Sutton: A Novel Part 41

Why?

You'll see.

Reporter opens his briefcase, removes some files. Mr. Sutton, I have to say, the clips give a different account of that breakout.

Do they.

According to several newspapers from that time, it was Freddie who got the gun smuggled to him in prison. It was Freddie who broke the lock on his cell. With a chisel. Then Freddie freed you and the others, and someone used a pair of scissors to stab a guard, William Skelton, and then you all used Skelton as a human s.h.i.+eld when the guards started firing.

That's not how I remember it.

When they reach the edge of town they debate killing the driver. They put it to a vote. Watching them raise their hands, one by one, the driver wets his pants. Three to one, the Let Him Lives win.

Before jumping out of the truck Freddie grabs the driver by the collar. Go straight home, Freddie tells him. Take the phone off the hook. Say nothin to n.o.body or I will come find you.

The driver swears, he'll never tell a soul.

I still say we kill him, Freddie says as the others pull him away from the driver and down the road.

They split up. Freddie and Willie go one direction, Akins and Kliney go another. Willie feels lucky to be with Freddie, who still has the gun, who grew up in Philly and knows places they can hide. They walk through the snowstorm, side by side, hunching their shoulders against the wind. A dozen blocks. Two dozen. Then, from behind them, sirens. They duck behind a house. Cop cars skid up to the curb. Red lights strobe the snow. Willie runs straight up the backyard fence, like a man in a cartoon. Freddie is right behind him. Shotgun blast-the fence explodes. Freddie cries out. Willie lands awkwardly but bounces back up, sprints down a snow-packed alley. Somehow managing to stay on his feet, he hits his stride, tells himself not to look back, not to think about the guards taking steady aim, the bullets hurtling toward a spot exactly halfway between his shoulder blades. The darkness that's about to swallow him.

His lungs burning, his legs about to give, he cuts right, darts into a side yard. A cellar door-he grabs the handle. Locked. He pulls harder, breaks the lock, dives. The floor is cement, frozen. He lands on his face. His nose gushes blood. He scrambles to his feet, pulls the cellar door shut.

Sirens go wailing past. Then. Slowly. Fade.

He waits. He hums under his breath, trying to hold himself together. I don't wanna play in your yard. I don't like you anymore. He paces. After two hours he climbs out the cellar door. You'll be sorry when you see me. Sliding down our cellar door. He runs and runs through snow up to his knees. The snow is coming down harder and the wind is gusting. Flakes blow into his eyes, mouth. His shoes are full of snow, he can't feel his toes. Where the f.u.c.k is the highway?

There. Through those trees-blurry headlights. Now he hears the sizzle of Goodyears on macadam. He stations himself on the shoulder, thumb out. A black Nash stops, a man in a flashy gray suit at the wheel. You look clear froze, chum.

I am, Willie says. Car broke down. d.a.m.n Chevys.

That's why I'm a Nash man.

How far you going?

Princeton. That help?

And how. I got a sister there.

Hop in.

Turns out it's not simple kindness that made the man stop. He stopped because he needed to tell someone about his s.e.x life. The different girls he's laying, exactly how he's laying them, unbeknownst to his wife. And his girlfriend-unbeknownst to her too. He likes this word, unbeknownst, shoves it into every sentence, rams it in there, hard, whether or not it fits. He tells Willie that he owns rental properties all over Long Island, New Jersey, Queens, and when he goes around to collect rent, that's when he scores.

Just the other day, he says, I collected on this family, just the mom and three kids, Dad died overseas, you know how that goes, and well so Mom tells me she can't pay the rent, she lost her job, boo hoo, she pleads with me not to put her and the kiddies out, and she's a real looker, let me tell you, so I say sure you can stay, no problem, hot stuff, so long as you bend over that chair right there and let me ball you, because I aint about to give somethin for nothin. She says please no my kids are in the next room, so I say fine then you're out on your keister, but well just then out of the bedroom comes the daughter, I mean what a doll, fifteen going on twenty-five if you get me, and friskier than the mom, and well I guess I don't have to tell you what happened next.

No, Willie says. You don't. Please.

Willie longs to let his head fall against the seat and shut his eyes, but s.e.x Maniac won't stop. Worse, s.e.x Maniac is now sulking, offended that Willie's not contributing to the conversation, which is apparently the hidden cost of a ride to Princeton. If you want to ride with s.e.x Maniac, Willie realizes, you better put out. So Willie regales s.e.x Maniac with a series of fake carnal exploits, which takes all his talents as a storyteller, because he's only been with a few women in his life and the last person he kissed was a man. The effort of fabricating conquests, inventing perversions, makes him break out in a cold sweat. Overpowering guards and outrunning shotguns was easier.

But it seems to be working. s.e.x Maniac is guffawing, slamming his palm on the Nash's steering wheel. You showed her, s.e.x Maniac shouts. You gave her what for, didn't you, chum? I'll say you did! Then what?

Willie points. Princeton Junction-next exit.

s.e.x Maniac pulls over. Willie steps out. His third narrow escape of the night. s.e.x Maniac tells him to wait. He writes his phone number on a book of matches, hands it to Willie.

Now, chum, I live just on the other side of that hill, you call me next time you're in Princeton. Me and my gal, you and yorn, we'll have dinner.

Sure, Willie says. Say, speaking of dinner, I haven't eaten since last night, and I just remembered, I left my dang billfold back in the Chevy. It's a long walk to my sister's.

s.e.x Maniac holds up his hand. He's only too happy to lend Willie two bucks.

Willie walks until he comes to an all-night diner.

Cup of coffee, please. b.u.t.tered roll.

A Star-Ledger lies on the counter. He flips through it. Nothing about the escape. Too soon. And yet the waitress looks at him funny. Maybe it's been on the radio in the kitchen. New York, he thinks. He needs to get to New York. Where he'll blend in. Where people don't notice anything, because everyone's a fugitive from something.

The waitress keeps eyeing him.

Willie wets a finger, runs it around his plate, picking up the crumbs. He's starved, but he doesn't want to spend the last of s.e.x Maniac's money. He stands, smiles at the waitress. Well. Better be shoving off.

He can feel her watching him all the way out the door.

He sets out for the highway, but soon comes to the Princeton campus. He stops, takes it all in. Ah to be a student here. To sit in that beautiful library and just read books. To know as sure as you know anything that you have a future and that it's bright. How are some people so lucky? He circles the library once, his soul clotted with envy, then trudges off again in search of the highway. He wanders back roads, dirt roads, loses the road altogether. The snow in some places comes to his knees. His waist. Better than s.h.i.+t, he says aloud.

A stray dog growls, charges him. Teeth white as the snow. Willie doesn't care. His total indifference scares off the dog.

He would cry, but his tear ducts are frozen. His ears too. He cups his hands over them. They feel as if they might crack and fall off his head. Climbing a hill he loses his footing, falls backwards, hits a tree with the base of his spine. He climbs again, up and over, trudges through woods so thick that there's scarcely room for him to pa.s.s between the trees.

His clothes are starting to freeze. They feel like a suit of armor. He hears a voice. He turns in a circle. Who's there? Why did he let Freddie keep that .38? Show yourself, he growls.

Above him. He s.h.i.+elds his face, looks up. A barn owl, the size of a toddler, sits on a low branch and looks directly at Willie with mustard yellow eyes. Now it furrows its brow and slowly spreads its wings. Avenging angel. Willie wonders if Freddie's been caught yet.

He walks farther, loses all sense of direction. Never mind the highway, he needs to find shelter, right now, or he's done for. He wants to fall down, curl up, quit. A little farther, he tells himself. Little by little. Keep on. He comes to a clearing, a farm, an old red lopsided barn. He knocks at the rotted door, gives it a kick.

Rakes, scythes, saddles, tractor. He climbs into the hayloft, burrows into a corner. Wind comes singing and whistling through the walls, freezing his eyelashes, the hairs inside his nose. He remembers reading an article about hypothermia. Sleep precedes death. Or was it death precedes sleep? Either way. He stands, does jumping jacks. He talks to G.o.d, proposes a pact, a covenant. I know you're pulling for me, G.o.d. You can't fool me. The tunnel. The milk truck. Of course you root for prisoners. You were a prisoner yourself. You spent your last night on this earth in jail. I know you're on my side, G.o.d, so please save me again, get me out of this one, G.o.d, and I will change.

And while you're at it, G.o.d? A smoke?

He remembers s.e.x Maniac's matches. He manages to get one lit. In the corner of the abandoned barn, with some hay and sc.r.a.p wood, he starts a small fire, which is his salvation.

At dawn he sets out again, finds the highway. Within minutes a truck pulls over.

Car broke down, Willie says, wringing wet, teeth chattering. d.a.m.n Ch-ch-chevys.

The trucker doesn't notice anything unusual about Willie's appearance or demeanor. He doesn't notice anything about anything. He's hauling oak tables to the Bronx and he's mad for company. Tables make d.a.m.n poor company, he says.

But what he's really mad for is sleep. They've only gone a few miles when Willie sees the trucker's face drifting down down down to the steering wheel. Willie taps Trucker's knee. Trucker jerks awake, looks at his knee, looks at Willie, eyes narrowed, as if Willie is a pervert. Then Trucker realizes that he almost killed them both. Sorry, Trucker grumbles, aint been sleeping much lately, trouble at home.

He fumbles in the breast pocket of his work s.h.i.+rt for a cigarette. He comes out with a crumpled pack, offers one to Willie. Even before he looks, Willie knows. Chesterfield. He takes the cigarette, puts it between his lips. Trucker lights it with a silver Zippo. Willie thought the cold milk was delicious, but that was nothing compared to this Chesterfield. The first puff tastes sweet, like the first bite of cotton candy at Coney Island. The second puff tastes spicy, peppery, nutritious, like the steaks Eddie and Happy bought him when he was down on his luck. Smoke fills his lungs and quickens his blood and instantly restores his vitality, his will to live. He takes another drag, and another and another, and tells Trucker stories, riveting stories, fantastic stories, wildly untrue stories, which keep them both awake. If life has been nothing more than a build-up to this moment, this ethereal high, this bonding with a stranger, then it hasn't been in vain.

He watches the snow-filled woods fly by, and the highway signs, and he speaks again to G.o.d, who feels closer than the gears.h.i.+ft. Dear Lord, I don't know what I've wanted from you all my life. Communion? Amnesty? A sign? But with this Chesterfield I finally know what you want from me. You're agreeing to the covenant I proposed. I hear you. And I will show you that I hear. I will change.

He smokes the Chesterfield to the nub, to nothing, until it burns his fingertips. Even the burning feels good.

Trucker drops him right at the turnoff where the cops shot Eddie. Willie doesn't let himself think about that, doesn't think about anything as he waves to the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge and walks and walks all the way downtown. He focuses on his footsteps in the snow, and on the fact that it's a beautiful winter morning and he's not in C Block. He's in New York, New York.

He's in Times f.u.c.kin Square.

He stops, looks up. h.e.l.lo, Wrigley sign.

Neon fish, pink and green and blue, swim through the blizzard. Above the fish, in blinking green neon: WRIGLEY SETTLES THE NERVES. And above the neon letters the Wrigley mermaid welcomes Willie home.

He ducks into the Automat, hands his last dollar to the nickel thrower, who hands him twenty nickels. He buys a fish cake and a cup of piping hot coffee and takes it to a table by the window. He eats slowly, watching the people, but there aren't many people-it's early yet. When his food is gone he drinks the hot coffee, every drop. He runs a finger around the inside of the empty cup and runs the finger inside his mouth. He stares at the steam table, imagines piling a plate with beefsteaks, creamed potatoes, creamed spinach, poppy rolls, apple tartlets, jelly cookies, pumpkin pie. He holds his last twenty cents in his fist and closes his eyes and feasts on the smells. Not just the food smells, but the New York smells. Cigars, peppermint, aftershave, plastic, leather, gabardine, urine, hair spray, sweat, silk, wool, talc, s.e.m.e.n, subway funk and floor wax. Ah New York. You stink. Please let me stay.

At the stroke of nine Willie steps into the phone booth and dials the first employment agency listed in the yellow book. The woman asks his name.

Joseph Lynch mam.

He hears her typing a form.

I'm new to town, mam, and I need a position, anything, just till I can get on my feet.

She doesn't have much.

Anything, he says again.

The only thing I can think of-no, wait, Sandy filled that one yesterday. Hum-dee-dum, let's see. Where did I put that goshdarned card?

Willie squeezes the phone. Anything.

Ta-da, she says. Porter.

Mam?

The Farm Colony out in Richmond. That's Staten Island. Ten dollars a week, plus room and board, Joseph.

I'll take it.

It's on Brielle Road.

She tells him the name of the head nurse, but it doesn't register. She says she'll phone the head nurse to say Joseph is on his way.

Porter, he tells himself, walking to the ferry. Porter? He thinks of Porter from Rosenthal and Sons. How the mighty have fallen. Except the mighty were never mighty. And the fallen were never fallen. With one of his last three nickels he buys a ticket on the ferry. At the gangplank is a newsstand and on every front page is his face. He tries to read the articles from a distance, but he can't. His eyes are getting bad. In four months he'll be forty-six years old.

The whistle blows. All aboard.

He flows with the crowd onto the ferry, eases onto a wooden bench and turns his face to the window, pretending to sleep. Half the pa.s.sengers are reading papers, staring at his photo. At last, when the boat pulls away, Willie jumps up, runs onto the deck. No one else is out there, it's too cold. He leans against the wooden rail, leans into the wind, watches the city grow fainter.

The ferry churns up a wake of thick white foam. He puts a hand on his empty stomach, wishes he'd thought to save one bottle of milk.

A seagull appears. It hovers beside the boat, only needing to flap its long gray wings once every five seconds to keep pace. Willie would give anything to be that seagull. He thinks about reincarnation. He hopes it exists. He hopes this stray thought won't anger the Catholic G.o.d who's gotten him this far. Who now holds his marker.

As Manhattan disappears behind a wall of mist, Willie drops into a fog. He grips the wooden railing and imagines falling over. Maybe it's the only thing that makes sense-end all this running. He can feel the first shock of the white foam, then the bitter cold water. He can taste the salty brine, see the murky green darkness, followed by that different darkness. Waiting for that different darkness-a minute? five minutes?-would be the hard part.

The ferry enters deeper waters. It's a hundred feet down out here, he read that once. He knows what a hundred feet of darkness will feel like. The tunnel beneath Eastern State. And Meadowport Arch. He feels himself floating down, down. His body might never be found. There will be a victory in that.

He starts to climb the railing. Now he looks up. The Statue of Liberty. So beautiful. He looks at her feet. He never noticed before that she's stepping out of leg-irons. How has he never noticed this until now? He looks and looks and suddenly shoots out his arm and raises his hand to the statue. I get it, he shouts, smiling. I get it, honey.

He climbs down, pushes himself away from the wooden rail.

I get it.

Photographer drives onto the ferry. As soon as the Polara comes to a stop Sutton steps out, limps to the rail, looks eagerly at the water. He points. Look, he says. There she is. Jesus, isn't she beautiful?

Photographer wipes the mist off his lens, shoots Sutton pointing at the statue.

Did you know, boys, that island where she stands used to be a prison?

Is that true? Photographer says. That can't be true.

The morning after I broke out, I got to this point and I was on the verge of despair. No, not the verge. I despaired. Right here. I tell you, I was two seconds from jumping. But she told me not to.

She? Told?

Sutton faces Reporter. She talks kid. She's the patron saint of prisoners and she ordered me to keep going. I know it's cornball and square these days to love the Statue of Liberty. It's like loving U.S. Steel or Bing Crosby. But we don't choose who we love. Or what. And that morning I fell for her. No other way to say it. I knew her, and she knew me. Inside out.

After fifteen minutes the ferry slows, floats toward the pier on Staten Island. A ferryman, wearing a Santa hat, emerges from the pilothouse. All ash.o.r.e, all ash.o.r.e.

Reporter and Photographer climb back into the Polara. They wait for Sutton, who reluctantly follows.

Photographer drives slowly off the ferry. A one-legged seagull stands in the way. Photographer honks. The bird scowls, hops off.

We're looking for Victory Boulevard, Reporter says. Mr. Sutton, you remember the way?

Silence.

Mr. Sutton?

Reporter turns. Sutton is grazing in the donut box, his mouth smeared with Bavarian cream and jelly. Jesus, Sutton says, these donuts are the best thing I've ever tasted. I never had such a sweet tooth in my life.

They pa.s.s block after block of tiny houses, identical, each one with barred windows, an American flag, a lawn Santa or reindeer. Photographer looks at Sutton in the rearview. Willie, brother, you walked all this way? On no sleep, no food? Wearing a prison uniform? Seems impossible.

I keep telling you boys, it was.

They turn up a hill, around a bend. They see a deep woods, then the faint outlines of ma.s.sive brick buildings, dozens of them. Drawing closer they see that most of the buildings are covered with graffiti. Trees grow through their roofs and gla.s.sless windows.

Whoa, Photographer says. Ghost town.