Part 13 (1/2)

Goodbye, Willie. And good luck.

Sutton: Did you boys know that when the astronauts got back, and they were under quarantine, someone broke into the building where they were housed and stole the safe full of their moon rocks?

Reporter: I did see that in the paper, yes.

Sutton: Stealing the moon. That's what I call a heist.

Reporter: Did anything particular bring that to mind, Mr. Sutton?

Sutton: No.

Reporter: Mr. Sutton, your handwriting is just, wow. This map. Um. As best I can tell, our next stop is the middle of-Meadowlark's a.s.s?

Sutton: Meadowport Arch.

Reporter: Oh. Yes. That would make more sense.

Bess tells her parents that she's going to meet her girlfriends and instead she meets Willie at Meadowport Arch. Set at the edge of Long Meadow, the arch leads to a hundred-foot-long tunnel with a vaulted ceiling and walls made of pungent cedar. Our tunnel of love, Willie calls it. Our moors, Bess says. They spend hours and hours there, holding hands on a bench, making plans, listening to their plans reverberate.

If another couple, or racc.o.o.n, is already under the arch, they retreat to a different arch, the one in Grand Army Plaza. They huddle among the statues of Ulysses Grant, Abraham Lincoln-and Alexander Skene?

Who in the world? Bess says.

Willie reads the inscription. Says here, Alexander Skene was a renowned-gynecologist?

How that makes them laugh.

They talk obsessively about what life would be like if they had complete privacy, if they could be alone whenever and wherever they wanted.

I'd let you put it in me, Bess says.

Bess.

I would, Willie. If we could be alone, I'd let you do whatever you want.

Whatever you want. The phrase runs through Willie's mind night and day.

If it's raining or snowing they meet Eddie and Happy at Finn McCool's, a bucket of blood with a picture of Ben Bulben over the bar. The barkeep knows they're underage and doesn't care. He's an old cuss in a gray felt hat and canary yellow suspenders who believes that if you can pay, you can drink. He also believes that opening an umbrella indoors causes years of bad luck. Every time a customer opens an umbrella the barkeep turns three times in a circle, then spits on the ground, to head off the jinx. Bess opens her umbrella several times a night just to see him do it. It makes Eddie and Happy howl. One hundred years from now, Willie thinks, we'll all be able to recall the sight of Bess at the bar, twirling her umbrella, taunting the barkeep. And fate.

At the end of January 1919, Eddie and Happy sit at the bar while Willie and Bess stand before them, lamenting their situation. Happy smirks. The Romeo and Juliet of Brooklyn, he says.

We're not Romeo and Juliet, Bess says. Willie's family isn't against me.

They're just against him, Happy says.

Knock off the Romeo-Juliet talk, Willie says. They die at the end.

At least their families build statues to them, Bess says. Like Alexander Skene.

She laughs. Willie doesn't.

Eddie insists there are solutions. You two kids should just elope, he says.

Bess gasps. She looks at Willie, joyful, expectant. He sees twice the number of golden flecks in her blue eyes. He shakes his head. Bess, honey, where would we go? How would we live?

She has no answer. Sullen, she lets the subject drop.

But she brings it up again the next night at Meadowport. She has an idea, she says. Her father's s.h.i.+pyard. They can break open the safe. Then they can run off, anywhere they want, and they'll have enough to live on for years.

Willie wonders if she's testing him. Maybe at her father's suggestion. See how he reacts. See if the boy has a pure heart-or an Irish heart. Willie tells Bess he's not about to commit grand larceny. She says it's not larceny. That money is her dowry.

He waves her off. Out of the question, he says.

Bess raises the idea the next night, and the next. She says they have no choice. Her father suspects that they're still seeing each other-he's threatening to send her to Germany to live with his family until their romance dies. The thought horrifies Willie, but he still can't agree to commit such a bold crime.

But why not, she says.

No. I just couldn't. No.

Finally, February 1, 1919. Bess loses all patience. Well! she says. If I don't mean enough for you to stand up to my father- You don't want me to stand up to your father. You want me to rob him.

She blanches. He pulls away. Then quickly apologizes. She leans against the wall of Meadowport. Look what this is doing to us, she says. Oh Willie.

He takes her in his arms. Ah Bess. She puts her hand on his cheek, his lips. Willie, I don't know what I'll do if he sends me away. Please don't let him send me away from you.

Later that night Willie calls a summit. In a booth at McCool's he puts the case before Eddie and Happy.

Looks plain and simple to me, Happy says.

Me too, Eddie says. Either you clean out the safe or you lose her, boy.

You ready to lose her? Happy says.

I'll die, Happy. I swear I'll die.

The old man has brought this on himself, Eddie says. He could've welcomed you into the family. He could've given you a job. What can you expect from a friend of Rockefeller? f.u.c.k him, I say.

Will you help me, fellas? I can't do it alone. I'll cut you in, make it worth your while. You'll only be out of town a few days. A week tops.

Eddie would love to help but he's landed a part-time job. As a driller, alongside his old man. Twenty a week-he can't walk away from that kind of dough. Willie understands. He turns to Happy, who takes a long drink of beer and snaps a salute: You can count on me, Willie.

We have to move fast, Willie says.

How fast?

Tomorrow. It's the day before payroll. Bess says the safe will be stuffed with cash.

Sutton steps into Meadowport, followed by Reporter and Photographer. The cedar walls are covered with graffiti. Photographer lights a Zippo, holds it aloft.

Sutton reads. f.u.c.k the Pigs. Nixon Equals Stalin.