Gennifer Choldenko - Al Capone Shines My Shoes

“Look, I don’t know that much about this,” I say, but my words sound flimsy, like they need a paperweight to keep from floating away.

Annie is looking at me intently. “I thought we were best friends.”

I stare back at her relentless blue eyes. “We are best friends.”

Annie is tough. She won’t let up.

I bite my lip. “You better swear swear, double swear, hope to die if you lie.”

“C’mon, Moose. You know I keep my word. I always do.” She’s right. She always does. But this is something else again. It’s not like keeping quiet about when we saw Associate Warden Chudley relieve himself in Bea Trixle’s pickle barrel. This could get me kicked off the island. But if I don’t explain what’s happening, she’ll tell for sure. I don’t have much choice here.

“I asked Capone for help to get Natalie into the Esther P. Marinoff School and then she got in and he sent me a note that said Done .” I can’t get the words out fast enough.

“You what ?” she snaps, her chin jutting out with the shock of what I’ve just said.

I explain again, slower this time.

“And then what happened? After the note?” Annie demands.

“Nothing happened after the note.”

“So Natalie went to school today because Capone got her in and you never told anyone and then you get this Your turn note. That’s the truth? You swear it?”

“It’s the truth, except somebody else knows a little. Piper. She knows I sent Capone a letter. When Nat got in, she asked me about it but I told her it was because the Esther P. Marinoff opened a school for older kids. That’s what they told my parents. That’s the reason they think she got in too.”

That’s not the only thing Piper knows that I wish she didn’t. She also knows that my sister made friends with convict #105. Having your sister, who isn’t right in the head, befriend a grown man convicted of a terrible crime isn’t my idea of fun. In fact, I’d rather run buck-naked down California Street than have that happen again. But that’s a whole other story I hope never to tell. Alcatraz 105, aka Onion, got sent to Terminal Island and then released, so he’s not on Alcatraz anymore. I don’t have to worry about him ever again.

“But no one knows about Capone’s notes?”

“Nope.”

“You know what he wants, don’t you?” Annie whispers. “Payback.”

“But how would he even know Natalie left today?” I ask weakly.

She frowns. “Cons know everything that happens on this island, you know that.”

“Yeah, but why didn’t he say what he wanted? If it had been me, I would have asked for double chocolate brownies with no nuts, the sports page, the funny papers, vanilla sucking candy, French fries, a cheeseburger, a book on the Babe. He didn’t ask for anything, Annie.”

“He wants to make you sweat,” Annie says. “He’s the cat and you’re the mouse. Back home in Omaha we had a barn cat who would get a mouse, play with it for a few hours, then take it off to a dark corner and eat the head off.”

“So nice of you to put it that way,” I growl.

Annie nods, ignoring my sarcasm. “It’s true and you know it. You sure this is only the second note?”

“Of course I’m sure,” I snap at her.

Her blue eyes have gone watchful now. “This is serious, Moose.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“So what are you going to do? I mean if anyone found out you did a favor for Capone, your dad would be fired”-she snaps her fingers-“like that.”

“Any more good news for me?”

“And you know what else? If Capone got Natalie into the Esther P. Marinoff, he could get her kicked out too.” She crosses her arms. “You’re cooked either way, Moose.”

“Thanks, Annie, that makes me feel just great,” I whisper.

Annie shrugs. “Well it’s true.”

“Look, Annie. This is good news.” I try to make my voice sound as if I believe what I’m saying. “Because really he didn’t ask for anything.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be a fool, Moose. You should have told before. We have to tell now. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“You just said yourself if he got her in, he could get her kicked out.” I’m practically shouting. “It’s Nat’s life we’re talking about. This school is her chance.”

“You’re crazy if you help Al Capone!”

“I’m not helping him.”

She sighs, bites her bottom lip. “I shouldn’t have promised not to say anything.”

“Yeah, but you did promise.”

She bugs her eyes out at me. “I know, okay?”

“Look, this isn’t about you. Can’t you just pretend you didn’t find the note?” I’m pleading with her now.

“I’m not good at pretending.”

“You swore, Annie!”

“I know!” Annie growls.

I feel the stitches on the baseball in my hand, and I think back to last year when we lived in Santa Monica and my gram helped us with Natalie. Things were better back then. It’s too hard here with just my mom, my dad… and me.

“So are we going to play ball?” I whisper.

Annie rolls her eyes. “Jeepers, Moose. Something like this happens and all you can think about is baseball?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”

Same day-Monday, August 5, 1935

Alcatraz Island is shaped like a wedding cake with three tiers and lots of paths and stairs and switchbacks that lead from one level to the next. The parade grounds where we play baseball is a big, flat parking lot-size cement area in the middle tier of the island. It makes a pretty good field except for the wind. I can’t tell you how irritating it is to hit a good ball and have the wind make it a foul.

Annie and I are playing catch right now, which gets my mind off of Capone, but it doesn’t seem to distract Annie one bit. Every other throw she’s walking up to whisper another suggestion. I should wash my own laundry, so Capone won’t have a way to communicate with me. I should talk to the people at the Esther P. Marinoff School. I should come with her to church. The priest will know what to do.

“I’m not even Catholic,” I tell Annie as Piper flies down the steep switchback on her roller skates, her long hair streaming behind her, her dress flowing back so you can see the outline of her-okay, never mind what you can see. She goes so fast sparks fly from her skates. She shoots up in the air over a crack in the road and lands with a graceful clickety-clack-clack.

We’re not supposed to race down the switchback, but most of the grown-ups look the other way when it’s the warden’s daughter who’s breaking the rules. No one ever races Piper, because she always wins… either fair and square or the other way. My mom says Piper is twelve going on eighteen and not a good eighteen either.

When Piper stops, she gives us her full movie star smile. “Hi.” She runs her hands through her hair and whispers to Annie.

We throw the ball a few times. Me whipping it hard and Annie gutlessly tossing it. She’s too upset to concentrate on what she’s doing.

The count bell rings like it does every hour on the hour to count the cons and make sure none have escaped. No one pays any attention. It’s like the gulls carping and complaining and the deep rumble of the foghorn. These are the sounds of Alcatraz -the ticking of our own island clock, I guess you could say.

“Hey… what’s going on with you two?” Piper asks, looking at me, then Annie, then me. “You aren’t insulting each other.”

“Nothing,” Annie and I answer in unison.

Piper looks back and forth between us again. “No, really.”

“Nothing is going on,” Annie says, louder this time.

Piper laughs. “Annie, you’re such a bad liar,” she says.