Sutton

Happy frowns. If he reads he won’t be happy.

Of all the evil rich, Eddie thinks the evilest by far are the Rockefellers. He scans the horizon as if there might be a Rockefeller out there for him to peg with a rock. He’s obsessed with Ludlow. Last year J. D. Rockefeller Jr. sent a team of sluggers to put down the mine strike there, and the sluggers massacred seventy-five unarmed men, women, children. If anyone else did that, Eddie often says, he’d get the chair.

Tell you what I’d like to do, Eddie grumbles, winging a rock at a seagull. I’d like to go uptown right now and find Old Man Rockefeller’s mansion.

What would you do, Ed?

Heh heh. Remember that Judas sheep?

Photographer circles Grand Army Plaza, swings right on Thirteenth Street. He pulls over, double-parks. It’s gone, Sutton says, touching the window. Fuck—I knew stuff would be gone. But everything?

What’s gone, Willie?

The apartment house where we moved in 1915. At least the apartment house next door is still standing. That one right there, that gives you an idea what ours looked like.

He points to a five-story brownstone, streaked with soot and bird shit.

That’s where I saw my parents grow old before their time, worrying about money. That’s where I watched the lines on their faces get deeper, watched their hair turn white. That’s where I learned that life is all about money. And love. And lack thereof.

That’s it, Mr. Sutton?

Anyone who tells you different is a fuckin liar. Money. Love. There’s not a problem that isn’t caused by one or the other. And there’s not a problem that can’t be solved by one or the other.

That seems kind of reductive, Mr. Sutton.

Money and Love kid. Nothing else matters. Because those are the only two things that make us forget about death. For a few minutes anyhow.

Trees line the curb. They nod and bow as if they remember Sutton. As if beseeching him to get out of the car. My best friends were Eddie Wilson and Happy Johnston, Sutton says softly.

Photographer yanks a loose fringe off his buckskin jacket. You mentioned that.

What was Happy like? Reporter asks.

Broads loved him.

Hence the name, Photographer says, starting up the car, pulling away. Where to next?

Remsen Street, Reporter says.

Happy had the blackest hair you ever saw, Sutton says. Like he was dipped in coal. He had one of those chin asses like yours kid. A smile like yours too. Big white teeth. Like a movie star. Before there were movie stars.

And Eddie?

Strange case. Blond, real All-American looking, but he never felt like an American. He felt like America didn’t want him. Fuck, he was right, America didn’t. America didn’t want any of us, and you haven’t felt unwanted until America doesn’t want you. I loved Eddie, but he was one rough sombitch. You did not want to get on his wrong side. I thought he’d be a prizefighter. After they banned him from the slaughterhouse, he hung out in gyms. Then the gyms banned him. He wouldn’t stop fighting after the bell. And if you crossed him in the streets, Jesus, if you did not show proper respect, God help you. He’d give you an Irish haircut quick as look at you.

Irish what?

A swat to the back of the head with a lead pipe wrapped in newspaper.

Their luck changes in the fall of 1916. Eddie lands a construction job at one of the new office towers going up, and Happy’s uncle arranges jobs for Happy and Willie as gophers at a bank. Title Guaranty.

The bank job will require new clothes. Willie and Happy find a haberdasher on Court Street willing to extend them credit. They each buy two suits—two sack coats, two pairs of trousers, two matching vests, two silk cravats, cuff buttons, spats. Walking to work his first day Willie stops before a store window. He doesn’t recognize himself. He’s delighted not to recognize himself. He hopes he never recognizes himself again.

Better yet, his coworkers don’t recognize him. They seem not to know that he’s Irish. They treat him with courtesy and kindness.

Weeks fly by. Months. Willie loses himself in his work. He finds the whole enterprise of the bank exhilarating. After the Crash of 1893, the Panic of 1907, the smaller panic of 1911, the Depression of 1914, New York is rebuilding. Office towers are being erected, bridges are being laced across the rivers, tunnels are being laid underneath, and cash for all this epic growth comes from banks, which means Willie is engaged in a grand endeavor. He’s part of society, included in its mission, vested in its purposes—at last. He sleeps deeper, wakes more refreshed. Putting on his spats each morning he feels a giddy sense of relief that Eddie was wrong. The whole thing isn’t rigged.

They pull up to the former home of Title Guaranty, a Romanesque Revival building on Remsen Street. Sutton looks at the arched third-floor windows where he used to sit with Happy and the other gophers. In one window someone has taped a sign. NIXON/AGNEW. This is where I had my first job, Sutton says. A bank robber whose first job was in a bank—imagine?

Photographer shoots the building. He turns the camera, dials the lens, this way, that. Sutton shifts his gaze from the building to Photographer.

You like your work, Sutton says. Don’t you kid?

Photographer stops, gives a half turn. Yeah, he says over his shoulder. I do, Willie. I dig it. How can you tell?

I can always tell when a man likes his work. What year were you born kid?

Nineteen forty-three.

Hm. Eventful year for me. Shit, they were all eventful. Where were you born?

Roslyn, Long Island.

You go to college?

Yeah.

Which one?

I went to Princeton, Photographer says sheepishly.

No kidding? Good school. I took a walk around the campus one morning. What did you study?

History. I was going to be a professor, an academic, but sophomore year my parents made the fatal mistake of buying me a camera for Christmas. That was all she wrote. The only thing I cared about from then on was taking pictures. I wanted to capture history instead of reading about it.

I’ll bet your folks were thrilled.

Oh yeah. My father didn’t speak to me for about three months.

What do you like so much about taking pictures?

You say life’s all about Money and Love? I say it’s all about experiences.

Is that so?

And this camera helps me have all different kinds of experiences. This Leica gets me through locked doors, past police tape, over walls, barbed wire, barricades. It shows me the world, brother. Helps me bear witness.

Witness. Is that so.

Also, Willie, I dig telling the truth. Words can be twisted but a photo never lies.

Sutton laughs.

What’s funny? Photographer says.

Nothing. Except—that’s pure horseshit kid. I can’t think of anything that lies more than a photo. In fact every photo is a dirty stinking lie because it’s a frozen moment—and time can’t be frozen. Some of the biggest lies I’ve ever run across have been photos. Some of them were of me.

Photographer faces straight ahead, a slightly miffed look on his face. Willie, he says, all I know is, this camera took me to the bloodbath in Hue City. Tet Offensive—those aren’t just words in a book to me. It took me to Mexico City to see Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists. It took me to Memphis to see the chaos and the coverup after they shot King. No other way I would’ve gotten to see all those things. This camera lets me see, brother.

Sutton looks at Reporter. How about you kid?

How about me?

Did you always want to be a reporter?

Yes.

How come?

I’m a yeshiva student from the Bronx—in what other job would I get to spend the day with America’s greatest bank robber?

FBI agent.

I don’t like guns.

Me neither.

I admit, Mr. Sutton, some days I don’t love this job. No one reads anymore.

I do nothing but read.

You’re the exception. TV is going to make us all extinct. Also, a newsroom isn’t exactly the happiest place on earth. It’s sort of a snake pit. Politics, backstabbing, jealousy.

That’s one nice thing about crooks, Sutton says. No professional jealousy. A crook reads about another crook making off with millions, he’s happy for the guy. Crooks root for each other.

Except when they kill each other.

True.

Tell him about editors, Photographer says to Reporter.

What about them? Sutton says.

They can be a real pain in the ass, Reporter says into his lap.

Sutton lights a Chesterfield. What about your editor? In what way is he a pain in the ass?

He says I have a face that begs to be lied to.

Ouch. And what did he say when he sent you off to spend the day with Willie?

Photographer laughs, looks out his window. Reporter looks out his.

Go on kid. You can tell me.

My editor said I had three jobs today, Mr. Sutton. Get you on the record about Arnold Schuster. Don’t let another reporter or photographer near you. And don’t lose you.

Sutton blows a cloud of smoke over Reporter’s head. Then you’re fucked kid.

Why?

You’ve already lost me. I’m back in 1917.

Willie standing in the vault. It’s larger than his bedroom on Thirteenth Street, and it’s filled, floor to ceiling, with money. He gazes at the tightly wrapped bills, the strongboxes of gold coins, the racks of gleaming silver. He inhales—better than a candy store. He never realized how much he loved money. He couldn’t afford to realize.

He loads a wheeled cart with cash and coins, slowly rolls the cart along the cages, filling the tellers’ drawers. He feels all-powerful, a Brooklyn King Solomon dispensing gifts from his mine. Before returning the cart he cradles a brick of fifties. With this one brick he could buy a shiny new motorcar, a house for his parents. He could book a cabin on the next liner sailing to France. He slides one fifty out of the pack, holds it to the light. That dashing portrait of Ulysses Grant, those green curlicues in the corners, those silver-blue letters: Will Pay to the Bearer On Demand. Who knew the fifty was such a work of art? They should hang one in a museum. He slides the bill carefully back into the pack, sets the pack back in its place on the shelf.

Evenings, after work, Willie sits on a bench in the park and reads Horatio Alger novels, devours them one after another. They’re all the same—the hero rises from nothing to become rich, loved, respected—and that’s exactly what Willie loves about them. The predictability of the plot, the inevitability of the hero’s ascent, provides a kind of comfort. It reaffirms Willie’s faith.

Sometimes Alger’s hero starts as a gopher at a bank.

Pedophile, Sutton says.

Photographer is trying to get the City Desk on the radio. Yeah, he says, yeah yeah, that’s right, we’re leaving Remsen Street, headed to Sands Street, near the Navy Yard.

Goddamn perv, Sutton says.

Photographer lowers the radio, turns. You say something, Willie?

Sutton slides forward, leans across the seat. Horatio Alger.

What about him?

He’d cruise these streets looking for homeless kids. They were everywhere back then, sleeping under stairs, bridges. Street Arabs they were called. Alger would bring them home, interview them for his books, then molest them. Now he’s synonymous with the American Dream. Imagine?

Malcolm X says there is no American Dream, Willie. Just an American nightmare.

Nah, that’s not true. There’s an American Dream. The trick is not waking up.

After six months at Title Guaranty, Willie is summoned to the manager’s office.

Sutton, your work is exemplary. You are diligent, you are conscientious, never tardy or sick. Everyone at this bank says you are a fine young man, and I can only agree. Keep this up, my boy, keep on this path, and you are sure to go places.

A month later Willie is laid off. Happy too. The manager, red-faced, blames the war in Europe. Trading has collapsed, the world’s economy is teetering—everyone is cutting back. Especially banks. Into a hatbox Willie folds his sack coats and matching trousers and vests, his cravats and cuff buttons and spats, then sets the box on the shelf of Mother’s closet.

He buys five newspapers and a grease pencil and sits in the park. On the same bench where he used to read Alger novels he now combs the wants. He then walks the length of Brooklyn, filling out forms, handing in applications. He applies for bank jobs, clerk jobs, salesman jobs. He holds his nose when applying for salesman jobs. The idea of tricking someone into buying something they don’t need, and can’t afford, makes him sick.

At the start of each day Willie meets Happy and Eddie at Pete’s Awful Coffee. Eddie’s been laid off too. The builders of the office tower ran out of cash. Whole fuckin thin is rigged, Eddie mutters into his coffee cup. No one at the counter disagrees. No one dares.

Then, just around the start of the 1917 baseball season, on his way to meet Eddie and Happy, Willie spots a newsboy from half a block away, waving the extra. That one word, big and black and shiny as the badge on the newsboy’s shirt—WAR. Willie hands the newsboy a penny, runs to the coffee shop. Breathless, he spreads the newspaper across the counter and tells Eddie and Happy this is it, their big chance, they should all enlist. They’re only sixteen, but hell, maybe they can get fake birth certificates. Maybe they can go to Canada, sign up there. It’s war, it’s nasty, but Jesus—it’s something.

Count me out, Eddie says, shoving his cup away. This is Rockefeller’s war. And his butt boy, J. P. Morgan. I aint takin a bullet for them robber barons. Don’t you realize we’re already in a war, Sutty? Us against them?

I’m surprised, Willie says. I really am, Ed. I thought you’d jump at the chance to kill a few Dagos. Unless maybe you’re afraid those Dagos might get the best of you.

Happy laughs. Eddie grabs Willie’s shirtfront and loads up a punch, then shakes his head and eases himself back onto his stool.

Sutty the Patriot, Happy says. Don’t you worry, Sutty. You’re feeling patriotic? There’ll be plenty of ways to do your part. My old man says every war brings a boom. Sit tight. We’ll soon be in clover.

Within weeks it’s true. New York is humming, a hive of activity, and the boys land jobs in a factory making machine guns. The pay is thirty-five a week, nearly four times what Willie and Happy were making at Title Guaranty. Willie is able to give his parents room and board and a little more. He watches them count and recount the money, sees the strain of the last few years falling away.

And still he has something left over for a bit of fun. Every other night he goes with Eddie and Happy to Coney Island. How did he live so long without this enchanted place? The music, the lights—the laughter. It’s at Coney Island that Willie first realizes: no one in the Sutton household ever laughs.

Best of all he loves the food. He’s been raised on wilted cabbage and thin stews, now he has access to a sultan’s feast. Stepping off the trolley he can smell the roasted pigs, the grilled clams coated with butter, the spring chickens, the filet chateaubriands, the pickled walnuts, the Roman punches, and he realizes—he’s been hungry for sixteen years.

No delicacy at Coney Island is so exotic, so addictive, as the recently invented Nathan’s Famous. It’s also called a hot dog. Slicked with mustard, slotted into a billfold of soft white bread, it makes Willie moan with pleasure. Happy can eat five, Eddie can eat seven. There’s no limit to how many Willie can put away.

After gorging themselves, and washing it all down with a few steins of beer, the boys stroll the Boardwalk, trying to catch the eyes of pretty girls. But pretty girls are the one delicacy they can’t have. In 1917 and 1918 pretty girls want soldiers. Even Happy can’t compete with those smart uniforms, those white sailor hats.

Before catching a rattler home Eddie insists that they swing by the Amazing Incubator, the new warming oven for babies that come out half cooked. Eddie likes to press his face to the glass door, wave at the seven or eight newborns on the other side. Look, Sutty, they’re so damn tiny. They’re like little hot dogs.

Don’t eat one by accident, Happy says

Eddie yells through the glass door. Welcome to earth, suckers. The whole thin’s rigged.

SIX

THERE ARE HUNDREDS SPRINKLED THROUGHOUT THE CITY, BUT HAPPY says only two are worth a damn. One under the Brooklyn Bridge, the other on Sands Street, just outside the Navy Yard. Happy prefers the one on Sands. The girls aren’t necessarily prettier, he says. Just more obliging. They work ten-hour shifts, taking on three customers an hour, and more when the fleet is in. He relates this with the admiration and wonder of a staunch capitalist describing Henry Ford’s new assembly line.

Around the time of the Battle of Passchendaele, and the draft riots in Oklahoma, and the mining strikes throughout the West, the boys pay their first visit together to the house on Sands Street. The kitchen is the waiting room. Six men sit around the table, and along the wall, reading newspapers, like men at a barbershop. The boys grab newspapers, take seats near the stove. They blow on their hands. The night is cold.

Willie watches the other men closely. Each time one is summoned it’s the same routine. The man tromps upstairs. Minutes later, through the ceiling, heavy footsteps. Then a female voice. Then muffled laughter. Then bedsprings squeaking. Then a loud grunt, a high trill, a few moments of exhausted silence. Finally a slammed door, footsteps descending, and the man passes through the kitchen, cheeks blazing, a flower in his buttonhole. The flower is complimentary.

When it’s their turn Willie feels panic verging on apoplexy. At the upstairs landing he hesitates. Maybe another time, Happy, I don’t feel so good. My stomach.

Tell her where it hurts, Willie, she’ll kiss it and make it better.

Happy pushes Willie toward a pale blue door at the far end of the hall. Willie knocks lightly.

Come.

He pushes the door in slowly.

Shut the door, honey—there’s a draft in that hall.

He does as he’s told. The room is dim, lit only by a candle lamp. On the edge of a frilly bed sits a girl in a baby pink negligee. Smooth skin, long full hair. Pretty eyes with dark lashes. But she’s missing her right arm.

Lost it when I was six, she says when Willie asks. Fell under a streetcar. That’s how come they call me Wingy.

It must also be the reason she’s on Sands Street. Not many other ways for a one-armed girl in Brooklyn to get by.

Willie puts a fifty-cent piece on the dresser. Wingy rises, drops the baby pink negligee. Smiling, she comes to Willie, helps him undress. She knows it’s his first time. How do you know, Wingy? I just do, darlin. Willie calculates—it must be her hundred and first time. This month. As he stands with his pants bunched around his feet, she kisses his chin, his lips, his big nose. He begins to shake, as if cold, though the room is stifling. The windows are shut tight, fogging. Wingy leads him to the bed. She lies on top of him. She kisses him harder, parts his lips with hers.

He draws back. Half her bottom teeth are missing.

Merchant marine knocked them out, she says. Now no more questions, sugar lump, just you lie back and let Wingy do what Wingy does.

What does Wingy do?

I said no more questions.

Her touch is surprisingly gentle, and skillful, and Willie is quickly aroused. She drags her rich chestnut hair up his chest, across his face, like a fan of feathers. He likes the way it feels, and smells. Her hair soap, Castile maybe, masks the room’s other baked-in scents. Male sweat, old spunk—and Fels?

It struck him when he first walked in, but it didn’t register. Now it registers. Whoever launders Wingy’s bedclothes uses the same detergent as Mother. It’s a common detergent, he shouldn’t be surprised, but it confuses and troubles Willie at a climactic moment of his maturation.

More confusions. Willie thought Eddie could cuss, but Wingy makes Eddie seem a rank amateur. Why is she cussing? Is Willie doing it wrong? How can he be, when he’s not doing anything? He’s pinned on his back, helpless. If anyone should be cussing, it’s him. Wingy’s abundant pubic hair is coarse, nearly metallic, and it chafes and scrapes the tender skin of Willie’s brand-new penis. In and out, up and down, Wingy does her best to pleasure Willie, and Willie appreciates her diligence, but he can’t stop dwelling on the gap between reality and his expectations. This is what makes the world go round? This is what everyone’s so excited about—this? If there’s any pleasure at all in the experience, it’s the relief he feels when it’s over.

Wingy curls against him, commending his stamina. He thanks her, for everything, then gathers his clothes and gives her a ten-cent tip. He doesn’t stick around for the complimentary flower.

Photographer turns down Sands Street. The road is being repaired. He weaves slowly among orange cones, sawhorses. Anywhere along here, Sutton says.

Photographer pulls over, slips the car into park. Ninth floor, he says in an adenoidal voice—ladies’ handbags, men’s socks.

What happened on this corner, Mr. Sutton?

This is where Willie lost his innocence. A house of ill fame. That’s what we called whorehouses back then.

Was she pretty? Photographer asks.

Yeah. She was. Though she had only one arm. They called her Wingy.

Which arm?

Her left.

Why didn’t they call her Lefty?

That would’ve been cruel.

Reporter and Photographer look at each other, look away.

Do you want to step out, Mr. Sutton?

Nah.

Willie, Photographer says—why exactly are we here?

I wanted to visit Wingy.

Visit?

I can feel her, right now, smiling at us. At your questions. She didn’t like questions.

The ghost of a one-armed prostitute. Great. That should make a nice photo.

Okay, boys, next stop. We’ve seen where Willie lost his innocence. Let’s go to Red Hook and see where Willie lost his heart.