LITMIR.BIZ

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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 in. Also, he’d never say it out loud, not if you hung him up by his thumbs, but he sees himself as a hero. If he’s not, why are these boys chauffeuring him through the Canyon of Heroes?

      Canyon of Antiheroes.

      What’s that, Mr. Sutton?

      Nothing. Did you boys know, after the three astronauts returned, Collins got a letter from the only man who understood how completely alone he’d been? Charles Lindbergh.

      Is that true?

      They enter the tunnel, drive slowly under the river. The cab of the Polara goes dark, except for the dash and Sutton’s glowing cigarette. Sutton closes his eyes. This river. So full of memories. And evidence. Guns, knives, costumes, license plates from getaway cars. He used to hammer the plates into tiny squares the size of matchbooks before dropping them in the water. And former associates—this river was the last thing they saw. Or felt. We’re here, Reporter says.

      Sutton opens his eyes. Did he doze off? Must have—his cigarette is out. He looks through the fogged windows. A lifeless corner. Alien, lunar. This can’t be it. He looks at the street sign. Gold Street. This is it.

      You committed a crime here, Mr. Sutton?

      Sort of. I was born here.

      He wasn’t born, Daddo always said—he escaped. Two months early, umbilical cord noosed around his neck, he should have died. But somehow, on June 30, 1901, William Francis Sutton Jr. emerged. Now, emerging from the Polara, he steps gingerly onto the curb. The Actor has landed, he says under his breath.

      Down the street he goes, dragging his bad leg. Reporter, jumping out of the Polara, flipping open his notebook, follows. Mr. Sutton, is your family—um—still?

      Nah. Everyone’s a fine dust. Wait, that’s not true, I have a sister in Florida.

      Sutton looks around. He turns in a full circle. It’s all different. Even the light is different. Who would have thought something so basic, so elemental as light could change so much? But Brooklyn sixty years ago, with its elevated tracks, its ubiquitous clotheslines, was a world of dense and various shadows, and the light by contrast was always blinding.

      No more.

      At least the air tastes familiar. Like a dishrag soaked in river water. The energy feels the same too. Which may be why Sutton now hears voices. There were so many voices back then, all talking at once. Everyone was always calling to you, yelling at you, hollering down from a fire escape or terrace—and they all sounded angry. There was no such thing as conversation. Life was one long argument. Which nobody ever won.

      Reporter and Photographer stand before Sutton, concerned looks on their faces. He sees them talking to him but he can’t hear. They’re drowned out by the voices. Old voices, loud voices, dead voices. Now he hears the trolleys. Night and day that ceaseless rattling is what makes Brooklyn Brooklyn. Let’s take the rattler to Coney Island, Eddie always says. Of course Eddie is long gone, and there is no rattling, so what is Sutton hearing? He puts a hand over his mouth. What’s happening? Is it the champagne? Is it the leg—a clot rattling toward

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