Sutton

by J. R. Moehringer

  They’re going to ask us to leave.

  While the going is good.

  After their dates Margaret usually spends the night at Dean Street. She wakes before dawn, dresses quickly in the half-light, kisses Willie goodbye. One morning he tells her not to go. She has no choice, she says, she has to work. He tells her no, wait, he has something for her. While she perches on his club chair he gets out of bed and fumbles in his suit, which hangs neatly from the top drawer of the dresser. He pulls out a roll of cash wrapped in a rubber band. The nick from his last bank job with Mad Dog. He hands it to Margaret.

  What this is?

  Gift.

  Why gift?

  Why what?

  Gift for who? For you or me?

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Are you giving me? Or buying me?

  For Pete’s sake, I just want you to take it easy, find another job.

  Is no other jobs for me. You know this, Julius. Is no way out.

  There’s always a way out, Margaret.

  Why you doing this?

  I want you to be around more. Spend more time with me. Is that so bad?

  Why?

  Say, what kind of crazy third degree is this?

  People do not just help other people for no reason.

  Okay. You want a reason? I like you.

  She holds up the roll of money. What this make us?

  I don’t think there’s a word for us, Margaret.

  She thinks. She wraps both hands around the money.

  I just want you to be happy, Margaret.

  Is very kind. Thank you, Julius.

  At Willie’s request, Mad Dog pays a visit to Margaret’s boss and delivers her resignation, effective immediately. Now, while Willie is off planning the next bank job with Mad Dog, Margaret is arranging fresh flowers in his room, shopping for his books, combing the newspapers for jazz concerts and movies they might like.

  Some nights, if Willie is too tired, if he has a job coming up, he and Margaret heat some soup, listen to the radio. She likes him to read to her. He teaches her Tennyson. Come into the garden, Maud. He replaces Maud with Margaret. He teaches her Pound. Now you will come out of a confusion of people. She loves this line, says it over and over, though she’s not sure what it means.

  Poetry doesn’t have to mean anything, he says.

  So poetry is like Humphrey Bogie.

  Well—no. It’s just that sometimes a line of poetry is beautiful, that’s all. And the beauty is the meaning. Or it’s all the meaning you need.

  I like things that have meaning.

  I think people care too much about meaning. Meaning is a pipe dream. A grift. I like things that are beautiful. That’s why I like you.

  She smiles, presses her cheek to his.

  Best of all Margaret enjoys stretching out on Willie’s bed and wrapping an arm across her eyes while he sits in his chair and reads the newspapers aloud. They have a similar slant on the world, a kindred sense of good guys and bad. She hisses when he reads about Joseph McCarthy, smiles when he reads about Gandhi.

  Before they both get under the covers and turn out the lights she reads their horoscopes. Her mother was fascinated by astrology. What is your birth date, Julius?

  June 30.

  Uh-oh. Cancer.

  That bad?

  Same as me. We the only sign ruled by the moon.

  What’s that mean?

  We moody, sensitive, emotional.

  That’s the bunk.

  Is true. You do not know yourself.

  What makes you say that?

  No one do.

  No one knows me, or no one knows themselves?

  No one knows nothing about no one.

  For Willie’s fiftieth birthday Margaret buys him a new fedora. For Margaret’s twenty-seventh birthday Willie buys her a charm bracelet, a silk scarf, a black-and-white bonnet. Though it cost the least—thirteen dollars at Saks—she likes the bonnet best.

  You’d think I bought you a mink coat, he says.

  I like this better. Nothing is hurt for this.

  He thinks of the money he used to buy that hat, the bank he robbed to get it. One of the tellers sobbed with fear the whole time he and Mad Dog were cleaning out the safe. He puts the thought from his mind as Margaret sets the hat on her head like a diamond tiara. She glides around Willie’s room wearing nothing else. He tells her that her body is remarkable.

  I know.

  He laughs. He calls her his Irish Cleopatra. Get it? he says. Clee O’Patra?

  She doesn’t get it, and he can’t explain.

  Late on the Fourth of July, very late, it’s too hot to sit in the room on Dean Street. It’s too hot to sit anywhere. Willie takes Margaret for a ride on the ferry. They stand on the deck, enjoying the breeze, smelling the water, listening to the last fireworks crackling onshore. Margaret is happy. Willie is content. Until the Statue of Liberty comes into view. The seven rays of the statue’s crown, representing the seven continents, look exactly like the seven cellblocks of Eastern State and the Burg—he never noticed until now. How is it that every time he looks at this statue he sees something he didn’t see before?

  Margaret puts an arm around his shoulders. You are having unhappy thoughts, Julius.

  I am.

  I see in your face. The moon is ruling you again.

  Yeah. Maybe.

  I forbid you to have unhappy thoughts.

  He turns, places a palm under her chin.

  I like when you touch me like that, Julius.

  She takes off her silk scarf and wraps it around his neck. Julius?

  Yeah, Margaret.

  I think you would like to touch her like that.

  Who?

  She points at the statue. Her. I do not like the way you looking at her.

  You got me. Dead to rights. She means a great deal to me. I’ve been seeing her on the side for years.

  Margaret makes a clucking sound. This statue make people crazy. I do not understand. She promise everyone is free. Is a lie.

  Maybe so. But it’s a beautiful lie.

  She is a liar. If I have to be poor, if I have to earn a living on my back, fine, but this is not free. Do not tease me with this word—free. Where I come from we have a word for this kind of lady tease.

  Everyone has that word, Margaret.

  She is a bitch.

  Willie pulls Margaret close. You make a valid point, he whispers, but maybe it’s best not to shout it on the Fourth of July.

  She looks around. Tourists along the railing are staring. I did not know I was shouting, she says.

  As the summer winds down, Willie wishes he could take Margaret to Ebbets Field. Along with the rest of New York he’s obsessed with the pennant race. His sainted Dodgers are trying to hold off the deathless Giants. What he wouldn’t give to spend a few hours behind first base, cheering on Jackie Robinson. But an outdoor stadium, in broad daylight, surrounded by thirty-four thousand people? Impossible.

  Then the season comes to its historic crescendo, one final game, and Willie has no choice. He has to see it. He walks Margaret down to Frank’s Bar and Grill, one of the few bars in Brooklyn with a TV. It’s also a cop hangout, so Willie wears extra-dark smoked glasses, fake sideburns, lots of Margaret’s makeup.

  Along the way she questions him. All summer your Dodgers could not lose?

  Yeah.

  And these Giant mens were dead.

  Yeah.

  And then these Giant mens come back from the dead?

  They did.

  How they do this?

  They never quit.

  I like these Giant mens.

  No, no. Margaret, we’re rooting for the Dodgers. Yes, the Giants never quit. But neither did the Dodgers. When the Giants came back, the Bums could have hung their heads, but they won the last game of the season—that’s what forced a tie. That’s why there was a three-game playoff. The Giants won the first game, and still the Dodgers didn’t quit. They won the second. Now, today
, is for all the marbles.

  Why it matter so much to you?

  You identify with Hepburn. I identify with the Dodgers. They’re bums, they’re losers, but if they could win just once, it would be a sign.

  Margaret hooks her arm in Willie’s. I will root with all my heart for your Dodgers.

  She sits on a stool at the corner of the bar, wearing her birthday bonnet, while Willie paces up and down the bar, pleading with the TV mounted above the bottles. His pleading works. Brooklyn takes a 4–2 lead into the ninth.

  Three outs to go, Margaret. Three little outs.

  She blows him a kiss as if he’s on the mound. Hooray, Julius.

  The Giants quickly get two men on base. Then drive one in: 4–3. Thomson stalks to the plate. No, Willie says, please, not Thomson. Everything about Bobby Thomson frightens Willie, even his name. He thinks of all the prison guards who held Thompsons on him. Thomson even looks like a prison guard. That big round face. That ape-like grin.

  Willie begs the Dodgers not to bring in Branca to pitch to Thomson. He begs the bartender not to let them bring in Branca. Thomson just hit a home run off Branca, he tells the bartender. In the first game of the playoff, remember? Doesn’t anyone remember?

  When the Dodgers bring in Branca, when Thomson swats a fat Branca fastball high beyond the left field wall, the bar goes silent. Willie has heard this kind of silence only once. A Dark Cell. The solitary confinement of the fan.

  As Thomson rounds the bases, the Giants win the pennant, Willie is on his knees in the middle of the barroom. Margaret jumps off her stool, the Giants win the pennant, runs to him. She helps him stand, pays their tab, leads him out of the bar.

  Is only a game, Julius. Is only a game.

  It’s not, Willie says. It’s a sign. It’s a judgment.

  My head just wasn’t screwed on straight, Sutton says, pacing up and down Dean Street. Five years on the run will do that to you. I got involved with this girl—Margaret. I got wrapped up in that fuckin pennant race. Fuckin Thomson.

  The shot heard round the world, Photographer says, lighting a Newport.

  Poor Branca, Reporter says.

  Fuckin rat, Sutton says. A sportswriter back then said Ralph Branca was so hated, he should find Willie Sutton and take fugitive lessons. I’ll admit, that gave me some solace.

  Okay, Mr. Sutton. It’s time.

  Reporter opens the door of the Polara, waits for Sutton to get in.

  Sutton doesn’t move. Time for what kid?

  You know.

  Valentine’s Day, 1952. Willie buys Margaret flowers, chocolates. He sings to her. I don’t wanna play in your yard, I don’t like you anymore. She claps, jumps up and down, hugs him. I want to play in your yard, Mr. Loring.

  You may, Margaret.

  What we doing for Valentine’s Day?

  A rare treat, he says. We’re going on an outdoor excursion. In broad daylight.

  She gasps. Where?

  You’ll see.

  They ride the subway. Margaret is so excited she can’t sit. She has to stand, hanging on to a strap. Willie is excited too. But as they get off in the Bronx, as she grows still more excited because she realizes they’re going to the zoo, his mood slowly changes. Walking through the front gate, seeing the animals in their cages, he realizes this was a bad idea. He recalls his many different cells—even his room on Dean Street is just one more. He can’t hide his sadness. He doesn’t want to. He leads Margaret to a bench near the lions and begins to tell her who he really is, all he’s done.

  She puts her hands over her ears.

  Margaret?

  I do not want to hear. You promise you hurt no one, that is enough. The rest is not for me. I do not want to know, I do not want this burden.

  But—

  La la la la la.

  He takes her hands away from her ears. You’re afraid that you might think less of me if I tell you who I am?

  I afraid to think less, I afraid to think more. I think of you just enough. You do not want to know everything I done to survive, I do not want to know everything you done.

  Willie looks at the lions. They look away quick, as if ashamed to be caught eavesdropping. It occurs to him that though he cares about Margaret, though he wouldn’t hesitate to jump into the lion cage to save her, she’s a stranger. He knows only a story she told him, which he chose to believe. She might not actually be from Egypt. Her name might not be Margaret.

  You’re right, he says. Yeah. Sure. We know enough.

  But later, lying in bed, Willie needs to know one thing. He asks Margaret if she’s ever been in love.

  Yes, of course.

  A boy back home?

  Yes.

  Did you hurt him?

  I never hurt nobody.

  She rolls onto her back, kicks off the covers. In the glow of the streetlamp outside the window her body is breathtaking. She could be one of the nymphs in Mr. Untermyer’s Temple. She sits up, sighs.

  Everyone is loving someone else, Julius. No one is loving anyone they with. This is how is the world. I do not know what is God doing. He give us love, we so glad to be alive, and then He take it away. Why He do this? What He is doing? I still believe in Him. But He make it hard.

  Willie sits up, lights a Chesterfield, hands it to Margaret. He lights one for himself. By the flame of his Zippo he notices that Margaret’s eye is much larger than it was yesterday. And it’s grown cloudy.

  Margaret, dear. You need to see a doctor.

  I do not like doctors.

  No one does. But I’m taking you. Tomorrow. End of discussion.

  He puts a hand on her cheek. She smiles. Yes, Julius. Whatever you say. Here is looking at you kid.

  TWENTY-TWO

  They have a bank job scheduled tomorrow morning. They go over the fine points, the details, the driver. Once again it will be Johnny Dee, an old friend of Mad Dog. Willie doesn’t like Dee, who looks like one of the Marx Brothers, the unfunny one, but Willie can’t kick. Though he and Mad Dog have a good working relationship, Willie wouldn’t put it past Mad Dog, in the heat of a disagreement, to break his elbow.

  Just after one o’clock Willie rides the subway from Mad Dog’s apartment on the West Side of Manhattan back to Brooklyn. He checks his watch. Margaret’s doctor appointment is at two-thirty. Cutting it close. He sits where he always sits on the subway, near the doors, his back to the wall. He opens his copy of Sheen. A quote from St. Augustine. The penitent should ever grieve, and rejoice at his grief. He reads the same line three times. Rejoice at his grief?

  He feels someone watching him. He looks up from Sheen, then quickly down.

  It’s just some kid. Early twenties, baby face. A Boy Scout face.

  Again Willie looks up, down. Dark wavy hair, sharp beak—the poor kid’s got to be self-conscious about that nose. He’s nicely dressed though. As if for a hot date or a party. Pearl gray suit, starched white shirt, flowered tie—and blue suede shoes. Why does a Boy Scout wear blue suede shoes?

  Because he doesn’t want to be a Boy Scout. And he’s not going on a date, or to a party. He’s going nowhere, in every sense. He’s got a humdrum job and doesn’t want to be humdrum. He wants to be hip, cool. Everybody does these days. Maybe he’s staring because he thinks Willie’s cool.

  Willie runs a finger along the thin mustache he’s recently grown, tries to refocus his mind on Sheen. He can’t. A third time he looks up. This time he makes eye contact with the kid, one, two, before looking back at his book. God’s pardon in the Sacrament restores us to His friendship, but the debt to Divine Justice remains.

  Debt? To Divine Justice? He thinks of Mad Dog collecting debts. He wonders if God has his own Mad Dog.

  The kid’s eyes are uncommonly dark, soulful, and they’re definitely locked on Willie. Now, letting his own eyes drift from the book to the blue suede shoes, Willie can tell, can feel—the kid has made him. The kid has seen through Willie’s plastic surgery, through his makeup, past his mustache. But how? Most mornings Willie
barely recognizes himself in the mirror. How can some random kid, on a crowded local, in the middle of a Monday afternoon, recognize him?

  Now you will come out of a confusion of people.

  Willie turns the page, pretending to be engrossed. A fourth time he looks up, down. How is it possible? One of the kid’s eyes is larger than the other. Is something going around, some epidemic of uneven eyeballs?

  The conductor announces Willie’s stop. Pacific Avenue. Willie stands, shoves Sheen under his arm, lines up at the door. He can feel the kid’s asymmetrical gaze following him. He pushes off the train, weaves through the crowd, hurries up the steps of the subway station, forcing himself not to look back.

  On the street, a block away, he looks.

  Pfew. No kid.

  He walks three blocks, comes to his car. Again he looks.

  Still no kid.

  He gets behind the wheel, checks the rearview. No kid. He sighs, strokes his mustache, dabs his makeup. He wishes he could phone Margaret, tell her he’s running late. She doesn’t have a phone. He turns the key.

  Nothing.

  No no no, he says. He turns the key again. The engine clicks but won’t start. Son of a—He gets out, lifts the hood. It’s got to be the battery. But how can it be? The car is new. He just bought it. He wonders how long it will take Sonny’s Service Center, over on Third, to come give him a jump. He checks his watch. Margaret’s doctor appointment is in forty minutes.

  From behind him he hears someone. He turns. Two cops. The muscles in his legs twitch—he nearly runs. But then he notices the cops’ relaxed posture, bored eyes. They’re not after him.

  The cop on the left pushes back his hat. You the owner of this car?

  Yes, Officer.

  License and registration.

  Willie fishes in his breast pocket, hands his license and registration to the cop on the left. The cop on the right looks Willie up and down.

  It’s good, Left Cop says to Right Cop.

  Left Cop folds the registration, tucks it under the license, hands it back. Sorry for the bother, he says. Have a good day, Mr. Loring.

  No bother, fellas.

  Their black-and-white is parked behind Willie’s car. They get in, drive off.

  Willie leans back under his hood. If he could hook his racing heart to this dead battery, he’d be on his way.