Al Capone Does My Shirts (12 page)

The warden looks at each of us. He takes a pair of small gold spectacles out of his shirt pocket and flicks them open. Out of his pants pocket, he removes an envelope. All of his motions are slow and deliberate. He unfolds the letter and begins to read.

 

It’s so silent in the room, I can hear the air go in and out of people’s noses. Warden Williams folds his glasses and returns them to his jacket pocket.

“Let’s start with some explanations. Annie Bomini?”

Annie’s face is so red, it makes her eyebrows look almost white. Her shoulders are slumped and her leg is twitching. Her homework is still clutched against her chest like her arm is permanently stuck that way. “I didn’t sell the shirts. I put them through with our laundry. It was Piper’s idea.”

The warden’s eyebrows wag. He rolls his tongue over his teeth. “The one thing I’ve never had patience for is a person who blames someone else to lessen her own culpability. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to see you behave this way, young lady.” The warden stares Annie down. “Piper speaks so highly of you.”

“She’s not usually like this, Daddy.” Piper lowers her voice and steps closer to her father.

“Like what?” I ask. “She said the truth.”

Jimmy stands up. “Yep,” he says, and sits down again.

The warden looks like someone has poked a pick in his side. His hand shakes. He steadies himself on the bookshelf and then his eyes go cold and hard like something sealed in ice.

“Apparently I can’t trust you children any more than I can hardened criminals. Well, fine. I’ll handle this like I would an uprising in the cell house. All of you will be punished without exception.”

“Even me?” Theresa’s voice is quavering.

“Theresa didn’t do anything, sir,” Jimmy mumbles.

“Neither did Moose,” Theresa says.

“One dollar and six cents. One dollar and six cents. Two pennies left over,” Natalie says.

“What?” The warden looks from Jimmy to Theresa to Natalie.

“Shh, Nat,” I say.

“Two pennies left over. Two pennies left over,” Natalie says like someone is arguing with her math.

“What is she talking about?” the warden roars.

“That’s the amount left over,” I say.

“Left over from what?”

“From what they earned,” Theresa says in a tiny voice.

“EARNED?” the warden barks. “Don’t tell me this is about
money! Money
changed hands in this shenanigan?”

No one says anything, but the quiet is clearly an answer. The warden looks at each of us. “Let’s have it. Right here.” He pounds his desk. “Every last cent.”

Annie reaches in her pocket and pulls out her coins. Then Jimmy. Piper doesn’t move.

Warden Williams looks at me.

“I didn’t earn any money, sir,” I say.

He glances at the pile of coins, mostly nickels.

“Why do you think they’re locked up?” He cocks his head in the direction of the cell house. “Why do you suppose, Mr. Flanagan?”

“They, uh . . .” I swallow hard. “Broke the laws.”

The warden ignores me. He waits. “That’s right. Money motivated most of ’em. Is that how you want to end up?”

“No, sir,” Annie and I say in unison.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you aren’t the first kids to break rules, but you will be the last children on this island to ever do anything like this again. There is nothing about this to be proud of.” He waves the letter in the air. “There may come a time in your life when you feel it’s your moral authority to challenge a rule. But that’s not what this is about. This is about greed and silliness and incredibly poor judgment. Do you have anything to say for yourself? Moose?”

“Sir, I didn’t do anything. That’s what I’ve been trying—”

“NO EXCUSES!” the warden roars so loud, even Natalie looks up.

“How about you, Annie?”

“No, sir.”

“Jimmy?”

“No, sir.”

“Theresa?”

“No, sir.”

“If anything like this occurs again, all of your fathers will be dismissed without severance. Anybody know what severance is? Annie?”

“Fired without pay,” Annie whispers.

“That’s right, Annie,” the warden says. He watches her. Tries to pull her eyes to his eyes, but she will not look at him. She stares at her hands.

“Shame on you,” he says in a velvet quiet tone. “Shame on all of you. Annie, how do you think your mother’s going to take this news? And for crying out loud, Jimmy, you think your family hasn’t had enough trouble. You really want your dad to be out of a job with that brand-spanking-new baby? Do you know how hard it is to feed five mouths in this world? Any of you?”

Jimmy bites his lip. I can see the tears well up in him.

“Moose, I expect more from you than this.”

He expects more from
me?
I didn’t do anything.

“I’ve seen how nice you are with your sister. But then you get involved with something like this.” He shakes his head. “I catch you doing anything . . . ANYTHING against the rules . . . I mean, you kids breathe wrong and you’ll be asked to leave.”

“Yes, sir,” we all say.

The warden straightens his coat. It is straight already, but he does it anyway, as if the discussion rumpled him. “I’ll be speaking to all of your parents about this. This money will be returned to your classmates. I will make those arrangements
myself.
Now get out of my sight, every one of you. And you, young lady.” He nods to Piper without looking at her. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

As we file out of the office, I see Piper lean over and whisper to her father like she’s his buddy, not his daughter. The little slime. She’ll get out of this. She will.

 

 

I feel bad for Jimmy and Annie. They’re going to really get it. I won’t, though. I’ll explain what happened to my dad. He’ll understand. He always does.

We head to the parade grounds, but when we get to the turnoff, Natalie keeps plowing down toward the dock. Her buttons are there. How could I forget? Without any discussion, we follow her down.

Theresa puts her skates on, but then just sits. Annie and I kick an old can around. Natalie picks up where she left off, matching buttons to feathers and stones. Jimmy begins building another machine. Every now and then he finds a rock he thinks Natalie might want and he puts it in a pile for her. Apparently he knows the kind she likes, because Natalie seems to give these stones a special place in her elaborate grid.

I spin around and smack the can backward just for the heck of it. I turn back to see it sail ninety degrees the wrong direction and land right in the middle of Nat’s button box, tipping it into her grid game.

Natalie freezes.

I race over there. “I’m sorry, Nat, I’m so sorry.” I kneel down, throw the can away and try to put the buttons back as fast as I can.

But it’s too late. Nat sits motionless. No one can be still like Natalie. She’s still like not even her blood is moving inside her.

“Nat, we can make them like they were. It will be fun! Come on.” I pick up a smooth gray stone and try to think what Nat would match with this.

But Natalie doesn’t look. She curls up into a tight little ball on the cement. Buttons, stones and feathers all around.

Annie and Jimmy are kneeling with me now.

“Nat,” I say gently. “I’m sorry. We’ll help you put them back. We’ll make them just like before.” A fly lands on her cheek. Natalie doesn’t flinch. Annie shoos it away.

“Come on, Natalie, it’s okay.” Annie tries too. She makes her voice soothing and sweet.

But Natalie doesn’t move.

“Nat, we’ll be careful. It won’t happen again. Look! Birds, nine birds!” I point to one lone gull pecking the ground.

But she doesn’t look. And then Theresa skates over.

“Natalie,” Theresa commands, “it’s okay.
I’m
here now.”

But Natalie has gone away somewhere deep inside. Only her body is left, rolled up tight and completely still.

Theresa and I put her buttons back as best we can, arguing over where they should go. Annie shoos flies from Natalie. Jimmy keeps on building his machine, though every few minutes he adds another stone to Natalie’s pile.

We sit with her. Annie and Theresa, Jimmy and me. Keep her company wherever she’s gone.

That is the way my mom finds us when she gets off the boat, her music bag over her shoulder.

“Moose!” My mother looks at Natalie and then me. “What happened? What’s the matter?” She runs toward us.

“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.”