Sutton. J. Moehringer R.

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СКАЧАТЬ backseat. Was the homeless problem bad before you went to prison, Mr. Sutton?

      Nah. Because we didn’t call them homeless. We called them beggars. Then bums. I should know. When I was your age, I was one.

      Hey Willie, Photographer says, if you’re hungry, man, I bought donuts. In that box on the seat.

      Sutton opens the pink box. An assortment. Glazed, sugar, jelly, crullers. Thanks kid.

      Help yourself. I bought enough for everybody.

      Maybe later.

      Donuts are my weakness.

      You’d have loved Capone.

      Why’s that?

      Al used to hand out donuts to the poor during the Depression. He was the first gangster who gave any thought to public relations.

      Is that so?

      That was the rap against him anyway, that it was all for show. I met him once at a nightclub, asked him about it. He said he didn’t give a shit about PR. He just didn’t like seeing people go hungry.

      Sutton feels a burst of pain in his leg. It flies up his side, lands just behind his eyeballs. He lets his head fall back. Eventually he’s going to have to ask these boys to stop at a drugstore. Or a hospital.

      So, Photographer says. Willie, my brother—how does it feel to be free?

      Sutton lifts his head. Like a dream, he says.

      I’ll bet.

      Photographer waits for Sutton to elaborate. Sutton doesn’t.

      And how did you spend your first night of freedom?

      Sutton exhales. You know. Thinking.

      Photographer guffaws. He looks at Reporter. No reaction. Then back at Sutton’s reflection. Thinking?

      Yeah.

       Thinking?

      That’s right.

      You didn’t get enough time in prison to think?

      In the joint, kid, thinking is the one thing you can’t let yourself do.

      Photographer lights a cigarette. Sutton notices: Newport Menthol. Figures.

      Willie, Photographer says, if I was in prison for seventeen years, and they let me out, thinking is the last thing I’d do.

      I have no trouble believing that.

      Reporter starts to laugh, pretends it’s a cough.

      Photographer squints at Sutton in the rearview, runs two fingers down the stems of his Fu Manchu.

      Sutton sees signs for the tunnel. In a few minutes they’ll be in Brooklyn. Jesus—Brooklyn again. His heart beats faster. They pass a movie theater. They all look at the marquee. TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE. Reporter and Photographer shake their heads.

      What a coincidence, Photographer says.

      Of all the films to open this week, Reporter says. I’ll have to work that into my story.

      Sutton watches the marquee until it’s out of sight. Who plays Willie Boy? he asks.

      Robert Blake, Photographer says. I saw the coming attractions. It’s a Western. About a guy who kills his girlfriend’s father in self-defense, then goes on the run. There’s a huge manhunt for him, the largest in the history of the West—it’s based on a true story. Supposedly.

      They pass the corner of Broadway and Battery Place.

      Canyon of Heroes, Reporter shouts over his shoulder. Seems like, this year, we’ve had a ticker-tape parade along here every other week. The Jets, of course. The Mets. The astronauts.

      Isn’t it telling, Sutton says. When someone’s a hero, they shower him with little pieces of the stock market.

      Photographer laughs. You’re singing my song, Willie.

      Sutton sees some ticker tape still in the gutters. He sees another bum, this one curled in the fetal position. Bums lying in ticker tape, he says. They should put that on a postage stamp.

      I covered every one of those parades, Photographer says. Got beaucoup shots of Neil Armstrong. Cool guy. You’d think a guy that just walked on the moon would be stuck up. He’s not. He’s really—you know.

      Down to earth, Sutton says.

      Yeah.

      Sutton waits. One, two. Photographer slaps the wheel. I just got that, he says. Good one.

      Everyone praises Armstrong and Aldrin, Sutton says. But the real hero on that moon shot was the third guy, Mike Collins, the Irishman in the backseat.

      Actually, Reporter says, Collins was born in Rome.

      Photographer gawks at Sutton. Collins? He didn’t even set foot on the moon.

      Exactly. Collins was in the space capsule all alone. While his partners were down there collecting rocks, Collins was manning the wheel. Twenty-six times he circled the moon—solo. Imagine? He was completely out of radio contact. Couldn’t talk to his partners. Couldn’t talk to NASA. He was cut off from every living soul in the universe. If he panicked, if he fucked up, if he pushed the wrong button, he’d strand Armstrong and Aldrin. Or if they did something wrong, if their lunar car broke down, if they couldn’t restart the thing, if they couldn’t blast off and reconnect with Collins forty-five miles above the moon, he’d have to head back to earth all by himself. Leave his partners to die. Slowly running out of air. While watching earth in the distance. It was such a real possibility, Collins returning to earth by himself, that Nixon wrote up a speech to the nation. Collins—now that’s one stone-cold wheelman. That’s the guy you want sitting at the wheel of a gassed-up Ford while you’re inside a bank.

      Reporter looks searchingly in the backseat. Seems like you’ve given this a lot of thought, Mr. Sutton.

      In the joint I read everything I could get my hands on about the moon shot. The hacks even let us watch it on TV—in the middle of the day. A rare privilege. They put a set in D Yard. It was the first time I didn’t see black guys and white guys fighting over the TV. Everybody wanted to watch the moon landing. I think some of you people on the outside might have taken the whole thing for granted. But in the joint we couldn’t get enough of it.

      Why’s that?

      Because the moon shot is mankind’s ultimate escape. And because the astronauts were in one-sixth gravity. In the joint you feel like gravity is six times stronger.

      The car windows are fogging. Sutton wipes the window to his right and looks at the sky. He thinks of the astronauts returning from the moon—250,000 miles. Attica is at least that far away. He lights a Chesterfield. Some nerve, he thinks, identifying with astronauts. But he can’t help it. Maybe it’s that setup in a space capsule—two in front, one in back, like every getaway car he’s ever ridden СКАЧАТЬ