93 pages • 3 hours read
Al Capone Does My Shirts
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BetaChapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part One
Chapter 13 Summary: One-Woman Commando Unit
Wednesday, January 9, 1935
Helen happily tells Moose that she met with Carrie Kelly, who insisted they take one of Natalie’s comfort objects—a button box—away from her so she has “no more counting […] no more obsessions” (81). Helen has bought into Mrs. Kelly’s new tough-love approach, agreeing that Natalie’s fixations “get in Natalie’s way” and that the Flanagans are wrong to indulge her: “If Natalie’s going to change, we have to change first’” (81). Moose takes offence to this statement, disliking the idea that the family is to blame for Natalie’s disability. He bristles at Mrs. Kelly idea that Natalie is “not supposed to do anything she actually likes to do” (81). Helen also asks Moose if he can look after Natalie after school because she is going to teach piano to a few students in order to earn more money. Mrs. Kelly advises them that Moose should take Natalie wherever he goes like a normal sister. Moose’s mom tells him: “We need to help Natalie join the human race” (83).
However, Moose remembers that he plays baseball and can’t commit to looking after Natalie on certain days. His mother asks him to ask Scout if they can change the days they play baseball. Moose protests that he barely knows the team, which makes it awkward to ask them to change things just for him. But eventually he obeys his mother because his “mom is like a one-woman commando unit” (85).
Chapter 14 Summary: Al Capone’s Baseball
Same day—Wednesday, January 9, 1935
Before class, Moose approaches Scout to ask if they can play on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. At first, Scout doesn’t budge. Moose tells him the partial truth—his mother teaches piano on Mondays, and he has to look after his sister, though “I leave out the part about my sister being older than me and nutty as a fruitcake” (87). Scout jokes that maybe they should play baseball on Alcatraz, near where the prisoners play—he’s heard from Piper that’s the convicts’ favorite pastime. They talk about Al Capone being a first baseman and the possibility of Moose getting a convict’s baseball, one of the ones that accidentally make it over the prison yard wall. Moose promises to show Scout if he ever gets one, free of charge.
Chapter 15 Summary: Looking for Scarface
Thursday, January 10, 2015
Annie and Moose decide to meet on the parade grounds, where Annie will show him “some secret spot to watch the convicts walk up to the cell house at four o’clock” (90). When Moose gets home, he sees that his mother is ready to leave and that Natalie is clearly agitated, pacing the room. Moose’s mother leaves him in charge of Natalie. Since it is a hot day, she has changed into her bathing suit. Moose knows Natalie cannot wear that around the prison, so he tries to convince her to put her dress back on, but she strips down naked instead. He manages to convince her to get dressed by promising to take her swimming later.
Moose and Natalie meet up with Piper and Annie. They follow Piper to a chain-link fence and she proceeds to open it with a key. They need to position themselves near a guard tower so they can get a good look at the convicts as they walk back. Twice Moose asks if the convicts will be able to see them. He refuses to go as close as Piper and Annie do, so when the men march through, he does not get a very good view. Meanwhile, Natalie is completely disinterested, and spends the time organizing dirt into little piles.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
There is a tension between Helen’s determination to make Natalie “normal”—a desire based on her frustration with Natalie’s condition with the advice offered by Mrs. Kelly—and Moose’s gut instinct that “it’s kinda mean, taking her buttons away” (91) and not allowing Natalie to do anything she enjoys. Unlike his mother, Moose has accepted Natalie as she is, which allows him both to tolerate the ways her behavior deviates from neurotypical and to convince Natalie to do things like get dressed appropriately. He is more interested in keeping Natalie happy as she is, rather than finding new methods to “improve” her.
Despite the influence of his peers, Moose has not let go his sense of the Alcatraz prisoners as people rather than mere objects of curiosity. When Scout jokes about playing baseball with the convicted men, Moose is uncomfortable with Scout’s fascination—though he does offer to show Scout a prisoner-game baseball if he ever comes across one. Moose is also the only one who worries that when the island kids go to gawk at the prisoners, the prisoners will be able to see them in turn. His hesitation to go as close to the convicts as Piper and Annie do comes from fear—he wants to keep Natalie safe—and from the awareness of the men’s inner lives. Unlike Piper and Annie, Moose has spent his whole life reading the inner life of a person whose emotional state isn’t always clear, so he is much more acutely aware of the fact that those around him have internal feelings and thoughts.
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