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.
