Al Capone Does My Shirts (6 page)

I open my mouth to answer but no words come out. Why did I, anyway? “Because you did,” I finally spit out.

“Because I did? Isn’t that the sweetest thing?” Piper smiles at me.

I hurry to keep up with her. Piper is a good six inches shorter than I am, but walks faster. How can this be?

She stops and looks at my pants.

I look down at myself and see a big black ink blotch the shape of Florida uncomfortably close to my fly.

“So, are you going to help me with my project or not?” she asks.

“What project?”

“Didn’t I tell you? We’re going to sell the Alcatraz laundry service to kids at school. You know, get your clothes cleaned by famous Alcatraz convicts Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Roy Gardner. We’ll charge five cents a shirt. No IOUs. Money will be split four ways. Jimmy and Annie will help us put the laundry through in their families’ bags, so they each get a cut, plus you and I.”

“You’re going to sell the Alcatraz laundry service? Why?” I ask.

“I just told you why. Money.” Piper starts walking again.

“Does your dad know about this?”

She snorts. “Not hardly,” she says, taking off again.

“Hey.” I hurry after her as she ducks into a doorway. “I didn’t say—”

“Get out of here, you big baboon! This is the
girls’
bathroom,” a blonde with angry pop-out eyes shouts. Three girls are putting on lipstick. Another is closing the stall door.

All the way to my next class I hear the sound of Piper’s laugh. It plays over and over in my head.

 

After school, I head for South Field, thinking about Piper. What is it about her, anyway? There were plenty of annoying people at home. I stayed away from them. It’s living on a stupid island. It’s like a prison. Okay, it is a prison. There’s the problem right there.

It’s only a half day at school, which I’m hoping my mom doesn’t know so she won’t wonder why I’m late.

“Hey, look, it’s the Alcatraz guy,” says a kid I recognize from my class.

“Who let you out?” another asks as he warms up his pitch.

“I can’t stay late or they lock the cell house door. Gotta watch out for that. Nobody’s home late on Alcatraz. Nobody gets bad grades either or they chain you up,” I say.

“So hey.” Another kid walks over. “I heard what you said in Miss Bimp’s about almost getting poisoned, and I was wondering. Do you eat supper with them murderers?”

“Only snacks. Snack time is with murderers. Suppertime is reserved for con men, counterfeiters and armed robbers.”

Scout laughs.

“What about Capone?” another kid hollers. “You met him yet?”

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure of making his acquaintance,” I say, holding my nose so my voice comes out like my great-aunt Elizabeth’s.

They all laugh now.

“Does your dad carry a gun?” Scout wants to know.

“Nope,” I say.

“Does he come home with blood on his hands?”

“Nah,” I say. “He washes up first. My mom makes him.”

I borrow Scout’s glove. “Just don’t get any bullet holes in it or anything,” Scout says as I start warming up with a kid named Stanford.

Everyone seems to already know that this guy named Del and Scout will be captains. They call us in and start picking players. They make their choices the way my dad moves cards around in his gin rummy hand. The only wild card is me. I figure I’ll be last pick because no one knows how I play, but Scout picks me third on his side.

Del and Scout measure hands up the bat. Scout wins, so I head for the dugout. Scout pulls me aside. “Hey, Mr. Alcatraz, can you hit?” he whispers.

I shrug. “I don’t stink or anything. But I’m better in the field.”

“But you can hit, right?”

“Yeah, I can hit,” I say.

“You’re leadoff. I’m second. Stanford, you’re third. Meeger, you’re cleanup. We’ll see where we are after that.”

I pick up the bat and give it a swing. It’s too light. No clobber to a bat like that and the swing is faster than I like. I get into my ready stance. My head clears. No Natalie. No Mom. No Alcatraz. There’s nothing but me and the ball.

The ball comes at me slow. Wait for it, wait for it. I swing. The bat whistles through the air. The ball sails by.

“Strike one,” the catcher calls.

Don’t think. My coach at home always said, “You start thinking, you get your drawers all in a twist.” I glance up to see a group of girls watching. I wonder if Piper will walk by. She has to go this way to get to the boat.

I swing the bat back to ready position. The pitcher does his prepitch dance. Take your time. Turn your hips to the ball. Meet it. Meet it. I watch it arc out. Hold.

“Ball one.”

What an eye. I can’t help sneaking a smile at Scout.

But the pitcher’s antsy now. He’s ready to go. I swing my bat to ready and wait. The ball comes close. Too close. I hold.

“Strike two.”

I stand up. “That was a ball. It almost hit me.”

“It didn’t though, did it, prison boy?” the curly-haired catcher says.

“It was a ball,” I mutter. Doesn’t this guy know the strike zone? Are we playing baseball or what? I nod to Scout, like he should watch the calls.

He seems to understand and positions himself behind the catcher.

The pitcher smiles. He wipes his hands on his shirt and sends a fastball. His best pitch yet.

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.

 

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.