Sutton

Seven years old, Willie sits in the kitchen watching Mother, grief-sick, at the washbasin. A small woman, wide in the hips, with wispy red hair and bleary eyes, she scrubs a piece of clothing that used to be white and never will be again. She uses a powdered detergent that smells to Willie of ripe pears and vanilla.

The name of the detergent, Fels, is everywhere—newspapers, billboards, placards in the trolley cars. Children, skipping rope, chant the Fels advertising slogan to keep rhythm. Fels—gets out—that tattle—tale gray! Meaning, without Fels, your gray collar and underpants will tell on you. Judas clothes—the idea terrifies little Willie. And yet Mother’s constant scrubbing makes no sense. A noble effort, but a waste of time, since the second you step outside, splat. The streets are filled with mud and shit, tar and soot, dust and oil.

And dead horses. They keel over from the heat, fall down from the cold, collapse from disease or neglect. Every week there’s another one lying in the gutter. If the horse belongs to a gypsy or ragpicker, it’s left where it falls. Over time it swells like a balloon, until it explodes. A sound like a cannon. Then it gives off an eye-watering stench, bringing flies, rats. Sometimes the New York City Street Cleaning Department sends a crew. Just as often the city doesn’t bother. The city treats this nub of northern Brooklyn, this wasteland between the two bridges, as a separate city, a separate nation, which it is. Some call it Vinegar Hill. Most call it Irish Town.

Everyone in Irish Town is Irish. Everyone. Most are new Irish. Their hobnailed boots and slanted tweed caps are still caked with the dust of Limerick or Dublin or Cork. Mother and Father were born in Ireland, as was Daddo, but they all came to Irish Town years ago, which gives them a certain status in the neighborhood.

The other thing that gives them status is Father’s job. Most fathers in Irish Town don’t work, and those who do drink up their wages, but Father is a blacksmith, a skilled artisan, and every Saturday he dutifully, proudly places his weekly twelve dollars on the outstretched apron of Mother. Twelve dollars. Never more, but never less.

Willie sees Father as a fantastic collection of nevers. Never misses a day of work, never touches liquor, never swears or raises a hand in anger to his wife and kids. He also never shows affection, never speaks. A word here, a word there. If that. His silence, which gives him an aura, feels connected to his work. After eleven hours of hammering and pounding and swatting the hardest thing in the world—what’s to say?

Often Willie goes with Father to the shop, a wooden shed on a big lot that smells of manure and fire. Willie watches Father, streaming with sweat, slamming his giant hammer again and again on a piece of glowing orange. With every slam, every metallic clank, Father looks—not happy, but clearer of mind. Willie feels clearer too. Other fathers are drunk, on the dole, but not his. Father isn’t God, but he’s godlike. Willie’s first hero, first mystery, Father is also his first love.

Willie thinks he’d like to be a blacksmith when he grows up. He learns that when you make a piece of metal longer, you draw it, and when you make it shorter, you upset it. He learns to pump the bellows, make the flames in the hearth swell. Father holds up a hand, signaling careful, not too much. Every other week another blacksmith shop burns to the ground. Then the smith is out of work and the family is on the street. That’s the fear, the thing that keeps Father hammering, Mother scrubbing. One bad turn—fire, illness, injury, bank panic—and the curb is your pillow.

If Father never speaks, Daddo never stops. Daddo sits in a rocking chair by the parlor window, the one with the curtains made from potato sacks, delivering an eternal monologue. He doesn’t care that Willie is the only one listening. Or doesn’t know. A few years before Willie was born, Daddo was working in a warehouse and a jet of acid spurted into his eyes. The world went dim. The hard part, he always says, was losing his job. Now all he does, all he can do, is sit around and blether.

Most often he talks about politics, stuff that goes over Willie’s head. But sometimes he tells larky stories to make his youngest grandson giggle. Stories about mermaids and witches—and little men. To hear Daddo tell it, the Old Country is overrun with them.

What do the little men do, Daddo?

They steal, Willie Boy.

Steal what?

Sheep, pigs, gold, whatever they can lay their grubby little mitts on. Ah but no one holds it against the lads. They’re just full of mischief. Bad little actors.

Do you remember the exact spot where you were born, Mr. Sutton?

Sutton points to a tan brick building, some kind of community center. Tell them Willie Boy was—here.

Was it a happy childhood, Mr. Sutton?

Yeah. Sure.

Photographer shoots Sutton in close-up, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway behind his head. The expressway was built while Sutton was in prison. God what a monstrosity, Sutton says. I didn’t think they could make Brooklyn uglier. I underestimated them.

Cool, Photographer says. Yeah, brother, right there. That’s tomorrow’s front page.

Willie’s two older brothers despise him. For as long as he can remember it’s been true, a changeless fact of life. The sun rises over Williamsburg, sets over Fulton Ferry, and his brothers wish he were dead.

Is it because he’s the baby? Is it because he’s William Junior? Is it because he spends so much time with Father at the shop? Willie doesn’t know. Whatever the reason—rivalry, jealousy, evil—the brothers are so united against him, they pose such a seamless two-headed menace, that Willie can’t tell them apart. Or doesn’t bother. He thinks of them simply as Big and Bigger.

Willie, eight, is playing jacks on the sidewalk with his friends. From nowhere Big Brother and Bigger Brother appear. Willie looks up. Both brothers hold egg creams. The sun is bracketed by their giant heads.

So feckin small, Big Brother says, glaring down at Willie.

Yeah, Bigger Brother says, snickering. Feckin runt.

Willie’s friends run away. Willie stares at his jacks and his little red ball. His brothers move a step closer, looming over him like trees. Trees that hate.

It’s embarrassin, Bigger Brother says, bein known as your brother.

Put some meat on your bones, Big Brother says. And quit bein such a sissy.

Okay, Willie says. I will.

The brothers laugh. What happened to your friends, Willie Boy?

You scared them.

The brothers pour the egg creams over Willie’s head and walk away. You scared them, they say, imitating Willie’s thin voice.

Another time they make fun of Willie’s big nose. Another time, the red bump on his eyelid. They always make sure to tease him in the streets, away from any grownups. They’re as sly as they are heartless. They remind Willie of the wolves in one of his storybooks.

When Willie is nine his brothers stop him on his way home from school. They stand directly in his path, their arms folded. Something about their faces, their body language, lets Willie know this time will be different. He knows that he’ll always remember the high blue of the sky, the purple weeds in the vacant lot on his left, the pattern of the cracks in the sidewalk as Big Brother knocks him to the ground.

Willie writhes on the sidewalk, looking up. Big Brother smirks at Bigger Brother. What are we gonna do with him?

What can we do, Brother? We’re stuck with him.

Didn’t we tell you to quit bein such a sissy, Big Brother says to Willie.

Willie lies on his back, eyes filling with tears. I’m not.

Is it liars you’re callin us?

No.

Don’t you want us to tell you when you’re doin somethin wrong?

Yeah.

That’s what big brothers are for aint it?

No. I mean yeah.

Then.

I wasn’t. Being a sissy. I promise I wasn’t.

He’s callin us liars, Big Brother says to Bigger Brother.

Grab him.

Big Brother jumps on Willie, grabs his arms.

Hey, Willie says. Come on now. Stop.

Big Brother lifts Willie off the sidewalk. He puts a knee in Willie’s back, forces him to stand straight. Then Bigger Brother punches Willie in the mouth. Okay, Willie tells himself, that was bad, that was terrible, but at least it’s over.

Then Bigger Brother punches Willie in the nose.

Willie crumples. His nose is broken.

He hugs the sidewalk, watches his blood mix with the dirt and turn to a brown paste. When he’s sure that his brothers have gone, he staggers to his feet. The sidewalk whirls like a carousel as he stumbles home.

Mother, turning from the sink, puts her hands to her cheeks. What happened!

Nothing, he says. Some kids in the park.

He was born knowing the sacred code of Irish Town. Never tattle.

Mother guides him to a chair, presses a hot cloth on his mouth, touches his nose. He howls. She puts him on the sofa, leans over him. This shirt—I’ll never get these stains out! He sees his brothers behind her, hovering, glaring. They’re not impressed that he didn’t tattle. They’re incensed. He’s deprived them of another justification for hating him.

The sidewalk whirls like a carousel. Sutton staggers. He reaches into his breast pocket for the white envelope. Tell Bess I didn’t, I couldn’t—

What’s that, Mr. Sutton?

Tell Bess—

A stoop. Six feet away. Sutton lurches toward it. His leg locks up. He realizes too late that he’s not going to make it.

Willie, Photographer says, everything cool, brother?

Sutton pitches forward.

Oh shit—Mr. Sutton!

It varies widely, for no apparent reason. Sometimes the brothers simply knock Willie’s books out of his hands, call him a name. Other times they stuff him headfirst into an ash barrel. Other times they scratch, punch, draw blood.

They pretend there are offenses. Crimes. They stage little mock trials. One brother holds Willie while the other states the charge. Showing Disrespect. Being Weak. Kissing Up to Father. Then they debate. Should we punish him? Should we let him go? They make Willie plead his case. One day Willie tells them to just get it over with. The waiting is the real torture. Big Brother shrugs, sets his feet, rotates his hips to maximize the power. A straight right to Willie’s midsection, the punch lands with a surprisingly loud whump. Willie feels all the wind rush from him, like the bellows in Father’s shop. He drops to his knees.

When Willie is ten he tries to fight back. Bad idea. The beatings escalate. The brothers get Willie on the ground, kick their hard shoes into his kidneys, ribs, groin. One time they kick him so hard in the back of the head that he suffers nosebleeds for a week. Another time they twist his head until he passes out.

His parents don’t know. They don’t want to know. Father, after a twelve-hour day, can’t think about anything but supper and bed. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t say anything. Boys are boys. Willie used to admire Father’s silence. Now he resents it. He no longer thinks Father a hero. He goes one last time to Father’s shop, sees it all differently. With every unthinking swing of the hammer, with every metallic clank, Willie vows never to be like Father, though he fears that in some inescapable way he’ll always be just like him. He suspects himself of the same capacity for boundless silence.

And Mother? She sees nothing but her own grief. Three years after Agnes’s death she still wears black, still broods over the Bible, reading aloud, interrogating Jesus. Or else she simply sits with the Bible open in her lap, staring and murmuring into space. It’s a house of sadness and muteness and blindness, and yet it’s Willie’s only refuge, the only place his brothers won’t attack, because there are witnesses. So Willie clings to the kitchen table, doing his homework, using the rest of the family as unwitting bodyguards, while his brothers glide through the rooms, watching, waiting.

Their chance comes when Father is at work, Mother is paying the iceman, Older Sister is studying with a friend. Big Brother pounces first. He takes Willie’s schoolbook, tears out the pages. Bigger Brother stuffs the pages into Willie’s mouth. Stop, Willie tries to say, stop, please, stop. But he has a mouthful of paper.

Ten feet away Daddo stares above their heads. Here now, what’s happening?

Reporter catches Sutton just before he hits the ground. Photographer rushes to Sutton’s other side. Together they guide Sutton to the stoop.

Willie, Photographer says. What is it, man?

Mr. Sutton, Reporter says, you’re shaking.

They ease Sutton onto the stoop. Reporter takes off his trench coat, wraps it around Sutton’s shoulders.

Thanks kid. Thanks.

Photographer offers Sutton his barber pole scarf. Sutton shakes his head, pulls the fur collar of Reporter’s trench coat around his neck. He sits quietly, trying to catch his breath, clear his head. Reporter and Photographer loom over him.

After a few minutes Sutton looks up at Reporter. Do you have siblings?

No. Only child.

Sutton nods, looks at Photographer. You?

Three older brothers.

Were you picked on?

All the time, brother. Toughened me up.

Sutton stares into space.

You, Mr. Sutton?

I had an older sister, two older brothers.

Did they pick on you?

Nah. I was a tough little monkey.

Somehow he does well in school. He earns all A’s, one B. He doesn’t want to show his report card to anyone, but the school requires a parent’s signature. He cringes as Mother hugs him, as Father gives a proud nod in front of the whole family. He sees his brothers fuming, conspiring. He knows what’s coming.

Three days later they catch him coming out of a candy store. He manages to escape, runs home, but the house is empty. His brothers burst through the door right behind him, tackle him, hold him down, drag him into the foyer. He sees what they have in mind. No, he begs. No no no, not that.

They push him into the closet. It’s pitch dark. No, he begs, please. They lock him in. I can’t breathe, he says, let me out! He rattles the knob, pleading. He pounds the door until his knuckles and nailbeds bleed. Not this, anything but this. He scratches until a fingernail comes clean off.

He weeps. He chokes. He buries his face in the dirty coats and scarves that smell like his family, that bear the distinctive Fels-cabbage-potatoes-wool scent of the Sutton Clan, and he prays for death. Ten years old, he asks God to take him.

Hours later the door opens. Mother.

Jesus Mary and Joseph, what do you think you’re doing?

Mr. Sutton, do you feel up to continuing?

Yeah. I think so.

Reporter helps Sutton to his feet, guides him to the Polara. Photographer walks a few paces behind. Sutton eases into the backseat, lifts his bad leg in after him. Reporter gently shuts the door. Photographer gets behind the wheel, looks at Sutton in the rearview. How about a donut, Willie?

God no kid.

I think I’ll have one. Could you pass them forward?

Sutton hands the pink box across the seat.

Photographer picks a Bavarian cream, passes the box back. Reporter gets in, turns up the heater. The only sounds are the heater blowing, the radio crackling, Photographer smacking his lips.

Now Reporter unfolds Sutton’s map, leans toward Photographer. They whisper. Sutton can’t hear them over the heater and radio, but he imagines what they’re saying.

What are we gonna do with him?

What can we do, brother? We’re stuck with him.

FOUR

WILLIE COMES HOME TO FIND MOTHER IN THE PARLOR, READING THE Bible to Daddo. His brothers are out. For the moment they’re someone else’s problem. With a sigh of relief Willie pulls a chair next to Mother, rests his head on her shoulder. The Fels smell. It makes him feel safe and sad at the same time.

The late fall of 1911.

Mother skips back and forth from Old Testament to New, slapping at the crinkly pages, murmuring, demanding an answer. The answer. Each pause gives Daddo a chance to tap his cane and offer commentary on the sublime wisdom of Jesus. Now she lands on Genesis, the story of Joseph and his brothers. Willie’s mind floats on the lilt of her voice, the soughing of the potato sack curtains. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

Willie lifts his head from Mother’s shoulder.

And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

Willie puts his hands over his face, shakes with sobs. Mother stops reading. Daddo tilts his head. The boy, he says, is moved by the Holy Spirit.

Maybe he’ll be a priest, Mother says.

The next day she pulls him from P.S. 5 and enrolls him at St. Ann’s.

Photographer is peeking in the rearview, driving fast. Peeking faster, driving faster. Reporter, trying to make notes, can’t keep his pen steady. He turns to Photographer. Why are you driving like someone is chasing us?

Because someone is chasing us.

Reporter looks out the back window, sees a TV news van riding their bumper. How the hell did they find us?

We haven’t exactly been inconspicuous. Maybe somebody witnessed a certain bank robber fainting in the middle of the street …?

Photographer mashes the gas, runs a red light. He spins the wheel to the left, swerves to avoid a double-parked truck. Sutton, tossed around the backseat like a sock in a dryer, tastes this morning’s champagne, last night’s whiskey. He realizes that he hasn’t eaten solid food since yesterday’s lunch at Attica—beef stew. Now he tastes that too. He puts a hand on his stomach, knows what’s coming. He tries to roll down a window. Stuck. Or locked. Converted cop car. He looks around. On the seat beside him are Photographer’s camera bag and cloth purse. He opens the camera bag. Expensive lenses. He opens the cloth purse. Notebooks, paperbacks, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night, a plastic baggie full of joints—and a billfold. Sutton touches the billfold.

He sees the pink box of donuts. He lifts the lid, feels the contents of his stomach gathering on the launchpad. He shuts his eyes, swallows, gradually fights back the rising wave of nausea.

Photographer makes a hard right, steers toward the curb. The Polara fishtails. Squealing brakes, shrieking tires. They screech to a stop. The smell of scorched Firestone fills the car. Reporter kneels on the front seat, looks out the back. They’re gone, he says to Photographer. Nice job.

I guess it pays to watch Mod Squad, Photographer says.

They sit for a moment, all three of them breathing hard. Even the Polara is panting. Now Photographer eases back into traffic. Tell me again—what’s our next stop?

Corner of Sands and Gold. Right, Mr. Sutton?

Sutton grunts.

Sands and Gold? Christ, that’s a block from where we just were.

Sorry. Mr. Sutton’s map is kind of tough to read.

I was hitting the champagne pretty hard when I made it, Sutton says.

The Polara hits a pothole. Sutton’s head hits the roof, his ass hits the seat.

You don’t need to drive like a maniac anymore, Reporter says.

It’s not me, Photographer says, it’s these roads. And I think this Polara is shot.

Willie is shot, Sutton rasps.

The Polara hits another pothole.

One-sixth gravity, Sutton mumbles.

We’re almost there, Mr. Sutton. You okay?

Just realized something kid.

What’s that, Mr. Sutton?

I’m in the back of a radio car without handcuffs. I think that’s part of what’s got me on my heels this morning. That’s why I don’t feel like myself. I feel—naked.

Handcuffs?

We used to call them bracelets. The neighbors would say, Did you hear, they dragged poor Eddie Wilson away in bracelets?

Sutton holds up his wrists, stares at them from different angles. The purple veins, bubbled and wormy.

Photographer grins at Sutton in the rearview. If you want handcuffs, brother, we can get you some handcuffs.

Two classmates at St. Ann’s become Willie’s friends. William Happy Johnston and Edward Buster Wilson. That’s how newspapers will most often refer to them. Everyone in Irish Town knows, Willie is the smart one, Happy is the handsome one, Eddie is the dangerous one. Everyone in Irish Town knows, you better watch your step around Eddie Wilson.

He used to be such a sweet kid, Irish Towners say. Then his aunt and uncle took ill. The lung sickness. They had to move in with Eddie’s family—it was either that or a pesthouse. In no time their doctor bills wiped out Eddie’s family. This was just after the Panic of 1907, the country spiraling into a Depression. Irish Town passed the hat, saved Eddie’s family from being put on the street, but Eddie felt more embarrassed than relieved. Next, Eddie’s old man lost his job as a driller. Again the neighborhood passed the hat, again Eddie cringed. Finally Eddie’s mother got the lung sickness, and there was no money left for a doctor. She and Eddie were especially close, neighbors whispered at the funeral.

Overnight, everyone agrees, Eddie changed. His royal blue eyes turned stormy. His eyebrows drew together into a permanent V. He looked wounded all the time, ready to fight. When the Italians started to encroach on Irish Town, Eddie decided it was his job to hold them off. He was forever muttering about them Eye-ties, them fuckin Dagos. Every other week he was in another hellish battle.

The first time they meet, Willie sees only Eddie’s courage, not his pain. Something about Eddie reminds Willie of polished, martial steel. Also, he seems equally loyal and lethal. And Eddie sees Willie through the same rosy lens. Assuming Willie’s many bruises are from street brawls, not his brothers, Eddie grants Willie his deepest respect. Willie, in need of a friend, doesn’t set Eddie straight.

Happy never had to earn Eddie’s respect. They’ve been friends since birth. Their families live across the street from each other, their fathers are thick. That’s why Happy is always laughing at Eddie’s bad temper, because he remembers the old Eddie. To Willie, laughing at Eddie seems like asking for trouble, like the lion tamers at the street circus putting their heads between those pink dripping jaws. But Eddie never snaps at Happy. Happy is so happy, so damn good looking, it’s hard to be mad at him.