Gennifer Choldenko - Al Capone Shines My Shoes

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Table of Contents

To my brother,
GREY CATTELL JOHNSON,
who is every bit as kind as Moose

THE CREAM OF THE CRIMINAL CROP

Monday, August 5, 1935

Nothing is the way its supposed to be when you live on an island with a billion birds, a ton of bird crap, a few dozen rifles, machine guns, and automatics, and 278 of Americas worst criminalsthe cream of the criminal crop as one of our felons likes to say. The convicts on Alcatraz are rotten to the core, crazy in the head, and as slippery as eels in axle grease.

And then theres me. Moose Flanagan. I live on Alcatraz along with twenty-four other kids and one more on the way. My father works as a prison guard and an electrician in the cell house up top. I live where most of us civilians do, in 64 building, which is dockside on the east side of Alcatraza base hit from the mobster Al Capone.

Not many twelve-year-old boys can say that. Not many kids can say that when their toilet is stopped up, they get Seven Fingers, the ax murderer, to help them out, either. Even simple things are upside down and backwards here. Take getting my socks washed. Every Wednesday we put out our dirty laundry in big white bags marked with our name: FLANAGAN. Every Monday our clothes come back starched, pressed, folded, and smelling of soap and flour. They look like my mom washed them for me.

Except she didnt.

My laundry man is Alcatraz #85: Al Capone. He has help, of course. Machine Gun Kelly works right alongside him in the laundry along with thirty other no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers, and a handful of bank robbers too.

They do a good job washing the clothes for us and most everyone else on the island. But sometimes they do a little extra.

The cons dont care for Officer Trixle, so his laundry doesnt return the same way as everyone elses. His shirts are missing buttons, underwear is stiff with starch or dyed pansy pink, pants are missing a cuff or the fly is sewn shut so the guy cant even take a leak unless he pulls his pants down like a little girl.

I cant say the cons are wrong about Officer Trixle. Darby Trixle is the kind of guy who only his wife likesand not that much either. Last Saturday my best friend Jimmy Mattaman and I were looking for a barrel for Jimmys fly menagerie, and Janet Trixle, Darbys seven-year-old daughter, just happened to see we were walking by the Black Mariah, the Alcatraz paddy wagon. That was all we were doingwalking by it. But when Darby saw the Mariah had a flat tire, who do you think got the blame?

Yours truly.

It couldnt have been Darby drove over a nail. Oh no. It had to have been us. We had to go with him to San Francisco and carry a new tire down Van Ness Avenue, to the ferry and up the switchback, to where the Mariah was parked up top. Darby wouldnt even let us roll it on the road. Didnt want it to get dirty. Its a tire! Where does he think it usually goes?

My father wouldnt help us with Darby either. I know you had nothing to do with that flat tire, but it wont hurt you to give Darby a hand, Moose, is what he said.

When I first moved here, I thought all the bad guys were on one side of the bars and all the good guys were on the other. But lately, Ive begun to wonder if there isnt at least one officer on the free side who ought to be locked up and maybe a convict who isnt half as bad as hes cracked up to be. Im thinking about Al Caponethe most notorious gangster in America, the worst guy we have up top. How could it be that he did me a good turn?

It doesnt make sense, does it? But Al Capone got my sister, Natalie, into a school called the Esther P. Marinoff where shed been turned down twice already. Its a boarding school for kids who have their wires crossed up. Its a school and not a school... a place to make her normal.

I dont know for certain it was Capone who helped us. I mean the guy is locked up in a five-by-nine-foot cell. Hes not allowed to make a phone call or write a letter that isnt censored word for word. It doesnt seem possible he could have done anything to help us, even if he wanted to.

But out of desperation, I sent a letter asking Capone for help and Natalie got accepted. Then I got a note in the pocket of my newly laundered shirt: Done, it said.

I havent told anyone about this. Its something I try not to think about, but today, the day Nats finally leaving for school, I cant keep my mind from going over the details again and again.

The thing that stumps me is why. I never even met Al Capone... why would he help me?

I watch Nat as she sits on the living room floor going through our books one by one. She looks almost like a regular sixteen-year-old this morning, if her mouth wasnt twitching right and right and right again and her shoulders were just down where theyre supposed to be. She opens a book, fans her face with the pages, then sets the book back on the shelf, just exactly as it was. She has been through one entire shelf this way. Now shes working on the second.

Normally, my mom wouldnt let her do this, but today she doesnt want to take the chance of upsetting her.

You ready to go, Natalie? my mother asks.

Nat moves faster. She fans the pages so quickly each book sounds like one quick ffffrrrt. All I hear is ffffrrrt ffffrrrt ffffrrrt as I look out our front window down to the dock. Sure enough theres Officer Trixle. Hes supposed to be off today, but Trixle cant keep his nose out of our business. Hes almost as much trouble as Piper, the wardens daughteronly not half as pretty. When you look like Piper does, people forgive a whole lot of things, but never mind about that. What I think about Piper is kind of embarrassing, to tell you the truth.

My father comes out of the bathroom. The toilet is running again. The plumbing in 64 building is held together with bubble gum and last years oatmeal stuck hard and solid. But luckily for us, Seven Fingers, our very own felon plumber, fixes it for free. Not exactly for free actually. We pay him a chocolate bar every time, but no one is supposed to know that.

Time to go, Natalie, my mom says.

Natalie is wearing a new yellow dress today. My mother cut the pattern, but the convicts in the tailor shop sewed it. The cons did a pretty good job. Only the belt is bugging Nat. She pulls at it, weaving it in and out of the loops. In and out. In and out. Nats mouth puckers to one side. Moose school. Natalie home, she says.

Not today, my mother says brightly. Today is your big day. Today youre going to school.

Not today, Nat tells her. Not today. Not today.

I cant help smiling at this. Natalie likes to repeat what you say and here shes repeating my moms exact words with a change of inflection that makes them say what Natalie wants them to say and not at all what my mother meant. I love when Natalie outsmarts Mom this way. Sometimes Nat is smarter than we are. Other times, she doesnt understand the first thing about anything. Thats the trouble with Natalieyou never know which way shell go.

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