Al Capone Does My Shirts

by Gennifer Choldenko

  It comes right where I like it, and I swing, but I forget about the bat being so light. I hit it, but not solid. It’s a grounder. I drop the bat and thunder toward first base. The short stop fields and throws. The first baseman fumbles off to chase the short stop’s bad throw. I’m almost . . . almost . . . I’m on. Not pretty, but I stick.

  I look out at the girls. They’re gone. They couldn’t even wait to see if I got a hit? A wave of homesickness washes over me.

  Scout’s up now. He’s a small guy. That’s probably why the bat is light. It’s his. He hits hard, though. Hard enough for me to take second and third. But then Daily and Meeger strike out and the next guy hits a pop fly the shortstop catches with his bare left hand. Del’s team is up.

  “What position?” Scout asks.

  “First,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Meeger plays first. How ’bout second?”

  I shrug. I’m not wild about playing second, but when you’re new, you’re new. I borrow a glove from a kid on Del’s team and make my way to second base.

  First batter is pretty bad. Holds the bat like it has germs. Pitcher strikes him out.

  Second batter looks like he’s going to be good, but who knows, because the pitcher walks him. If he did that on purpose, then the guy must be really good.

  Third batter wallops one hard right to me. I leap left and shag it on the fly, then rip it back to first. Meeger on first gets it in his glove and taps the guy as he slides back to first. Two outs! UNBELIEVABLE! My first double play ever! Not a double play combination like the famous Chicago Cubs’ Tinker to Evers to Chance. But pretty darn close. I can’t wait to tell my dad!

  “Nice,” Scout calls.

  I try to nod like this is no big deal, but I can’t get the grin off my face. Every guy on our team is looking at me and Meeger.

  “Nice going,” I tell Meeger.

  “Prison guy can field them balls,” Stanford says.

  “Them gangsters taught him how to play,” another guy agrees.

  There’s nothing like a double play to make yourself a friend or two. Maybe it won’t be so bad here. Not so bad at all.

  When it’s time to go home, we’re winning, 3-2. Scout tells me they play every Monday. I can hardly wait till next week. I don’t even care if my mom gets mad at me for coming home late. I don’t care about anything except playing ball again.

  9. Nice Little Church Boy

  Same day—Monday, January 7, 1935

  Theresa is waiting outside the door when I get back to our new place. “Where have you been? We’re late!”

  “Late? Late for what?”

  Theresa sighs long and loud, like this isn’t even worth answering. “You have a note from your mom.” She hands it to me.

  It says, Dear Moose, I’ve gone to Bea Trixle’s to get a perm. Make sure to get your dad up at six o’clock. We’re going to the Officers’ Club for a party at 6:30.

  “There’s a beauty parlor here?” I ask Theresa.

  “Nah, Bea does perms in her kitchen. But there’s a barbershop for the cons in the cell house. Come on!”

  I dump my stuff inside. “What are we late for?” I ask.

  “We’re going to the parade grounds to meet my brother, Jimmy, Annie and Piper.”

  “Wait, wait, wait! This Jimmy guy’s your brother? How come you didn’t tell me you had a brother?”

  Theresa cocks her head and looks at me cross-eyed. “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “Then you’d play with him instead of me.”

  “He’s my age?”

  She nods.

  “So why are you telling me now?”

  “Now I know you like me.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do.” She nods, her whole face earnest.

  I can’t help smiling at this. “If we’re meeting your brother, I need my glove.” I race to my room to get my old glove for him, my new glove for me and my baseball.

  “Hah!” Theresa says when I come back. “Jimmy can’t throw worth beans.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I say as we head back around 64 building, then follow the curve of the hill to an open cement area big enough to park thirty cars. There are lots of gulls here. Cranky ones too. Gulls are not happy birds.

  A big girl with yellow hair sits on the wood side of the sand-box and a boy huddles over something. The boy looks like Theresa. Same curly black hair. Same slight build.

  “Hi!” I say. I ignore the girl—Annie, I guess—she has her nose sideways to her homework like she sees better out of one eye than the other.

  “Hey, Moose? I’m Jimmy,” Jimmy says. He smiles quick up at me, then hunches back over an elaborate machine made of rocks, marbles, sticks and rubber bands.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “It’s a marble-shooting machine. Want to see?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  He fires a marble with a rubber band. It rolls under a plank and onto a miniature diving board that plunks down and hits another marble that is supposed to jump a stick, only it doesn’t.

  “Shucks,” Jimmy says, his head low over his contraption again. He fiddles some more and then fires the marble again. This time it makes the jump. He grins big.

  “Nice. You want to throw some balls?” I offer him my glove.

  “Sure.” He puts the glove on and runs back, his eyes still on his marble machine. He throws the ball the complete wrong direction. I chase it down and toss it back. It hits his glove and plops out. He runs after it and throws again. This time down the side of the hill.

  “I’ll get it.” I cut down the path to the terrace below, where the ball is caught in the prickly thistle of a blackberry bush.

  When I get back up to the parade grounds, Jimmy is at work on his machine and Theresa has my extra glove. “My turn,” she says.

  I throw the ball easy to Theresa. She wraps her arms around it like she’s hugging herself. The ball falls through her arms. She chases it down, then throws with both hands from ground level, sending the ball willy-nilly skyward.

  “I guess baseball isn’t the Mattaman family sport,” I say under my breath.

  Theresa hands me back my glove. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

  “Oh, really? And what is that?” I edge away from her so I can play catch with myself.

  “My mom has to keep her feet up. She’s due to have my baby soon.”

  “It isn’t your baby!” Jimmy calls, balancing a stick on two rocks.

  “She has to keep her feet up, otherwise the baby might slip out all of a sudden and bump his head,” Theresa says.

  “Theresa . . .” Jimmy looks up from his project. He groans and rolls his eyes.

  “It depends on how long the American cord is....”Theresa’s little gnome face scrunches up like she’s thinking hard about this. “And how tall the mom is. . . .”

  “Umbilical cord. And shut up about Mom’s privates, Theresa!” Jimmy orders.

  I look for a second at Annie. Something about the way she’s concentrating makes me think she’s paying more attention to us than to her work. “How do you do, Annie,” I say in my most charming voice.

  “Hello, Moose.” She doesn’t look up.

  “You wouldn’t want to play a little ball . . . would you?” I ask.

  Slowly and deliberately she folds down a corner of her book and closes it. She snatches my extra glove and walks out clear to the basketball hoop.

  I run up close. I don’t want to embarrass her. She’s only a girl, after all. I pop her one light and easy.

  She catches it no problem and zips me a hard fastball.

  “Wow!” I jump in the air, and I wave my hands around like some kind of idiot and then, before I can stop myself, I run up to this Annie girl and give her a big hug.

  “No slobbering!” she cries.

  “Sorry,” I say, my face hot as a furnace. But then I see a slight little smile in the corner of her mouth.

  “So, Annie.�
� I walk up close so we can talk and throw at the same time. “Does anyone else here play?”

  “No one except the cons. They play in the rec yard. Sometimes they hit one over the prison yard wall. The way they play, it’s an automatic out. But when a ball comes over to our side, we get to keep it. They’re pretty popular around here.”

  “If the cons don’t want to hit ’em over, it must not happen that much,” I say, catching Annie’s brand of stinger, which has a little curve on it. Quite a good throw if you ask me.

  “They try to hit them hard, but not hard enough to go over.”

  “Kinda tricky. How many you guys find?” I ask, winding up my own stinger.

  Annie catches it, no problem. “I have one. Piper has one. Jimmy has one. None of the little kids do.”

  We’re tossing the ball back and forth in a hard fast rhythm that feels great. My arm is purring. The ball, my glove, my arm are all working together like greased motor parts. Annie is so good, I don’t hold back.

  “Where is Piper, anyway?” I can’t keep myself from asking.

  “Charm school.”

  “Charm school? That’s a laugh. Is it remedial charm or what?”

  Annie catches the ball and holds it. She walks up close enough to whisper. “You got to get along with Piper. Otherwise she’ll make trouble for you and your dad.”

  “Can she do that?”

  “She can do anything she wants,” she says, handing me back my glove, picking up her book and dusting it off. “I gotta go in.”

  “You going to that party tonight?” I ask.

  “Everybody goes,” Annie explains. She walks heavy, like she weighs two hundred pounds. She’s sturdy, but not fat, and she has the best throwing arm I’ve ever seen on a girl. Pete would never believe it.

  I look around for Theresa and Jimmy, but they’re already inside. I toss the ball up in the air and catch it just as the four o’clock bell rings. On Alcatraz a bell rings every hour to remind the guards to count the cons and make sure no one’s escaped. I’m about to go in when I spot Piper.

  “Well, if it isn’t our very own Babe Ruth.”

  She’s being sarcastic, but to me this is the best compliment in the world. “I like to play. What’s the matter with that?” I say, tossing the ball in the air and catching it bare-handed.

  She looks around the parade grounds, then starts walking back to the road like I’m not the person she’s looking for.

  “Did you see me play after school?” Why am I asking this? I can feel my face heat up.

  She snorts, but doesn’t answer.

  “They teach you how to make those sounds in charm school?” I’m half skipping to keep up with her, that’s how fast she walks.

  “They teach you how to be a nice little church boy in Santa Monica?”

  “Oh, so now I’m a church boy? Talk about playing both sides and down the middle too.”

  “You won’t help with our laundry service because you don’t want to get in trouble. How do you spell Boy Scout?”

  “I just don’t feel like doing it.”

  “Right. I’ll bet you don’t feel like doing anything against the warden’s rules.”

  “How do you know?”

  She makes a strangled little sound in her throat and pulls open her front door.

  “Why do you need me for this laundry plan of yours, anyway? Why do you care?”

  “I can’t put eighty shirts through in my laundry bag, now, can I? Annie and Jimmy will help, but that’s not enough.”

  “How do you know I won’t tell your dad?”

  She rolls her eyes like this question is too stupid to bother answering and slams the door in my face.

  10. Not Ready

  Same day—Monday, January 7, 1935

  Back home, I check the clock. Quarter to five. Still not time to wake my dad.

  On my bed, I spread out two double ham sandwiches, a bowl of potato salad and the tail end of a salami and crack open my book. I’ve just finished Chapter Eleven when I hear the knock. Somewhere in the back of my head the knocking has been going on for some time. I run through the living room. Before I even open the door, I know who it is by the whistling, wheezing breathing.

  “Mrs. Caconi,” I say, staring out at the big woman framed against the green sea and the gloomy gray dusk.

  “You losing your hearing, Moose? I’ve been banging on this door for five whole minutes,” Mrs. Caconi hisses between breaths. “You folks got a call.”

  Mrs. Caconi is fat around the middle, with arms as big as thighs and bosoms like two jiggling watermelons. She is hot and out of breath from the walk up the stairs. But Mrs. Caconi is the one who answers the phone because it’s right outside her door. Given her size and her difficulty with stairs, she seems the wrong person to live in the apartment next to the phone, but nobody asked me.

  “Go on ahead,” she wheezes, backing her big self against the wall so I can squeeze by.

  I think about getting my dad. But he’s been so tired, I don’t have the heart to wake him early. There probably isn’t time to get my mom and she won’t want to go outside with all that stinky permanent goop on her hair.

  At the foot of the stairs, I spot the receiver hanging down. “Hello, this is Matthew Flanagan,” I say.

  “Matthew? You are . . .” The male voice hesitates.

  “Moose, sir. People call me Moose Flanagan.”

  “Oh, yes, Moose. We met yesterday. This is Mr. Purdy, the headmaster at the Esther P. Marinoff School where your sister, Natalie, is enrolled. Is your mom or dad available?”

  “Not right now, sir.”

  Mr. Purdy sighs. “All right then, you’ll need to give them a message. Natalie is not settling in as we had hoped. Tell them I’m terribly sorry, but as I explained to your mom, we were only taking her on a trial basis. They need to come and pick her up today . . . tonight.”

  “Tonight? Is she okay?” I ask.

  “Yes, yes, she’s fine, son, perfectly fine. She’s just not ready for the program we have here is all. Just not ready,” he says. “Tell your mom and dad they must pick her up tonight. Can you do that for me, son?”

  “Natalie isn’t ready?” I ask. “But she’s only been there one day.”

  “Thirty-six hours. Yes, yes, I know. These things become clear rather quickly, I’m afraid. Have your parents call me if they have questions. Otherwise, I will expect them this evening.”

  The phone clicks in my ear and the questions flood my brain. Why? What did she do? What happened? How could they know anything about Natalie in one day? They didn’t even try.

  I want to go back to Santa Monica, but not this way—not if it means giving this news to my mom. My feet feel suddenly too heavy. The stairs too steep.

  I push open our door. My mom is back. Her dark hair is permed flat with one wiggly curl across her forehead. She’s wearing a dress I’ve never seen before.

  “How do I look?” She whirls around, her whole face radiant. I get a big whiff of sour perm and heavy perfume smell.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  “I got my hair done. Didn’t you see my note?”

  “Mom.” The words are frozen in my chest. “It’s beautiful.” My voice cracks.

  My mom’s eyes register that something is wrong. “Moose.” She touches my shoulder. “It was hard to leave her there. Of course it was. What did we expect? But this is her chance, son. She’s going to get better. I know it. I feel it right here.” She pats her heart.

  I can’t look at her. “Time to wake Dad,” I mutter.

  The bed creaks when I sit down in my parents’ dark room, but my dad doesn’t stir. His hair seems to have slipped back on his head. It isn’t growing thick and full across his forehead the way mine does. His bald spot, which used to be no bigger than a quarter, is now the size of a baseball. The creases in his face look deeper too.

  I jiggle his arm. “Dad,” I say, “we have to go pick up Natalie. Mr. Purdy called. They don’t want her at the Esther
P. Marinoff. She can’t stay there, not even tonight.”

  My father opens his eyes. He looks as if he’s just stepped on a nail. “Come again,” he says.

  By the time I finish explaining the second time, he’s sitting up in bed.

  “Does your mom know?”

  I shake my head.

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out with a whistle. His eyes focus on a worn spot on the rug.

  “Okay, son. I’ll take it from here,” he says.

  11. The Best in the Country

  Same day—Monday, January 7, 1935

  When my dad tells my mom, she seems to have no reaction. She goes in her room, puts on her regular clothes and comes out with her purse and her gloves in her hand. “Let’s go,” she says, her face blank, her eyes dead.

  “Sit down, honey,” my father says. “We don’t have to go right this minute. Let’s just take a deep breath here.”

  “NOW,” my mom says, waiting like a child at the door.

  My father’s shoulders are hunched. He gets his shoes, jacket and hat and starts to open the door.

  “No,” my mother says. “You can’t go. You have to be at work at eight. I’ll go myself.”

  “You can’t go by yourself.”

  “YES!” My mom shoves my dad hard. His arm bangs the wall.

  My mouth falls open. I’ve never seen her do anything like this.

  “Moose,” my father asks, his voice quiet. “Will you go with your mother?”

  On the boat, my mom seems better. Her eyes are angry now. Not dead. Here we go again, I think. Before the Esther P. Marinoff, the Barriman School was “It” and before that the heat treatments and before that the aluminum formula and before that UCLA.

  At UCLA they made us cut Natalie’s hair. Shaved it right off. They tested her like she was some kind of insect. They tested the movement of her eyes, the sensitivity of her ears, the color of her pee. They tested allergies, reflexes, muscle strength. Her speech in a dark room. Her reaction to Tchaikovsky. The way she ate, slept, burped, blew her nose and even what she thought. Especially what she thought. Nothing about her was private.