Sutton

by J. R. Moehringer

  Kliney is last. He’s at the top of the wall. The guards blast away. Jump, Kliney! He lets go, free-falls, lands headfirst. Willie and Akins try to pull him out of the snow but he won’t move. He’s hurt, Freddie says.

  I think I broke my fuckin neck, Kliney moans.

  So long as it’s not your legs, Willie says, dragging him to his feet.

  They run. Holmesburg is surrounded by open land, parks. Willie feels strong. He feels every push-up and sit-up of the last few months. He gulps the crisp air—he’s free, which gives him even more strength, a second burst. They cross train tracks, come to a stream, splash across, tearing off the guard uniforms. Their prison uniforms underneath aren’t too conspicuous. Black pants, blue work shirts. At least they’re not wearing grays or stripes. As they come to the main road the prison siren starts to wail.

  Willie looks up and down the road. No cars.

  They jog half a mile. Still no cars.

  They have a minute left, maybe two, before the guards and dogs are on them. Why are there no fuckin cars?

  Freddie points. Headlights.

  Some kind of truck, Kliney says, kneading his neck.

  Willie stands in the road, waving his arms. The driver of the truck forgets he’s near a prison and stops. Freddie reminds him. He jams the .38 under the driver’s chin.

  They all leap into the truck. The driver is sobbing. Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.

  Drive, Freddie says.

  Where?

  Drive, you mutt.

  The driver hits the gas. Willie hears a loud clanking and jingling. He looks around. It’s a milk truck. His burst of strength is suddenly gone. He remembers he hasn’t eaten all day. He’s so weak, he can barely turn the cap on a bottle. He takes a long drink, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, passes the bottle to Kliney, opens another. He samples a buttermilk, a cream, a skim. The finest wines, the rarest champagnes have never tasted this good. He closes his eyes. Thank you again, God. You must be pulling for me—you must. Why else would you keep sending me these gifts, blessings, every time I crash out?

  For the rest of Willie’s life the taste of milk will bring back memories of this moment. The milk running down his chin, the snow-packed roads, the drifting snowflakes. And all the memories will be bathed in radiant white. The color of innocence.

  Reporter checks his watch. We should go, he says.

  They get back in the car, quickly, as if the bank alarm is going off, and peel away.

  After the tunnel didn’t work out, Mr. Sutton, I’m amazed that you were able to work up the will to attempt another escape. Not to mention that officials at Holmesburg must have been keeping a close eye on you. It seems impossible.

  It was.

  So how did you manage it?

  The main reason no one escapes from prison is they think they can’t. They’re told they can’t, every day, by the guards and the warden and their fellow prisoners. And by all the outward signs—the bars and walls. Step One in every escape is believing you can do it.

  And Step Two?

  There was this pip-squeak trusty rat. I worked him, charmed him, got him to sneak me a gun and some saws.

  Like Egan.

  Yes and no.

  Someone tell me where I’m going, Photographer says.

  Staten Island Ferry Terminal, Sutton says.

  Why?

  You’ll see.

  Reporter opens his briefcase, removes some files. Mr. Sutton, I have to say, the clips give a different account of that breakout.

  Do they.

  According to several newspapers from that time, it was Freddie who got the gun smuggled to him in prison. It was Freddie who broke the lock on his cell. With a chisel. Then Freddie freed you and the others, and someone used a pair of scissors to stab a guard, William Skelton, and then you all used Skelton as a human shield when the guards started firing.

  That’s not how I remember it.

  When they reach the edge of town they debate killing the driver. They put it to a vote. Watching them raise their hands, one by one, the driver wets his pants. Three to one, the Let Him Lives win.

  Before jumping out of the truck Freddie grabs the driver by the collar. Go straight home, Freddie tells him. Take the phone off the hook. Say nothin to nobody or I will come find you.

  The driver swears, he’ll never tell a soul.

  I still say we kill him, Freddie says as the others pull him away from the driver and down the road.

  They split up. Freddie and Willie go one direction, Akins and Kliney go another. Willie feels lucky to be with Freddie, who still has the gun, who grew up in Philly and knows places they can hide. They walk through the snowstorm, side by side, hunching their shoulders against the wind. A dozen blocks. Two dozen. Then, from behind them, sirens. They duck behind a house. Cop cars skid up to the curb. Red lights strobe the snow. Willie runs straight up the backyard fence, like a man in a cartoon. Freddie is right behind him. Shotgun blast—the fence explodes. Freddie cries out. Willie lands awkwardly but bounces back up, sprints down a snow-packed alley. Somehow managing to stay on his feet, he hits his stride, tells himself not to look back, not to think about the guards taking steady aim, the bullets hurtling toward a spot exactly halfway between his shoulder blades. The darkness that’s about to swallow him.

  His lungs burning, his legs about to give, he cuts right, darts into a side yard. A cellar door—he grabs the handle. Locked. He pulls harder, breaks the lock, dives. The floor is cement, frozen. He lands on his face. His nose gushes blood. He scrambles to his feet, pulls the cellar door shut.

  Sirens go wailing past. Then. Slowly. Fade.

  He waits. He hums under his breath, trying to hold himself together. I don’t wanna play in your yard. I don’t like you anymore. He paces. After two hours he climbs out the cellar door. You’ll be sorry when you see me. Sliding down our cellar door. He runs and runs through snow up to his knees. The snow is coming down harder and the wind is gusting. Flakes blow into his eyes, mouth. His shoes are full of snow, he can’t feel his toes. Where the fuck is the highway?

  There. Through those trees—blurry headlights. Now he hears the sizzle of Goodyears on macadam. He stations himself on the shoulder, thumb out. A black Nash stops, a man in a flashy gray suit at the wheel. You look clear froze, chum.

  I am, Willie says. Car broke down. Damn Chevys.

  That’s why I’m a Nash man.

  How far you going?

  Princeton. That help?

  And how. I got a sister there.

  Hop in.

  Turns out it’s not simple kindness that made the man stop. He stopped because he needed to tell someone about his sex life. The different girls he’s laying, exactly how he’s laying them, unbeknownst to his wife. And his girlfriend—unbeknownst to her too. He likes this word, unbeknownst, shoves it into every sentence, rams it in there, hard, whether or not it fits. He tells Willie that he owns rental properties all over Long Island, New Jersey, Queens, and when he goes around to collect rent, that’s when he scores.

  Just the other day, he says, I collected on this family, just the mom and three kids, Dad died overseas, you know how that goes, and well so Mom tells me she can’t pay the rent, she lost her job, boo hoo, she pleads with me not to put her and the kiddies out, and she’s a real looker, let me tell you, so I say sure you can stay, no problem, hot stuff, so long as you bend over that chair right there and let me ball you, because I aint about to give somethin for nothin. She says please no my kids are in the next room, so I say fine then you’re out on your keister, but well just then out of the bedroom comes the daughter, I mean what a doll, fifteen going on twenty-five if you get me, and friskier than the mom, and well I guess I don’t have to tell you what happened next.

  No, Willie says. You don’t. Please.

  Willie longs to let his head fall against the seat and shut his eyes, but Sex Maniac won’t stop. Worse, Sex Maniac is now sulking, offended that Willie’s not contributing to the conversation, which is apparent
ly the hidden cost of a ride to Princeton. If you want to ride with Sex Maniac, Willie realizes, you better put out. So Willie regales Sex Maniac with a series of fake carnal exploits, which takes all his talents as a storyteller, because he’s only been with a few women in his life and the last person he kissed was a man. The effort of fabricating conquests, inventing perversions, makes him break out in a cold sweat. Overpowering guards and outrunning shotguns was easier.

  But it seems to be working. Sex Maniac is guffawing, slamming his palm on the Nash’s steering wheel. You showed her, Sex Maniac shouts. You gave her what for, didn’t you, chum? I’ll say you did! Then what?

  Willie points. Princeton Junction—next exit.

  Sex Maniac pulls over. Willie steps out. His third narrow escape of the night. Sex Maniac tells him to wait. He writes his phone number on a book of matches, hands it to Willie.

  Now, chum, I live just on the other side of that hill, you call me next time you’re in Princeton. Me and my gal, you and yorn, we’ll have dinner.

  Sure, Willie says. Say, speaking of dinner, I haven’t eaten since last night, and I just remembered, I left my dang billfold back in the Chevy. It’s a long walk to my sister’s.

  Sex Maniac holds up his hand. He’s only too happy to lend Willie two bucks.

  Willie walks until he comes to an all-night diner.

  Cup of coffee, please. Buttered roll.

  A Star-Ledger lies on the counter. He flips through it. Nothing about the escape. Too soon. And yet the waitress looks at him funny. Maybe it’s been on the radio in the kitchen. New York, he thinks. He needs to get to New York. Where he’ll blend in. Where people don’t notice anything, because everyone’s a fugitive from something.

  The waitress keeps eyeing him.

  Willie wets a finger, runs it around his plate, picking up the crumbs. He’s starved, but he doesn’t want to spend the last of Sex Maniac’s money. He stands, smiles at the waitress. Well. Better be shoving off.

  He can feel her watching him all the way out the door.

  He sets out for the highway, but soon comes to the Princeton campus. He stops, takes it all in. Ah to be a student here. To sit in that beautiful library and just read books. To know as sure as you know anything that you have a future and that it’s bright. How are some people so lucky? He circles the library once, his soul clotted with envy, then trudges off again in search of the highway. He wanders back roads, dirt roads, loses the road altogether. The snow in some places comes to his knees. His waist. Better than shit, he says aloud.

  A stray dog growls, charges him. Teeth white as the snow. Willie doesn’t care. His total indifference scares off the dog.

  He would cry, but his tear ducts are frozen. His ears too. He cups his hands over them. They feel as if they might crack and fall off his head. Climbing a hill he loses his footing, falls backwards, hits a tree with the base of his spine. He climbs again, up and over, trudges through woods so thick that there’s scarcely room for him to pass between the trees.

  His clothes are starting to freeze. They feel like a suit of armor. He hears a voice. He turns in a circle. Who’s there? Why did he let Freddie keep that .38? Show yourself, he growls.

  Above him. He shields his face, looks up. A barn owl, the size of a toddler, sits on a low branch and looks directly at Willie with mustard yellow eyes. Now it furrows its brow and slowly spreads its wings. Avenging angel. Willie wonders if Freddie’s been caught yet.

  He walks farther, loses all sense of direction. Never mind the highway, he needs to find shelter, right now, or he’s done for. He wants to fall down, curl up, quit. A little farther, he tells himself. Little by little. Keep on. He comes to a clearing, a farm, an old red lopsided barn. He knocks at the rotted door, gives it a kick.

  Rakes, scythes, saddles, tractor. He climbs into the hayloft, burrows into a corner. Wind comes singing and whistling through the walls, freezing his eyelashes, the hairs inside his nose. He remembers reading an article about hypothermia. Sleep precedes death. Or was it death precedes sleep? Either way. He stands, does jumping jacks. He talks to God, proposes a pact, a covenant. I know you’re pulling for me, God. You can’t fool me. The tunnel. The milk truck. Of course you root for prisoners. You were a prisoner yourself. You spent your last night on this earth in jail. I know you’re on my side, God, so please save me again, get me out of this one, God, and I will change.

  And while you’re at it, God? A smoke?

  He remembers Sex Maniac’s matches. He manages to get one lit. In the corner of the abandoned barn, with some hay and scrap wood, he starts a small fire, which is his salvation.

  At dawn he sets out again, finds the highway. Within minutes a truck pulls over.

  Car broke down, Willie says, wringing wet, teeth chattering. Damn Ch-ch-chevys.

  The trucker doesn’t notice anything unusual about Willie’s appearance or demeanor. He doesn’t notice anything about anything. He’s hauling oak tables to the Bronx and he’s mad for company. Tables make damn poor company, he says.

  But what he’s really mad for is sleep. They’ve only gone a few miles when Willie sees the trucker’s face drifting down down down to the steering wheel. Willie taps Trucker’s knee. Trucker jerks awake, looks at his knee, looks at Willie, eyes narrowed, as if Willie is a pervert. Then Trucker realizes that he almost killed them both. Sorry, Trucker grumbles, aint been sleeping much lately, trouble at home.

  He fumbles in the breast pocket of his work shirt for a cigarette. He comes out with a crumpled pack, offers one to Willie. Even before he looks, Willie knows. Chesterfield. He takes the cigarette, puts it between his lips. Trucker lights it with a silver Zippo. Willie thought the cold milk was delicious, but that was nothing compared to this Chesterfield. The first puff tastes sweet, like the first bite of cotton candy at Coney Island. The second puff tastes spicy, peppery, nutritious, like the steaks Eddie and Happy bought him when he was down on his luck. Smoke fills his lungs and quickens his blood and instantly restores his vitality, his will to live. He takes another drag, and another and another, and tells Trucker stories, riveting stories, fantastic stories, wildly untrue stories, which keep them both awake. If life has been nothing more than a build-up to this moment, this ethereal high, this bonding with a stranger, then it hasn’t been in vain.

  He watches the snow-filled woods fly by, and the highway signs, and he speaks again to God, who feels closer than the gearshift. Dear Lord, I don’t know what I’ve wanted from you all my life. Communion? Amnesty? A sign? But with this Chesterfield I finally know what you want from me. You’re agreeing to the covenant I proposed. I hear you. And I will show you that I hear. I will change.

  He smokes the Chesterfield to the nub, to nothing, until it burns his fingertips. Even the burning feels good.

  Trucker drops him right at the turnoff where the cops shot Eddie. Willie doesn’t let himself think about that, doesn’t think about anything as he waves to the George Washington Bridge and walks and walks all the way downtown. He focuses on his footsteps in the snow, and on the fact that it’s a beautiful winter morning and he’s not in C Block. He’s in New York, New York.

  He’s in Times Fuckin Square.

  He stops, looks up. Hello, Wrigley sign.

  Neon fish, pink and green and blue, swim through the blizzard. Above the fish, in blinking green neon: WRIGLEY SETTLES THE NERVES. And above the neon letters the Wrigley mermaid welcomes Willie home.

  He ducks into the Automat, hands his last dollar to the nickel thrower, who hands him twenty nickels. He buys a fish cake and a cup of piping hot coffee and takes it to a table by the window. He eats slowly, watching the people, but there aren’t many people—it’s early yet. When his food is gone he drinks the hot coffee, every drop. He runs a finger around the inside of the empty cup and runs the finger inside his mouth. He stares at the steam table, imagines piling a plate with beefsteaks, creamed potatoes, creamed spinach, poppy rolls, apple tartlets, jelly cookies, pumpkin pie. He holds his last twenty cents in his fist
and closes his eyes and feasts on the smells. Not just the food smells, but the New York smells. Cigars, peppermint, aftershave, plastic, leather, gabardine, urine, hair spray, sweat, silk, wool, talc, semen, subway funk and floor wax. Ah New York. You stink. Please let me stay.

  At the stroke of nine Willie steps into the phone booth and dials the first employment agency listed in the yellow book. The woman asks his name.

  Joseph Lynch mam.

  He hears her typing a form.

  I’m new to town, mam, and I need a position, anything, just till I can get on my feet.

  She doesn’t have much.

  Anything, he says again.

  The only thing I can think of—no, wait, Sandy filled that one yesterday. Hum-dee-dum, let’s see. Where did I put that goshdarned card?

  Willie squeezes the phone. Anything.

  Ta-da, she says. Porter.

  Mam?

  The Farm Colony out in Richmond. That’s Staten Island. Ten dollars a week, plus room and board, Joseph.

  I’ll take it.

  It’s on Brielle Road.

  She tells him the name of the head nurse, but it doesn’t register. She says she’ll phone the head nurse to say Joseph is on his way.

  Porter, he tells himself, walking to the ferry. Porter? He thinks of Porter from Rosenthal and Sons. How the mighty have fallen. Except the mighty were never mighty. And the fallen were never fallen. With one of his last three nickels he buys a ticket on the ferry. At the gangplank is a newsstand and on every front page is his face. He tries to read the articles from a distance, but he can’t. His eyes are getting bad. In four months he’ll be forty-six years old.

  The whistle blows. All aboard.

  He flows with the crowd onto the ferry, eases onto a wooden bench and turns his face to the window, pretending to sleep. Half the passengers are reading papers, staring at his photo. At last, when the boat pulls away, Willie jumps up, runs onto the deck. No one else is out there, it’s too cold. He leans against the wooden rail, leans into the wind, watches the city grow fainter.