Rocky’s blanket is flying around my legs. I wind the blanket around my hand as I run, keep running. Don’t trip. Don’t stop.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” somebody yells behind me.
But I’m not stopping. Not answering. I’ve got Rocky in my arms, I’m not going to look at him, I can’t look at him. He’s too quiet, too still. I’m afraid of what I’ll see. Something is wrong with this baby. Really wrong like he might die. He can’t die.
The hill is steep, the air is thick, my lungs are bursting. Past the switchback. The water tower. Gulls scatter out of my way.
“The back way! Go the back way!” someone yells.
“How do I get in?” The words come choking out of my mouth. I hear them as if someone else has said them. I’ve seen Doc Ollie go into the cell house here. But how can I get in?
Somebody’s there now. Up ahead. Somebody will help me. A baby can’t die while I’m holding him.
“Moose!” My dad’s voice, then Mr. Mattaman’s. Somebody else’s too. They rush toward me and sweep me through the entrance. One, two, three doors open. Stairs appear. I can’t stop running, don’t stop, don’t let go.
There are walls made of bars. The smell of bandages. More bars.
And then I see him. The big round gray-haired man in his clean white uniform. “Doc Ollie!” I gasp. “He’s not breathing.”
In the narrow hospital room, Doc takes Rocky from me. He flips him on his back on the narrow cot.
“Jimmy said he may have swallowed something. That right?” Doc Ollie asks.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
I shake my head, gasping, doubled over from the pain in my side. “I dunno.”
Doc Ollie props open Rocky’s jaws with a bent tongue depressor.
“I didn’t see,” I wheeze. “I think Theresa gave him something… to play with.”
Doc Ollie flips down the silver magnifier on his head. He looks in Rocky’s throat, takes a long pair of silver forceps, and gently pulls Rocky’s propped-open mouth toward him.
Ollie cocks Rocky’s chin this way and that, then firmly brings the forceps down his gullet, wiggles them slightly, his eye squinting in the magnifier. “Okay, okay, don’t move now, little guy, don’t move. Just a little, yes!” He pulls the forceps out and Rocky begins to howl.
“Woo.” Doc Ollie rocks back on his heels, lets out a huge sigh. Then he opens his hand and shows us one shiny Lincoln head penny. “Here’s the culprit, right here.”
9. THAT YOUR BOY, BOSS?
Same day-Thursday, August 15, 1935
Mr. Mattaman is holding his baby son as gently as he can while Rocky howls.
“That’s okay, little feller. You go ahead and give us heck.” Doc Ollie smiles his big reliable smile. “It’s when they don’t yell you worry. Gonna have a mighty big sore throat. Don’t suppose it’s fun having those forceps stuck down a tiny larynx like that. Would have had the right size on hand, if I’d a known you was coming.”
Rocky’s hollering so loud I bet they can hear him clear over on Angel Island. His little face is red as a comic book devil.
“He sure didn’t like that,” my dad says. “Can’t say I blame him.”
I’m making agreeing noises but I’m hardly listening to what he’s saying, because it’s suddenly occurred to me… I’m standing inside the cell house hospital!
Two long rows of cells mirror each other. Our cell has been converted to Doc Ollie’s office with clear canisters filled with syringes, cotton balls, wooden sticks. Slings hang from a hook, a wheelchair with a cane seat is parked in the corner, and crutches of different sizes lean against the wall.
“Poor little guy, he’s mad as a hornet. I’m gonna give him a little whiskey and milk. Let him sleep it off,” Ollie says as he searches through a glass-faced cabinet.
“Thanks, Ollie.” Mr. Mattaman steals a glance up from his baby son. His voice is steady, but his chin is puckered from all he’s holding back.
Doc Ollie pats my shoulder with his big soft hand. “Good work there, son. Hives didn’t slow you down any I’m glad to see. That salve help?”
I’m too stunned to do much else but nod, although the answer is no.
“ Cam…” Ollie tips his head, like he’s pointing with it out the door. “You reckon this boy of yours deserves a little treat?”
My dad holds the cell door open. “Ollie thinks I should give you a tour.”
“A tour of the cell house?”
He half laughs at this. “Not the cell house, no sir. If I took you down Broadway Warden Williams would give me my walking papers.”
Broadway is what they call the center row of the cell house. Even the littlest kid on Alcatraz knows this. Janet Trixle’s fairy prison has a Broadway too.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own little surprise.” My dad smiles now, clearly pleased with himself.
I follow my father down the hospital corridor with cells on one side and cells on the other. Each one is painted mint green with four cots scooted against the walls or side by side in the center. It smells vaguely of shoe polish and bleach and something acid like pee. The cells are all empty at first, then, as we walk deeper into the building, I see men sitting on beds, hanging against the bars, all of them wearing prison blue shirts, all of them watching me.
They’re the ones in prison, but I’m the one being stared at like a zoo animal. I don’t like this.
My father stops near the bars of a cell on the west side. Just one man in this cell, a big beefy guy with dark black hair, dark eyes, a round face, big lips, and the kind of smile that makes you like him without thinking twice about it. He’s got shoe polish and a buffing rag on his bed along with a pair of shiny black guard’s shoes.
The man stands up and sticks his pudgy hand through the bars. In the shadow of his left side a jagged line cuts across his face-a scar. “That your boy, boss?” he asks.
My father nods. “Moose, meet Al Capone.”
I take hold of Capone’s hand. His handshake is firm, solid, trustworthy. I squeeze his hand with more strength than I planned. My mouth opens. “Thank you” pops out. As soon as the words hit my ears, the temperature in my face rises.
Capone smiles his broad, warm smile and chuckles deep in his throat. “He’s thanking me, boss.”
My father frowns. “Say hello, Moose.”
“Hello,” I parrot like I’m Natalie.
Capone angles his chin in the direction of Doc Ollie’s office. “I heard you brought the Mattaman baby in. He doin’ okay?”
“Looks that way.” My father points his toothpick toward the shoes. “Who you doin’ those for?”
“Officer Trixle,” Capone says. “Got me a special touch. You know that.”
My father snorts his disapproval.
“They like to tell people their shoes been shined up all nice by me. Looks like yours need some shining there, boss. Could do your boy’s too.” Capone winks at me.
“No thanks,” my father answers.
Capone seems to take this in. “They gonna give me a roommate in here, boss?”
“Wouldn’t know ’bout that.”
“Just as soon be on my own. One or two guys don’t like me too much.”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Depends on who’s sick,” my father says.
“Is that so?” Capone stares hard at my dad. “Seems to me a man’s got as much power as he can wrap his mind around.”
“Is that how it seems to you?”
“You bet. And I’ve done good for myself. I don’t mind saying.”
“Until now.”
Capone chuckles. “Minor setback. Now your boy here… he don’t know his own strength, but he sure can keep his head on straight when the pressure is on.” He points at me with his big beefy hand. “When I get out, you look me up. I got a job waiting for you.”