

  “I will not hear what my own son is doing from Darby Trixle. Do you understand me? You know what I said to him? I said, ‘Oh, no, Moose would never be involved with something like that. He would tell me.’ ”

  “Well, I was going to, but then it was such a bad day today with Natalie—”

  “I DON’T MEAN AFTER THE FACT, MOOSE.” He stares at me. I stare at the dark ground. I’ve never seen my father like this.

  “I want your bat, your ball and both your gloves. I’m going to keep them for a while. I haven’t decided how long. And if anything like this happens again, that will be it for you and baseball.”

  “Dad, come on.” The words crawl out of my throat.

  “I won’t have this.”

  “You’re treating me like I did everything wrong. It’s not fair.”

  “If you didn’t know anything about this, it wouldn’t be fair. But you knew all about it, and you didn’t do anything to stop it.”

  “At home this never would have happened. At home I wasn’t responsible for everyone else in the world.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.”

  “So I knew what Piper was doing. Okay? But that doesn’t mean I did anything.”

  “Life isn’t so cut and dried as you like to make it, Moose. You have to use your head.”

  “I used my head.”

  “I have to be able to depend on you. Can I count on you or not?” my dad asks.

  I can’t even nod. Can’t move my head.

  “Moose?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “All right then,” he says.

  Part Two

  21. It Never Rains on Monday

  Thursday, March 28, 1935

  The entire month of February and half of March, it rains. Drizzling rain, driving rain, lightning storms and thunder. Big fat sloppy drops, little misty ones and the kind that sting when they come down. It rains every darn stupid day, except baseball day. Monday after Monday dawns bright and clear like some kind of baseball spell. Every Monday I see Scout and them warming up on my way to the boat. I walk by without even looking.

  On Alcatraz there’s nothing to do, no one to do it with and nothing to look forward to either. I haven’t even been thinking about Pete all that much. He isn’t much of a letter writer and it doesn’t look like I’ll be going home anytime soon. Hard to keep up a friendship if you never hear from a person. Annie goes to church with her mom every day. I didn’t know it was possible to go to church that much. Piper’s off the island, living with her grandma on Nob Hill. Annie says that’s because she got in trouble too. But Piper says it’s because she’s sick to death of us.

  Mostly I’m glad she’s gone. It makes everything easier. I don’t even see her much at school now. She’s got her own friends, and slowly, day by day, I have mine. Besides, who wants to talk to Piper? Every time I see her, she tells me how much fun she’s having living in San Francisco. How irritating is that?

  My dad gave me back my gloves and my baseball in the middle of February. But with no one to play with, it hasn’t done me a whit of good. I tried one day to get some guys to play with me at lunch, but without Scout, they wouldn’t.

  Jimmy was the only one of us who didn’t get in trouble. His mom was so busy with the new baby, I guess she forgot. Or maybe she knew him well enough to know it wasn’t his idea. I still feel awful about the stuff with my dad. I can’t stand that he thinks I let him down. But every time I try to talk to him about it, he says, “Water under the bridge, Moose. Let’s move on.”

  The only thing that’s saved me from going completely nuts is bowling. I never thought I’d care about bowling. You roll a ball and knock things over . . . what kind of a sport is that? But apparently I’m desperate, because whenever Theresa’s mom doesn’t need her to help with baby Rocky, we take Natalie down to the bowling alley in the Officers’ Club. It’s embarrassing to spend all your time with a seven-year-old girl, but Jimmy is always fiddling with his mechanical devices, so what am I supposed to do?

  And then there’s Natalie. She hasn’t had a fit since the day we got in trouble with the warden more than two months ago now. Not one. And though I let her have her buttons or her rocks, or at the Officers’ Club her toothpicks, she seems easier and more present.

  I’ve met Mrs. Kelly now a couple of times. She’s a short round ball of a woman with a sturdy build and hair the color of plumbing pipes. I didn’t like the way she looked at me, as if she was trying to find something wrong. In fact, I overheard her telling my mom that sometimes there is more than one kid affected
in the same family. “There’s nothing wrong with me, you old coot!” I felt like screaming in her ear.

  I didn’t, of course. I’m always polite. But even my mother was upset at this comment. “Don’t let Moose fool you,” she said. “He’s smarter than he looks.”

  What is it with me that even my own mother thinks I look stupid?

  Another funny thing is how used to living on an island with a bunch of criminals I am. It would seem strange to live with regular people after this. Even when I saw the convicts unload the laundry from the boats, it was boring. Nothing to say about it, really. I got tired of watching after a minute or two.

  And then finally, in late March, the weather broke. It got sunny and warm and there were wildflowers poking up through every crack in the cement. That’s when Piper came back to Alcatraz to live and Annie’s mom returned to their twice-a-week church schedule.

  “Here comes trouble,” my dad said when he saw Piper back.

  He’s right too. It’s like the last two months haven’t happened for her. Her head is full of just as many schemes as it was before.

  On the way home from school today she called a meeting on the parade grounds. When Nat and I got there, I could already tell Piper was up to something.

  “What is it?” I demand.

  “I’m not telling until everyone’s here.”

  “Nobody’s going to do what you say anymore, you know. Nobody wants to get in trouble,” I say.

  “Nobody’s going to get in trouble.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.”

  “This isn’t against the rules.”

  “You said that the last time too.”

  “Why is it I’m responsible for everything?” she asks as she waves to Theresa, Jimmy and Annie to hurry up.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Sunday,” she announces when we’re settled in our private spot at the top of the west stairs. “We’ve all got to be on the nine-thirty boat to the city and return on the ten.”

  “A round-trip? Why?” I ask.

  “Al Capone’s mama is coming to Alcatraz. She’s scheduled for the ten A.M. run from Fort Mason.” Piper shakes her head and sighs. “How did you survive here without me?”

  “How do you know about this?” I ask.

  “I have my ways,” Piper says. She stuffs a stick of gum in her mouth, then shoves the pack back in her pocket without offering any of us a piece.

  “Which are?” I ask.

  “I read Al’s mail. I get to read everything, even the stuff he doesn’t get to see. He gets a lot of letters from people asking for money that my mom mails back. Cons are only supposed to get letters from relatives.”

  “How come your mom gets to do it?”

  “My dad trusts her.”

  “Doesn’t want Capone’s business all over the street,” I say.

  Piper nods. “This morning I read a letter from Mae Capone—that’s Al’s wife.” She looks at me as if I’m the only one who wouldn’t know that. “She said Al’s mama is scheduled to be on the boat March thirty-one, ten A.M. run.” Piper has a big smug smile on her face. She’s waiting for us to tell her how clever she is.

  “Smart,” Jimmy says.

  Piper takes a bow.

  “Thirty-first, ten A.M., thirty-first, ten A.M.,” Natalie says.

  “But we won’t get in trouble for this?”

  She shrugs. “We’re allowed to take the boat whenever we want. What could we get in trouble for?”

  I try to figure out how this could get us in trouble. I can’t come up with anything. Nothing at all.

  “I’m bringing Rocky,” Theresa announces. “This is going to be history. He has to be there.”

  “What’s past is always history, stupid,” Jimmy says. “And you’re not bringing Rocky. Mom will never let you.”

  “Where I go, he goes,” Theresa announces.

  “He’s not here now, is he?” Jimmy asks.

  “Hold it!” Piper commands, her palm raised high. “Jimmy’s right, don’t bring the baby. Annie, can you get out of church?”

  Annie shakes her head. “I doubt it,” she says.

  Piper looks down. She rolls her tongue around in her mouth. “Could if you wanted to.”

  Annie’s nostrils flare out. She says nothing.

  “Moose, are you going to bring, you know . . .” Piper dips her head toward Natalie, who is sitting quietly dragging her fingers along a patch of moss. “No offense or anything”—Piper flashes her fake smile—“but I don’t think you should.”

  “You know what? That’s none of your business,” I shoot back. I decide about Natalie. Not Piper.

  22. Al Capone’s Mama

  Sunday, March 31, 1935

  When the nine-thirty boat pulls up, Piper is dressed for charm school: white gloves, white hat, pink sweater, pink hair ribbon.

  “Where’s Theresa?” I ask Jimmy as we clomp on board.

  “Not coming,” Jimmy says.

  Theresa must have decided that if Rocky can’t come, she’s not going either. She’s pretty possessive about him. It’s almost as if she gave birth to that baby herself.

  On the boat, we head straight for the front, where none of us usually stand. I want to be the first to see Al Capone’s mom waiting at the dock at Fort Mason. When the boat starts moving, we lean against the rail, straining to see the city in the hazy morning. It’s a while before we see much of anything, but finally we make out the dock and then little specks of color that seem like they are people. One of those dots is the mother of public enemy number one, I think when I hear a faint wailing behind me.

  “What’s that?” I ask Piper as the crying gets louder. And then out of the cabin comes Theresa carrying a howling baby wrapped in a blue crocheted blanket. Rocky’s whole face is red like butcher meat. His cries are loud enough to make dogs go deaf.

  “Jimmy! What’s Rocky doing here?” Piper barks.

  “Jimmy! Help me!” Theresa cries.

  “How did you get on?” Jimmy asks. “Mom is going to kill you!”

  “Who says she has to know?” Theresa whines. “Now calm him down.” She shoves the screaming infant in his arms, which only makes Rocky cry even louder—though I wouldn’t have thought this was possible.

  “Mom walks him!” Theresa orders.

  Jimmy tries walking Rocky up and down the rocking boat. He’s a big baby and Jimmy doesn’t seem to have a good grip.

  “Don’t drop him, Jimmy!” Theresa scrambles after him, trying to tuck his chubby little legs back in the blanket.

  My gram once told me that babies love the gentle sway of cars and boats. But not Rocky. When the boat pulls up to the dock, that baby is crying so loudly, Mrs. Mattaman can probably hear him on Alcatraz.

  In the small group of people waiting on the dock at Fort Mason, there’s only one woman who could be Teresina Capone. She’s the old Italian woman with a big ruddy face and white-gray wavy hair. Mrs. Capone has a thick build, round shoulders and dark old-fashioned lace-up clothing that looks hot and uncomfortable. I thought she’d be blonde, wearing expensive furs, or flashy like her son in a canary yellow cape. She looks like anyone’s grandma.

  As soon as Mrs. Capone comes on board, Piper claims the bench next to her and I sit behind them.

  “Hello.” Piper holds her hand out to Mrs. Capone. “My name is Piper Williams. Pleased to meet you.”

  Mrs. Capone ignores her. She reads a letter, which she holds so close to her face, it seems like it would make her cross-eyed. I don’t know if this is because she can’t see well or because she’s trying to keep its contents from prying eyes, but whatever the reason, it’s an effective block.

  “Excuse me!” Piper tries again. “EXCUSE ME!” She drops her small pink purse on Mrs. Capone’s toe. “Oh, forgive me!” she cries.

  Mrs. Capone looks down at her toe and then up at Piper in surprise. I hope Piper didn’t have anything heavy in there. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to break the poor lady’s toe. Mrs. Capone picks up
the handbag and gives it back to Piper.

  “Oh, thank you! I’m so sorry. Terribly clumsy of me,” Piper says. “As long as I have your attention, I was wondering . . .”

  But it’s too late. Mrs. Capone has her nose back in her letter.

  Behind me I hear Rocky wind up another howl. Mrs. Capone hears him too. Her head turns to the sound. When she sees Rocky, her whole face seems to light up like somebody flicked a switch in her head.

  “Mrs. Capone,” Piper says, apparently forgetting she isn’t supposed to know her name, “let me introduce you to baby Rocky.”

  Mrs. Capone ignores Piper. She’s already on her way to Theresa, who is struggling with the howling infant while Jimmy hops on one foot, singing “Farmer in the Dell.”

  Mrs. Capone is standing right next to Theresa now. “O be-be-be,” she coos to Rocky. Then she taps Theresa lightly on the sleeve. “Me?” she offers.

  Theresa has been so busy with Rocky, she hasn’t figured out this is Al’s mom. She happily hands Rocky over to Mrs. Capone. Jimmy hesitates. He seems unable to decide what to do.

  Mrs. Capone takes Rocky in her arms and rocks him gentle and wide like a large cradle. Almost immediately, as if by some spell, Rocky stops crying. Mrs. Capone keeps rocking, her smile broad and sweet.

  “Mrs. Capone!” Piper won’t give up. But Mrs. Capone ignores Piper and everyone else. She’s busy singing a soft sweet lullaby in what I’m guessing is Italian. As far as she’s concerned, there’s no one else on the boat but that black-curly-haired baby. She sings to him all the way to Alcatraz.

  When the boat docks, baby Rocky is asleep.

  Mrs. Capone sighs. She hands the peacefully sleeping infant back to Theresa Mattaman. Then the light in her face goes dark, and she gathers herself together and walks slowly forward. Officer Johnson meets her and speaks with her for a moment, though Mrs. Capone’s blank look makes me wonder if she understands any English at all. Then he leads her through the metal detector snitch box, which blares its sharp alarm bell.

  “Ohhh,” Theresa cries.

  “For crying out loud.” Jimmy whistles.