Free Sutton by J. R. Moehringer Page A

and Mother sit up all night, a gas lamp between them, going over the family account book. Mother asks, What will we do? Father says nothing. But it’s the way he says nothing.
    First it was those newfangled bicycles everywhere, now it’s these accursed motorcars. Not long ago people said the motorcar was a fad. Now everyone agrees it’s here to stay. Newspapers are filled with ads for the latest, shiniest models. New roads are going in all over the city. The fire department has already switched to horseless hose trucks. All of which means hard times for blacksmiths.
    The summer of 1914. Despite his troubles at home, despite running the streets with Eddie and Happy, Willie manages to graduate from grammar school at the top of his class. There’s no thought of high school, however. The day after he gets his diploma he gets his working papers. His mother’s dream of him in priest robes gets shelved. His own dreams are never mentioned. He needs to get a job, needs to help his family stay afloat.
    But it’s hard times for more than just blacksmiths. America is mired in a Depression, the second of Willie’s young life. Willie applies at the riverside factories, the downtown offices, the dry goods stores and clothing shops and lunch counters. He’s bright, presentable, many people know and admire Father. But Willie has no experience, no skills, and for every available job he’s competing with hundreds. He reads in the newspapers that crowds of unemployed are surging through Manhattan, demanding work. Other cities too. In Chicago the crowds are so unruly, cops fire on them.
    Daddo asks Willie to read him the newspapers. Strikes, riots, unrest—after half an hour Daddo asks him to stop. He mutters into the potato sack curtains:
    Feckin world is ending.
    To save money the Suttons quit Irish Town, move to a smaller apartment near Prospect Park. They have so little, the move takes only one trip in a horse-drawn van. Then Father lays off his apprentice. Despite slower business, despite an arthritic back and aching shoulders, Father now puts in longer hours, which aggravates his back and shoulders. Mother talks to Daddo about what they’ll do when Father can’t get out of bed in the morning. They’ll be on the street.
    Father asks Willie to join him at the shop. Big Brother, thrown out of the Army, is helping too. I don’t think I’m cut out for blacksmithing, Willie says. Father looks at Willie, hard, not with anger, but bewilderment. As if Willie is a stranger. I know the feeling, Willie wants to say.
    After a day of shapeouts, interviews, submitting applications that will never be read, Willie runs back to the old neighborhood. Eddie and Happy can’t find jobs either. The boys seek relief from the rising temperatures and their receding futures in the East River. To get in a few clean strokes they have to push away inner tubes, lettuce heads, orange rinds, mattresses. They also have to dodge garbage scows, tugboats, barges, corpses—the river claims a new victim every week. And yet the boys don’t mind. No matter how slimy, or fishy, or deadly, the river is sacred. The one place they feel welcome. In their element.
    The boys often dare each other to touch the sludgy bottom. More than once they nearly drown in the attempt. It’s a foolish game, like pearl diving with no hope of a pearl, but each is afraid to admit he’s afraid. Then Eddie ups the ante, suggests a race across. Perched like seagulls atop the warped pilings of an abandoned pier, they look through the summer haze at the skyline.
    What if we cramp up, Happy says.
    What if, Eddie says with a sneer.
    The mermaids will save us, Willie mumbles.
    Mermaids? Happy says.
    My Daddo says every body of water has a mermaid or two.
    Our only hope of getting laid, Eddie says.
    Speak for yourself, Happy says.
    Willie shrugs. What the hell have we got to lose?
    Our lives, Happy mumbles.
    Like I said.
    They dive. Tracing the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge they reach Manhattan