Free Sutton by J. R. Moehringer

sheep. Look how he double-crosses his buddies.
    He’s just a sheep, Ed. Or a goat.
    Eddie punches his palm. Nah, nah, that rat knows what he’s doin.
    A few nights later Eddie rousts Willie and Happy from their beds and drags them down to the slaughterhouse. He jimmies the lock on the door to the loading dock and leads them into the filthy pens where the river barges unload the animals. In a far corner they find the black Judas sheep lying on its side. The sleep of the innocent, Eddie says, grabbing a board and giving the sheep a whack on the head. Blood goes everywhere. It spurts into Willie’s eyes and sprays the front of Happy’s white shirt. The sheep scrambles to its feet and tries to run. Eddie chases. Come here, you. He swings the board like a baseball bat, hits the sheep on the backside. Where you think you’re going? He gives the sheep another whack, and another. When the sheep is down, Eddie leaps on it, puts a tourniquet around the fleecy neck. Happy holds the kicking legs while Eddie slowly tightens.
    Sutty, grab that board, give him one.
    No.
    Willie could never hurt a defenseless animal. Even an animal that rats out other animals. Besides, the sight of Eddie and Happy holding down the Judas sheep reminds Willie of his brothers. I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks . Willie keeps his distance, though he doesn’t look away. He can’t. He watches Eddie and Happy torment the sheep, watches Eddie pull out a knife and stab it and stab it until the frantic baaa becomes a pathetic ba . Eddie and Happy are his best friends, but maybe he didn’t know them until now. Maybe he’ll never know them. He watches them laugh at the sheep’s lacquered black eyes going white, then pearly gray. He closes his own eyes. Tattletale gray.
    Sutton paces up and down Hudson Street. He inhales deeply through his nose. Wet hide, offal, blood. Smell that, boys? Somehow that stench didn’t bother us as kids .
    I don’t smell anything, Photographer says to Reporter .
    Sutton points to his feet. Daddo said Eddie had the devil in him—I found out on this spot what that meant. Eddie’s first kill .
    Now we’re talking, Photographer says, pushing Reporter out of the way, shooting as Sutton points to the ground .
    Reporter sets down his briefcase, clicks it open, pulls out a stack of files .
    What are those? Sutton asks .
    The newspaper’s Willie Sutton files. Some of them anyway. There’s an entire drawer devoted to you, Mr. Sutton. You mentioned your grandfather. I saw him in one of these files. Was he the actor?
    No. The actor was my father’s father. Back in Ireland. They say he knew most of Shakespeare by heart. I’m talking about my mother’s father .
    Photographer keeps shooting. But who got killed here, brother?
    A sheep, Sutton says .
    Photographer stops, lowers his camera. A what?
    There was a slaughterhouse here. I used to come with my best friends, Eddie and Happy. One night they killed a sheep. Or a goat pretending to be a sheep .
    Why?
    It ratted on the other sheep .
    Photographer rests his camera on his hip. The sheep ratted, he says to Reporter. You hearing this?
    Mr. Sutton, you mentioned Eddie. Do you mean Edward Buster Wilson? With whom you were arrested in 1923?
    Yeah .
    In this one clip, the judge said you were like outlaws in the Old West .
    Nah, the judge said that about me and another guy. But it was sure true of me and Eddie .
    Reporter flips open a file. Okay. Here we go—Sutton and Wilson. Unlawful entry, armed robbery .
    Sounds about right, Sutton says .
    And Happy—now, Mr. Sutton, is that William Happy Johnston? With whom you were arrested in 1919?
    The same .
    Burglary. Larceny .
    Good old Happy .
    Kidnapping. Wait—kidnapping?
    You had to be there, Sutton says. You had to know Happy. Not that anybody really knew Happy. Not that anybody fuckin knows anybody .
    Who did you and Happy kidnap?
    Chronological order kid .

FIVE
    As Willie listens from the hall, Father