Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (21 page)

She squeezes my hand. We are quiet for a long time, listening to distant noises. The traffic sounds from Sarah’s Road, the sassy voice of a radio disc jockey, the mechanical drill of a power saw, and our own sniffling.

I look at her. Her brown eyes are glossy with tears. Every time she looks at me, the tears spill over again.

She is trying. She is. And so am I.

I’
ve tried to imagine the conversation that happened later that day—the one between my mom and my dad. I think about it as I clean the kennels in the vet’s office or sit listening to Cave Man in math class or say good-bye to Harrison when he’s going to the zoo, where he’s allowed and I’m not. Usually I imagine the discussion happening late at night when Kate and Elizabeth and me are all asleep, and the only sounds in the house are the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the heater turning on. I picture my mom and my dad sitting in the living room watching TV. I see my mom click the power off and the screen go suddenly blue and blank. I imagine her turning to my dad and saying: “I don’t want to move to Connecticut, Don.”

And then my father smiles his salesman smile and says, “Oh, honey. You’ll love it there. You just wait.”

But this is made up, of course. The only facts I have to work with are these. The week after my mom and I had our talk, my father turned down the job in Connecticut and accepted a position close to home. Then, my mother unpacked all the boxes in the garage
and she planted two trees in our backyard. That’s it. That’s all I know, but I spend an awful lot of time wondering about the rest.

What I can’t figure out is why my mother told my father she didn’t want to go. Is it because my mom hates icy winters and sticky summers? Is it because of Elizabeth and her performance schedule at Miss Marion Margo’s? Or is it because of me? I think about this almost every day. I shouldn’t, though. I know I shouldn’t. Because I really don’t want to know the answer to this question unless the answer is me.

Sunday, January 19, 1936

Today is my dad’s first official day as associate warden on Alcatraz Island, home to anyone who is anyone in the criminal world. On our island we have world-famous robbers, thieves, swindlers, sharpshooters, second-story burglars, mad-dog murderers, plus a whole lot of ordinary criminals—vicious but not well-known.

No one ever believes I live on Alcatraz. Even my eighth-grade history teacher made me write on the chalkboard
I do not live on Alcatraz
two hundred times. She didn’t even apologize when she found out I wasn’t lying.

My mother couldn’t buy stockings at O’Connor and Moffat’s. Tey wouldn’t take her check, on account of it said:
Helen Flanagan, Alcatraz Island, California
. My father had trouble getting his driver’s license. Tey thought he was an escaped prisoner too stupid to fake his address, instead of an officer at the most notorious prison in North America.

My friend Annie was kicked out of Sunday school for saying she lived on Alcatraz. They sent her to confession. She confessed she didn’t live on Alcatraz and the next day she confessed she’d lied in confession.

Of course, Piper, the warden’s daughter, never gets in trouble
for anything. Nothing sticks to her. She’s as slippery as a bar of soap.

I’m betting a guard like Darby Trixle—also known as Double Tough—doesn’t have these kinds of problems either. Darby was born in a uniform, one size too tight. My dad, on the other hand, looks like a middle-age dance instructor. You’d never expect him to carry a firearm. An accordion maybe, but not a rifle. Not that there are firearms everywhere on Alcatraz. Only up in the guard towers and the catwalks. At any given moment you are in the crosshairs down at the dock, for example, but not up on the parade grounds.

My dad may not look the part, but as of today, he’s the number two guy on the island. Piper lords it over all the kids that she’s the warden’s daughter, but now I’m the
warden’s son.
Okay, the associate warden…but still.

In the kitchen, Dixieland band music is playing on the radio and my father is dressed in his crisp blue uniform. My mom is patiently trying to brush my sixteen-year-old sister Natalie’s hair, which she really hates.

From a distance Nat seems normal, but when you get close you start to notice things are a bit of. She rocks from side to side. She drags her chin along her chest. She won’t ever look in your eyes, and sometimes stares straight at your privates. My dad says Natalie views the world through her own personal kaleidoscope and it’s our job to see from her perspective. Tat sounds good until she’s counting every hairpin in the bathroom when my bladder is about to explode, or she’s lying flat on the ground in the middle of the train station when the cutest girl in school walks by.

Today, Mom and Nat are waiting for Mrs. Kelly to arrive.
Mrs. Kelly is the teacher who helps her learn the social graces.

“You nervous?” I ask my father as he sits on the edge of his bed, giving his shoes a last buff. His face is newly shaved, his skin smells of soap, and his shoes are as shiny as good silver spoons, but still he keeps shining them.

“He’s fine,” my mother calls.

My father smiles as he slips his stocking feet into his shoes. “See, I’m fine,” he says, smoothing down his hair and placing his officer’s cap squarely on his head.

“You’re nervous,” I say.

“Could be,” he answers.

“You want one of Nat’s buttons…for luck?” Natalie collects buttons. She loves them the way I love baseball.

“Tink she could spare one?”

I head back to the kitchen. “Nat, Dad needs a button. Can you let him have one?”

Nat’s head is down, inches from her plate, her eyes focused on chasing the slippery whites of her egg. My mother glares at me. “I just got her to sit down for breakfast.”

Nat wiggles out of her chair and heads into the living room. A minute later she comes back with her hand tightly closed.

She walks up to my dad, who is gulping the last of his coffee, and opens her fist to reveal one flat, four-hole button.

My father beams at her. “That’s a beaut, sweet pea,” he says, sliding it into his pocket.

“Ninety-seven,” Nat says.

“I’ll take good care of ninety-seven. You betcha. Guess I’m all set now, except for one thing.” He gives my mother an embarrassingly long kiss.

My mom smiles. “Good luck,” she says.

I follow him outside. He grins at me. “Where do you think you’re going? Tink I can’t handle the job on my own, do you?”

“Of course I think you can handle it,” I say, though I am worried. My dad is too nice to be a warden.

I watch as he walks across the connecting balconies and turns the corner to the stairs. A minute later, he’s down below, where eight cons are sweeping the dock. Darby Trixle’s got his eye on them, barking orders through his bullhorn. He loves that bullhorn, sleeps with it under his pillow. Probably takes it to the bathroom with him too. I can just hear him: “Bowel movement approaching.”

I follow along after my dad down the stairs. Not close enough for him to notice. I don’t want him to send me back home.

“Good morning, Darby.” My father walks over for a chat.

Darby sucks his belly in and pokes his chest out. “Good morning, boss,” he says.

Will Darby be nice to me now that my dad is his boss?

Probably not.

My dad looks at all the prisoners as he talks to Darby. I know the names of some. There’s #227, Lizard, a big woolly mammoth of a guy with a puffy face and spindly legs. Annie says he ate a lizard in the rec yard once—that’s how he got his name. There’s #300, Count Lustig, a world-famous con man. And there’s #141, Indiana, who has no chin and no eyebrows. Indiana waves at me when Darby isn’t looking. But having a chinless, eyebrow-less felon wave at you is not fun, believe me.

I’m not the only guy watching all of this either. Donny
Caconi is on the 64 building phone, but his eyes are tracking the cons. Donny is the grown son of Mrs. Caconi, the lady who knocks on your door if the phone is for you. Since she weighs more than a river barge, and there are a lot of steps in 64 building, this is impressive. Mrs. Caconi’s husband used to be a guard here, but he got transferred and she didn’t go with him. Nobody knows why.

Donny is tall, thin, and graceful as a girl—the opposite of his mother—and he dresses snappy like he has loads of girlfriends. He nods his head at me as if I’m his long-lost friend. Donny is everybody’s long-lost friend. We all really like him.

Dad finishes his conversation and heads up the switchback.

Ten I see Count Lustig motion to Darby. Darby rolls his eyes at the Count but walks his way. With Darby’s back turned, Indiana spits on the dock behind my father. Lizard and another con with red hair laugh.

My father glances back at them, his brow furrowed. He knows something happened, but he’s not sure what. He’s too far up the road to do anything anyway…but I’m not.

A little voice in my head tells me this is not my business and I should stay out of it. But that little voice doesn’t understand how I’m the warden’s son now, and I have to start acting like it.

My feet step over the white painted line that we’re not supposed to cross when the cons are down here.

“Don’t do that!” I tell Indiana in my most threatening voice, but I’m so nervous, it comes out wibbly-wobbly.

Indiana looks at me with his chinless, eyebrow-less face. Lizard cocks his head toward Indiana as if to say
Take a look at that kid.

Darby half walks, half runs toward me, his tight blue officer’s
jacket bristling. “Get outta here.” He waves me back in short angry motions.

“He spit at my father,” I say. But when I look at Indiana, his face is perfectly blank, like he doesn’t speak our language.

“Your father needs his kid to take care of him?” Trixle barks.

“He didn’t see it. I did.”

Trixle shakes his head, then waggles his finger at me. “I don’t care what you see. You stay out of the dock area when the cons are down here, because I sure as heck don’t need your help.”

My arms are shaking and my legs feel like tapioca pudding. I retreat back across the line as fast as my shaky legs will take me.

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