SIT UP ALL night, a gas lamp between them, going over the family account book. Mother asks, What will we do? Father says nothing. But it’s the way he says nothing.
First it was those newfangled bicycles everywhere, now it’s these accursed motorcars. Not long ago people said the motorcar was a fad. Now everyone agrees it’s here to stay. Newspapers are filled with ads for the latest, shiniest models. New roads are going in all over the city. The fire department has already switched to horseless hose trucks. All of which means hard times for blacksmiths.
The summer of 1914. Despite his troubles at home, despite running the streets with Eddie and Happy, Willie manages to graduate from grammar school at the top of his class. There’s no thought of high school, however. The day after he gets his diploma he gets his working papers. His mother’s dream of him in priest robes gets shelved. His own dreams are never mentioned. He needs to get a job, needs to help his family stay afloat.
But it’s hard times for more than just blacksmiths. America is mired in a Depression, the second of Willie’s young life. Willie applies at the riverside factories, the downtown offices, the dry goods stores and clothing shops and lunch counters. He’s bright, presentable, many people know and admire Father. But Willie has no experience, no skills, and for every available job he’s competing with hundreds. He reads in the newspapers that crowds of unemployed are surging through Manhattan, demanding work. Other cities too. In Chicago the crowds are so unruly, cops fire on them.
Daddo asks Willie to read him the newspapers. Strikes, riots, unrest—after half an hour Daddo asks him to stop. He mutters into the potato sack curtains:
Feckin world is ending.
To save money the Suttons quit Irish Town, move to a smaller apartment near Prospect Park. They have so little, the move takes only one trip in a horse-drawn van. Then Father lays off his apprentice. Despite slower business, despite an arthritic back and aching shoulders, Father now puts in longer hours, which aggravates his back and shoulders. Mother talks to Daddo about what they’ll do when Father can’t get out of bed in the morning. They’ll be on the street.
Father asks Willie to join him at the shop. Big Brother, thrown out of the Army, is helping too. I don’t think I’m cut out for blacksmithing, Willie says. Father looks at Willie, hard, not with anger, but bewilderment. As if Willie is a stranger. I know the feeling, Willie wants to say.
After a day of shapeouts, interviews, submitting applications that will never be read, Willie runs back to the old neighborhood. Eddie and Happy can’t find jobs either. The boys seek relief from the rising temperatures and their receding futures in the East River. To get in a few clean strokes they have to push away inner tubes, lettuce heads, orange rinds, mattresses. They also have to dodge garbage scows, tugboats, barges, corpses—the river claims a new victim every week. And yet the boys don’t mind. No matter how slimy, or fishy, or deadly, the river is sacred. The one place they feel welcome. In their element.
The boys often dare each other to touch the sludgy bottom. More than once they nearly drown in the attempt. It’s a foolish game, like pearl diving with no hope of a pearl, but each is afraid to admit he’s afraid. Then Eddie ups the ante, suggests a race across. Perched like seagulls atop the warped pilings of an abandoned pier, they look through the summer haze at the skyline.
What if we cramp up, Happy says.
What if, Eddie says with a sneer.
The mermaids will save us, Willie mumbles.
Mermaids? Happy says.
My Daddo says every body of water has a mermaid or two.
Our only hope of getting laid, Eddie says.
Speak for yourself, Happy says.
Willie shrugs. What the hell have we got to lose?
Our lives, Happy mumbles.
Like I said.
They dive. Tracing the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge they reach Manhattan in twenty-six minutes. Eddie is first, followed by Happy, then Willie. Willie would have been first, but he slowed halfway and briefly toyed with the idea of letting go, sinking forever to the bottom. They stand on the dock, dripping, gasping, laughing with pride.
Now comes the problem of getting back. Eddie wants to swim. Willie and Happy roll their eyes. We’re walking, Ed.
Willie’s first time on the Brooklyn Bridge. Those cables, those Gothic brick arches—beautiful. Daddo says men died building this bridge. The arches are their headstones. Willie thinks they died for a good cause. Daddo also says this bridge, when first opened, terrified people. It was too big, no one thought it would stay up. Barnum had to walk a herd of elephants across to prove that it was safe. Part of Willie is still terrified. Not by the size, but the height. He doesn’t like heights. It’s not a fear of falling so much as a queasiness at seeing the world from above. Especially Manhattan. The big city is intimidating enough across the river. From up here it’s too much. Too magical, too desirable, too mythically beautiful, like the women in Photoplay. He wants it. He hates it. He longs to conquer it, capture it, keep it all to himself. He’d like to burn it to the ground.
The bird’s-eye view of Irish Town is still more unsettling. From the apex of the bridge it looks slummier, meaner. Willie scans the chimneys, the ledges, the grimed windows and mudded streets. Even if you leave, you never escape.
We should take the BQE, Photographer says.
No, Reporter says, stay on surface streets.
Why?
Buildings, stores, statues—there’s stuff on the streets that might jog Mr. Sutton’s memory.
While Reporter and Photographer debate the best route to their next stop, Thirteenth Street, Sutton rests his eyes. He feels the car stop short. He opens his eyes. Red light.
He rolls his head to the right. Tumbledown stores, each one new, unfamiliar. Is this really Brooklyn? It might as well be Bangkok. Where there used to be a bar and grill, there’s now a record store. Where there used to be a record store, there’s now a clothing store. How many nights, lying in his cell, did Sutton mentally walk the old Brooklyn? Now it’s gone, all gone. The old neighborhoods were just cardboard sets and paper scenery, which someone casually struck and carted off. Then again, one thing never changes. None of these stores looks to be hiring.
What’s that, Mr. Sutton?
Nothing.
Sutton sees an electronics store. Dozens of TVs in the front window.
Stop the car, stop the car.
Photographer looks left, right. We are stopped. We’re at a red light, Willie.
Sutton opens the door. The sidewalk is covered with patches of frozen snow. He steps carefully toward the electronics store. On every TV it’s—Willie Sutton. Last night. Walking out of Attica. But it’s also not him. It’s Father. And Mother. He hadn’t realized how much his face has come to look like them both.
Sutton presses his nose against the window, cups his hands around his eyes. On a few screens closer to the window is President Nixon. A recent news conference.
