Al Capone Shines My Shoes Part 9

"C'mon, Jim." I search his face trying to figure out why he's so burned up at me. "You're still sore about Scout?"

"I was never sore about Scout," Jimmy says. "He's not my friend. Why would I care what he does?"

"What do you want me to say here, Jimmy?"

"You just saved my baby brother, you don't have to say anything," he sputters, but his eyes won't engage with mine.

"Then why are you all steamed up?"

He looks up at me like he's searching for something he lost a long time ago. "The guys at my school are just like Scout. You can't play ball, you're no one," he whispers, his voice strained. "You're the only guy who likes what I like. It's kind of important, you know?"

"Okay," I tell him, "I know."

A ROOMFUL OF WIND-UP TOYS.

Friday, August 16, 1935

The next day when I come in from the parade grounds, my mom pounces on me. "Hi, sweetheart," she says. I take a step back.

She waits for me to look inside the icebox, check the breadbox, open the cake plate, and mop up the stray crumbs.

"Last piece is yours," she offers.

I'm wolfing it down on the way to my room when she starts in. "You know I've been meaning to talk to you about something. Natalie would really appreciate a visit. She's been asking about you."

"She's coming home next month, right?"

"Look." She puts her hands up, her nostrils flare. "I know you have a lot going on, what with your baseball and your friends here on the island."

"And she doesn't have anything," I mumble.

"I didn't say that, Moose."

"You don't have to," I tell her.

My dad comes out of his room. He takes one look at us and seems to recognize trouble is brewing. "Did I miss something here?"

My mom and I look at him.

"When are you going to visit your sister?" he asks, guessing what we are discussing and automatically taking my mom's side. He pours himself a gla.s.s of lemonade. "She misses you, Moose."

"It hasn't been that long." I already feel cornered.

"No, it hasn't," my father agrees. "But we would like you to visit."

How do I tell my parents I don't like to go to Nat's schools? The teachers talk to guys my age like they're toddlers. And the kids never stop moving and swaying like a room full of wind-up toys each with its own weird rotation.

It could be me in there. Locked up that way.

I got lucky. Natalie didn't.

But it's more than that. I risked everything for the Esther P. Marinoff School. It has to be perfect. I can't stand it if it's not.

If only I could tell them what I've done for Natalie. If only they knew. Then they'd be sorry for making me feel like a heel just because I don't want to visit this one stupid time.

Since Nat's been gone, my mom goes up to the Officers' Club and plays the piano every night. She spends the time she isn't teaching playing music or cards with Mrs. Mattaman and Bea Trixle and Mrs. Caconi. My mom never even knew how to play bridge, and now she talks my father's ear off about it. And me? I come and go as I please. I never have to think about anyone but myself.

"I'll go, Mom, okay? You know I will."

"I appreciate that. Your dad and I both do. More than you know. And Natalie . . . "

"Cut it out, Mom," I say more firmly than I planned. "I said I'd go, okay?"

"Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

THE IRISH WAY.

Sat.u.r.day, August, 17, 1935

I stay in my room for the rest of that day and all of the next, reading The Definitive History of Baseball. The Definitive History of Baseball. There's nothing like There's nothing like The Definitive History of Baseball The Definitive History of Baseball to make you feel better when the clock is ticking and in only a matter of hours you'll be hunted down by a guy with a shotgun in his violin case, because you can't figure out how to get yellow roses to Big Al's wife. And if that's not bad enough, your best friend on Alcatraz and your best baseball-playing friend on Alcatraz and the girl you're sweet on are all mad at you for reasons that make no sense at all. Plus you just got more hives on your leg, and the itching is driving you buggy and you just may scratch the skin off your leg so you'll be skinless sometime soon. to make you feel better when the clock is ticking and in only a matter of hours you'll be hunted down by a guy with a shotgun in his violin case, because you can't figure out how to get yellow roses to Big Al's wife. And if that's not bad enough, your best friend on Alcatraz and your best baseball-playing friend on Alcatraz and the girl you're sweet on are all mad at you for reasons that make no sense at all. Plus you just got more hives on your leg, and the itching is driving you buggy and you just may scratch the skin off your leg so you'll be skinless sometime soon.

I guess when you're dead it doesn't matter if you have skin or not.

This does not make me feel better.

I'm in the middle of reading how the new shoes of a pitcher named Joe were giving him blisters, so he played in his socks and after that they called him Shoeless Joe Jackson, when I hear a knock on our front door.

"Moose, mind if I come in?" Mrs. Mattaman calls out.

"Come on in, Mrs. Mattaman," I answer. This is the first good news I've had in two days. Mrs. Mattaman never visits without baked goods in her hand.

She sets a whole plate of cannolis on my bookshelf and smiles, clearly pleased at my reaction. "We're awful grateful, Mr. Mattaman and me," she says, sitting on my bed, which squeaks like a rusty bike.

"I feel like a big fool here, Moose, after all you've done . . . but I've come to ask for something else." Her hair is neater and her face is more mature than Theresa's, but her eyes are just as lively-full of the d.i.c.kens, my mother would say. my mother would say.

Mrs. Mattaman b.a.l.l.s up a corner of her ap.r.o.n. "Jimmy knows he should have watched Rocky more closely. But he's not going to go making himself sick over it. My little girl, she takes everything hard. I know she'd never have hurt that baby. I know it was an accident. But Theresa-" Mrs. Mattaman sighs. "She can't forgive herself for giving that penny to Rocky. She's in bed now. Been there for two straight days. Won't come out for love nor money.

"Everybody makes mistakes. You try and learn from them is all, get a little more information in your noggin." She taps her brain. "So you know better the next time."

"You want me to tell Theresa that?"

"My Theresa thinks the world of you, Moose. Course you Irish have a way about you. Don't think I haven't noticed." She wags her finger at me. "But if Theresa thought you needed her really badly for something-"

"Oh . . . like what?"

She throws her hands in the air. "Whatever it is you kids are always so busy doing. Come talk to her, will you?" she asks, sucking her lips inside her mouth like Theresa does.

I follow Mrs. Mattaman to her apartment. On the way, I see Jimmy down at the dock, tracking our progress. When he sees that I see him, his head ducks down as if he wasn't watching. Here I am, stepping on his toes again. But what am I supposed to do? This was Mrs. Mattaman's idea, not mine.

Why is it people always ask me to do these things anyway?

Theresa is completely under the white nubby bedcover. Not even a toe is sticking out-it's just one big Theresa-size lump planted in the middle of her bed.

"Hey Theresa . . . c'mon, stick your head out, I gotta talk to you," I say.

"Theresa isn't here," she whispers.

"Well, hmmm," I say, "this is definitely Theresa's room. I wonder where Theresa went?"

The lump is silent.

Out in the living room, Mrs. Mattaman switches the station on the radio. It makes a patchwork of high-pitched squeaks until she settles on Jack Benny.

I try again. "Look, I heard Annie wants to put together some more gangster cards. She really needs your help. n.o.body knows how many bullet holes to put in Bonnie and Clyde except you."

Still nothing. Not even a change in the wrinkle pattern over her little self.

I look around her room. What am I going to do here? If Mrs. Mattaman can't figure this out, then how am I supposed to?

Where is Theresa's strange stuff on Alcatraz book? I wonder. Maybe there's something in that. Once she was sure Baby Face Nelson was hiding in the canteen pickle barrel. Another time she thought she'd found Al Capone's pinky ring, but it was a clasp that fell off of Bea Trixle's purse.

On her bedside table is a pad of paper. Maybe I'll write her a note and send it under the covers. I flip through looking for a blank sheet. "Dear Theresa," I begin on a page with a faint impression of a checkerboard. I know what this was from. Theresa drew a checkerboard so that she could play b.u.t.ton checkers with Natalie.

Theresa understands Natalie better than any other little kid ever has. She's able to figure out how to play with her too.

"I'm going to visit Natalie tomorrow," I blurt out.

Just as my lips form these words, a plan begins to take shape in my mind. I could go to San Francisco to visit Natalie and then make certain I got on the 2:00 boat, the ferry Mae will be taking. Theresa could come with me. Seven-year-old little girls can get away with things that almost-thirteen-year-old boys cannot. Theresa could just hand Mae the roses . . . couldn't she?

"I need help." My voice comes out in an urgent rush. "Will you come?"

The Theresa lump moves a smidgen. The covers rearrange around her middle.

"I have to talk to Mr. Purdy, the headmaster. You could play b.u.t.ton checkers with Natalie. That way you can keep her busy while I talk."

"Bring a magazine," Theresa whispers.

"Sure, but once she presses her face on each page, she's done with the magazine. My talk with Mr. Purdy's gonna run much longer than that."

"Bring an index. You don't need me."

"I can't read to her and talk to Mr. Purdy at the same time."

"She's there without me all the time," Theresa growls.

"Yeah, but not when I'm there. If I spend my time talking to Purdy, she's not gonna like that."

Silence again, but there's a different feel to this silence, like maybe Theresa is thinking about this.

I tap the flat part of the bedspread near what I think is Theresa's leg. "Natalie is going to expect you to be there. What am I going to tell her?"

This elicits a big complicated sigh from the white bedcover. "Tell her I'm stupid. Tell her I'm the stupidest person in the whole world and she's lucky I'm not there."

"Theresa, you're not stupid. You made a mistake. I make mistakes all the time. I made at least 150 mistakes in the last hour. Wait no, 151."

Theresa's voice is so quiet I almost don't hear it. "He almost died."

"Yeah and you did the right thing. You let Jimmy and me know he was in trouble, and we got him to Doc Ollie and Doc Ollie got the penny out. And now he's fine."

More silence.

"I wished Rocky would go away." She can hardly get these words out.

"Yeah, okay," I whisper back. "But that doesn't mean you don't love him. Do you know how many times I've wished Natalie would go away?" As soon as I say this my armpits begin to sweat and my hives burn. I don't mean this. I don't.

"Really?" Theresa whispers, her voice yearning.

My hand steadies myself on the bed. I can't lie to Theresa, but I sure as heck don't want to talk about this. "Sometimes I feel that way," I admit.

The covers are moving, like she is nodding.

"But Natalie's not going to understand any of this. All she'll know is you aren't there."

"I'm a jinx," Theresa says.

"No, you're not."

"Am so. That's what Piper said."

"Since when do you listen to her?"

"Since never," she concedes.

"Exactly. Piper is full of c.r.a.p. You of all people know that."

The covers move again in a nodding motion. "Why do you like her then?" Theresa whispers.