8.
ICEBOX FLY
Thursday, August 15, 1935
My hives are breeding with each other, merging, enlarging, engorging.
The salve is no help. It may even make them worse. The ones on my ankle are driving me nuts. I’ve scratched right through my socks. I have them on my neck too, creeping closer to my face.
By the time Mae visits there will be no me left. Just one big hive.
What will happen if I get caught? What will Capone do to me if I refuse? Does he still command his own army of hit men? And if I decide to do this, how will I get the roses? The garden behind the warden’s house has flowers, but no roses. I checked. These are the questions that chase around inside my head.
My dad says when you worry too hard, it makes your mind cramp up into a little ball. The best thing is to forget about it. Get some exercise, give your brain a little breathing space.
What I need is baseball . . . and that means Annie.
On the way up to her apartment I plan what to say to convince her to play. But when I get to the Bominis’, she isn’t even there. “Moose.” Mrs. Bomini’s blue eyes are round like Annie’s, but in a smaller, older face. She leans out the door and practically sucks me into her apartment. “Come on in. I have two new needlepoint books. I know how you love to see my needlepoint. You’re the only boy I know who likes it.”
Likes needlepoint? The woman is out of her mind. How am I going to get out of this? Where is Annie?
Mrs. Bomini bears down on me like she’s drilling my feet to the floor. Before I know it I am sitting on the sofa with two needlepoint books on my lap and Mrs. Bomini’s veiny white hands pointing out one design after another.
She’s leaning so close, there’s no way to get away. Why does this always happen to me?
“Do you think that border is a little too busy?”
“Um, ma’am . . . is Annie around?”
“I sent her down to Bea’s to get a few things. But—” She beckons with her finger. “Annie doesn’t care for my needlepoint. She’s not like you, Moose. Now lookee here, what if I took off some of that blue. Or I could just do this one here?”
“The other one, ma’am, without the border.”
“Aren’t you a wonder, Moose!” She smiles at me, glowing with pleasure, and turns to another page, where there must be twenty designs marked. This is worse than reading my dad’s electrician manuals.
“Now this one, what do you think of this?” She is so close I can smell the tooth powder on her breath. “Such a big flower smack in front like that, I’m concerned it’s overpowering. I’m wondering if I might—”
Annie appears suddenly in the door, a bag of groceries in her hand. “Mom!” she snaps.
Mrs. Bomini’s head drops low on her shoulders. “Now, Annie . . . Moose likes this, don’t you, Moose?” Mrs. Bomini puts her finger to her lips. “It’s our little secret, isn’t it, Moose?” She giggles.
Annie puts the grocery bag down with a thud. “What’s your little secret, Mom?”
“Oh don’t you worry.” Mrs. Bomini flutters her finger at me. “My lips are sealed about . . . you know.”
Annie pulls the flour out of the bag, thumps it on the counter. “Let him get up, Mom.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake! If a girl can like baseball, surely a boy can like needlepoint.”
“Mom, let him up!” Annie barks.
“I have to talk to Annie, ma’am. It’s pretty important. Could we finish this later?”
Mrs. Bomini’s shoulders sink down, her mouth forms a little pout. “Oh all right,” she concedes. “But you bring him back, you hear?” She waggles her finger at Annie.
Annie races around the kitchen unpacking groceries, pouring the flour into the canister, and putting the milk in the icebox. After she’s done, she heads outside with me.
“Thanks,” I say when we’re safely out of earshot of her mom.
She snorts.
“I’ve been thinking,” I tell her. “You know that thing with Capone, you don’t need to worry about him. I’ve worked it out. It’s not a problem anymore.”
Her eyes move from side to side like she’s thinking about this. “Why not?”
“Because. I’ve taken care of it.”
“Which means?” She takes a deep breath and lets it out in one big burst.
“Because, Annie, please, oh please—” I get down on one knee.
Annie smiles a little at this. “You’re cute when you beg,” she says.
“Annie, I’ll do anything if you’ll just play.”
“You wanna come back with me?” She bites her lip to keep from laughing. “You know it’s okay for a boy to like needlepoint.” Annie does a whispered imitation of her mom.
“Anything except that.”
We both laugh. I think I’ve got her now, but when we stop laughing she walks the rest of the way up the stairs and back into #3H without another word.
Girls are impossible. Once they decide something, that’s it. Guys make deals, make compromises, make things work. Girls just make trouble.
I head down to the canteen to find Jimmy. He’s behind the counter, paging through Bea Trixle’s receipt book. He sees me and looks down again really quickly.
“Hey, Jimmy,” I say.
“Hi, Moose.” His voice is cool. He can’t still be mad about Scout and the baseball, can he?
Theresa is back in the corner with Baby Rocky on his blanket. Jimmy, Theresa, and the baby of the family, Rocky, all look alike: curly black licorice-colored hair, fair skin, and dark eyes. “We only make one model,” Mrs. Mattaman said right after Rocky was born. Theresa has her strange stuff on Alcatraz book out and she’s recording things in it.
I wonder where Janet Trixle is. I heard there was a new rule. Theresa is supposed to play with her when she’s down here. It’s Janet’s mom’s canteen, after all. But knowing Theresa, she’s figured a way to squirm out of it.
I get a vanilla soda out of the icebox and press my nickel into Jimmy’s hand.
He puts it in the cash box, without looking at me.
“Hey, Jimmy.” I close my mouth, not sure what to say now. “How are the flies?”
Jimmy’s eyes soften. “I got a new idea,” he says. “I’m freezing ‘em.”
“Frozen flies?”
“Then I can get a little leash and collar on them. And it will be like pet flies on a leash.”
“Won’t it kill them?”
“Jimmy, Rocky has a stinky!” Theresa interrupts, holding her nose. “And it’s your turn.”
“You bring a diapy?” Jimmy asks. “Like Mom said?”
Theresa shakes her head. “Maybe we could use toilet paper?”
“We can’t use toilet paper. Bea will charge us for it,” Jimmy tells Theresa. “You figure it out. I’m gonna show Moose the flies.”
Theresa sighs. Her face puckers up. “Rocky, oh come on, be quiet, will ya?” She kneels down to give Rocky a toy and pops out the door.
Jimmy opens the icebox and takes out a little box he made out of folded newspaper. It’s wet and cold on the bottom. Jimmy bends back a corner of the well-worn lid and I peek in, holding back the damp newspaper with my thumb.
“See, he’s still moving around too much. When they get a little colder, they go to sleep and you can slip the thread around their middles,” Jimmy explains. He shows me the tiny harness made out of red and yellow braided thread and demonstrates how he plans to slip the harness around the fly. “Trouble is, they die. That’s why I need so many.
“Five more minutes,” Jimmy decides, latching the icebox with the fly box safely inside as the canteen bell announces a new customer. Jimmy scurries back inside, Theresa right behind him. By the time I get there I see Piper drumming her fingers on the counter.
I take an unexpected gulp of air. I always forget how beautiful she is. Piper plunks her dime down. “Two root beers,” she says. “And when’s Scout coming back anyway?”
Scout. Does she have to ask about Scout?
Theresa hops behind the counter, takes the dime and inspects it. “Dime’s real,” she announces, plunking it in the cash register.
“Of course it’s real.” Piper takes the pop and uncaps it with the opener tied to the counter with a string. She takes a swig. I’m watching her. Staring at her, actually.
“Jiiiimmmmmmmmmmyyy!” Theresa screams, her voice high and twisted like she’s being strangled by invisible hands.
She’s standing over Rocky, who isn’t crying now. He isn’t making a sound. His eyes are panicky and his skin is almost blue. Why isn’t he moving?
Jimmy hops the potato bins, knocking over the Cream of Wheat. I’m right behind him, leaping the rolling cylinders of cereal.
“Rooockky! MOOOOOMMMMMMMEEEEEEEE!” Theresa screams.
Jimmy scoops Rocky up in his arms. “Oh jeepers! Doc Ollie! Moose! You’re fast. Run him up to Ollie’s! TAKE HIM! NOW!” Jimmy’s shaking me hard like I’ve fallen into a stupid sleep.
Piper jams in between us. “Me! Let me! I’m faster!”
“NO, NOOOOOOOOO!” Theresa pounces on Piper and shoves her against the wall.
Jimmy plunks Rocky in my arms. “Go!” he shouts in my ear. My legs take off.
“I think he swallowed it!” I hear Theresa shout.
The weight of Rocky is warm and heavy against my chest. The screen door slams behind me, ringing the canteen bell.
“MOOOOOMMMMMEEEE!” Theresa is still screaming, but her voice is falling off in the distance.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Jimmy outside Mrs. Caconi’s door, where the only phone for 64 building is located. Call Doc Ollie. The words float through my mind in a blur of my own pounding feet.
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.”