Small Mercies: A Novel

by Eddie Joyce

  The afternoon is quiet, only a handful of customers. At five o’clock, Enzo looks outside to make sure no one else is coming and then turns the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. Michael sweeps up while Enzo counts at the register. He licks his fingers between bills, counts out the change, checks the scraps of paper where he tracks his customers’ accounts on credit. He does some math on another scrap, concentrates while he’s adding. When he’s finished, he looks up at Michael and smiles.

  “Una buona giornata,” he says. “A good day.”

  * * *

  His parents are more chatty at dinner, their tongues loosened by a few glasses of Umberto’s wine. His mother asks about their day and Enzo re-creates, in meticulous detail, the not very exciting day they just experienced. Michael lived the day in English and now he has to relive in it in Italian. He inhales long strands of linguine coated with garlic and oil. He downs the glass of wine, asks to be excused. His parents look at him, then at each other, uncertain what to make of their son’s recent restlessness. He retreats to his bedroom even though the sun is still up. He was supposed to hang out with Tiny tonight, but Tiny is spending almost every night with his girlfriend Laura Gentile. Tiny is off to college in the fall and he has sworn to Michael that he is getting into Laura’s pants before he leaves. Michael wishes he had a girlfriend, had some goal to pursue, even something as basic as trying to get laid. He turns on the radio, lies on his bed. The Mets are playing the traitor Giants, Marichal is pitching. There’s no score yet.

  He misses baseball, misses football too. Being part of a team, the simple joy of camaraderie. The brothers he never had. That is all done now. There is no school to return to in the fall. No college lies in the distance. He was never a good student, but school was, at least, somewhere to go, something to do. And nothing made him feel the way sports did.

  He is eighteen years old and as far as he can tell, all his days going forward will be the same: the waking jab, the silent house, long days at his father’s shop, cutting up meat, coming home smelling of blood. Unless.

  Unless what? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have a plan, but he has blind hope. Maybe something will happen. Maybe a man will wander into the store, like the look of him, offer him a job. Maybe he can take another look at college, take some classes at night. Maybe he can help out coaching football at New Dorp in the fall. Maybe Lisa Villa will ask him to stop staring at her tits and just screw her already. He lets these hopes, vague and unformed and ridiculous, brighten his day’s final thoughts.

  But the next morning, his slumber is disrupted by a gentle jab of his shoulder. He slides to a sitting position. His hopes have vanished in the night, leaving a resigned emptiness in their wake.

  This is your life. This will be your life unless . . .

  Something happens. He draws a very low draft number. He’d considered enlisting—anything to get away from an endless line of buona giornatas—but the conflict in Vietnam, slowly escalating, made him hesitant. He’s doesn’t want to go, but he’s no dummy. He knows when something’s inevitable. He’s a working-class kid, 1A, no deferments to use, no evasive magic to conjure. His parents have no connections, no strings to pull. He figures it’s a matter of time anyway. He volunteers for the draft. In October 1964, a month before the Verrazano Bridge opens, he ships out to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for basic training.

  His first night there is the first night he’s ever slept off of Staten Island.

  * * *

  Down in the kitchen, Michael finds a freshly brewed pot of coffee. He pours himself a cup, sits down at the table. His entry sheet lies below an envelope filled with crumpled twenties. Gail has filled in a few. He picks it up, takes a sip of coffee, peruses her entries. She always has too many underdogs, too many high seeds making the Final Four. This year’s no different.

  Who’s he kidding? He’s never won the pool, never even come close. Doesn’t matter; it’s a tradition. Today’s little expedition—collecting all the entries from the Leaf, driving them over to Cody’s—is one of his favorite days of the year. Bobby used to come with him, the young pup hanging out with the old-timers. Franky would meet them at Cody’s. Peter could never get away from work, but Bobby would still collect his entries, call him when there was a sense of the total number. Two hundred thousand, half a million, seven hundred thousand. Up, up, up. Never mind the economy. The Cody’s pool was recession proof.

  Michael has a different plan this year. He’s going back to the way they used to do it, when the boys were kids, when the pool was just starting to spread across the Island. He and the boys would each pick one Final Four team. Then Gail would choose the winner and the final score. Only one entry for the whole family. They would watch the games together, the boys living and dying with every missed free throw, every sloppy turnover. As soon as one of their teams lost, the boys would be despondent, but Michael didn’t mind. He didn’t expect to win. The tradition—the ceremony—was what mattered. Relying on one another, everyone contributing. A team effort. They fell away from that over the years. They wanted to put in their own entries, put in a bunch of entries, increase their chances of winning.

  He likes the way they used to do it. And he’s thought of an added bonus: doing it this way will help keep Tina in the loop, part of the family. Tina can make Bobby’s pick. Or maybe she can have Bobby Jr. make it. Doesn’t matter. Gail told Michael last night about Tina’s new man. He’s happy for Tina, but he knows Gail’s worried about what it means. This is a way to ensure that Tina stays included in the family. It’s only a little thing, he knows that. But the ceremony means something. It’ll mean something to Tina and to Gail. They’ll understand.

  He looks down, inspecting the sheet. He’ll pick the first team, from the East bracket. He checks the high seeds: Ohio State, North Carolina, Syracuse, Kentucky. He’s never liked the coach at Syracuse. Too much of a whiner. He looks further down to see if there are any other Big East teams: Villanova’s a 9 seed, Marquette, an 11. Long shots. Hmm. Kentucky’s coach is an Italian. He’ll stick with the paesan. Kentucky it is. He enters his choice on the last line of the sheet, so he’ll know which one is the family entry.

  Peter always chose second. There’s no time to go see him, so he’ll call. He puts on his glasses. He picks up the house phone, realizes he has no idea what Peter’s number is. He looks around on the cork board that hangs near the fridge, finds a weathered slip of paper—“Peter’s office #” scribbled in Gail’s handwriting—tacked under a grocery list. He dials the number. A receptionist answers.

  “Peter Amendola’s office.”

  “Yeah, uhh, can I talk to Pete? It’s his father.”

  “Hold one moment.”

  The line goes quiet for a few seconds. When Peter picks up, his voice is sharp.

  “What’s wrong? Is Mom okay?”

  “What? No, Peter . . .”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Listen . . .”

  “Oh, Christ, what did he do now?”

  “Who?”

  “Franky.”

  “Franky didn’t do anything. Jesus Christ, Peter, calm down.”

  “I am calm. So everyone’s okay?”

  “Yes, why would you assume something was wrong?”

  He hears Peter exhale.

  “Dad, in all the time I’ve worked here, I think you’ve called me three times. One was when Grandpa died. The other was when Franky got arrested. This is the third.”

  “I don’t think that’s right.”

  “You’re right. You called me once from the Leaf to settle an argument about whether someone could sue the Interweb, as you put it.”

  “I think you’re forgetting other times.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What’s up?”

  “Listen, do you remember how we used to do the pool? I’d pick a team, then you’d pick a team, then Franky, then Bobby. Just the one entry. So I was thinking
that this year, we’d go back to that.”

  “To be clear, you’re calling me about the Cody’s pool?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dad, I don’t have time for this right now.”

  “Peter, I just need you to pick one team. It’ll take five seconds.”

  He looks down at the sheet.

  “You have the West regional.”

  “Just give me the one seed. I haven’t watched a game all year.”

  “But that’s Duke.”

  “So?”

  “We hate Duke.”

  “I don’t hate Duke.”

  “Well, Bobby did. You can’t pick Duke.”

  “Okay, Dad. Who’s the two seed?”

  “San Diego State.”

  “Jesus Christ, San Diego State? No way a team from San Diego makes the Final Four. Who’s the three seed?”

  “UConn.”

  “Fine, give me UConn. Big East team, been there before. Good coach.”

  Michael fills in the second entry.

  “Good. Thank you, Peter.”

  “Okay, Dad. Gotta run.”

  He starts to say good-bye, but Peter has already hung up. He puts the receiver back in its cradle. He inspects the sheet again: a 3 seed and a 4 seed. He will get Tina’s pick next, stop by their house on his way to the Leaf. And Franky’s pick on his way to Cody’s later.

  Was it possible that he’d only called Peter three times in fifteen years? Maybe. Gail usually did the calling, handled the chitchat. Still, he talked to Bobby all the time when he was alive. He talks to Franky frequently, even though there have been rough patches over the years. But he’s never been able to talk to Peter, they’ve never been able to connect as adults. He never needed anything from Michael, nothing of substance anyway. Bobby and Franky were both like him in some respect, wanted the same things. Peter was different. He never wanted his parents’ life.

  A son who didn’t want to be like his father. Michael understands that.

  * * *

  From his bedroom, Michael can smell his mother cooking his favorite dish: braised lamb shanks with garlic, onions, and tomatoes. If he missed one thing during his time in the army, it was his mother’s cooking. But since he came home six weeks ago, twenty pounds lighter than when he left, his mother has been trying to fatten him up. Lamb shanks used to be a rarity, once a month maybe, if Enzo had a few left over on the days when he was lucky enough to get lamb. By Michael’s count, this will be the tenth time they’ve had lamb since he came home; he’s getting a little sick of it.

  He’s tried to explain to them, several times, that he was never in harm’s way. Not really. He was only in Vietnam for six months, only discharged his weapon twice; neither situation escalated into a full-blown engagement. He’d thought the army was going to be an efficient, egalitarian organization, but it was like anything else run by men: subject to their own predilections and peccadilloes. One time, his transfer to Vietnam got postponed because the base had a baseball game coming up and he was their star third baseman. One time, he mentioned to his CO that he was an only child and his name got moved from one list to another. Mostly, things hadn’t really heated up until he was gone. They were heating up now. Boys were starting to get killed. He’d been lucky in a way, to serve so early, even though it hadn’t felt like it at the time.

  His parents will not listen, do not care. They know only that their beloved boy is safely home. His father has even abandoned his usual waking jab in favor of a gentle shake. Some mornings, Michael even waves his father off, tells him he’ll meet him at the shop, falls back to sleep. Enzo is puzzled, but lets it go. His boy is home, has served his country, is entitled to a few indulgences. Besides, Michael’s presence at the shop is superfluous. In his absence, Enzo hired a young boy, Enzo Annunziata, to do the deliveries and he doesn’t have the heart to let him go now that Michael is home. So old Enzo handles the cutting and the counter and young Enzo makes the deliveries and Michael sits there, watching them scurry around and wondering how it’s possible that he went halfway around the world, spent two years in three different countries, and came home to find that nothing had changed.

  Not true. The world has changed. Michael has changed. But his parents have not changed. Their love for him, which was always stifling, is now suffocating. He doesn’t miss the army—the food was terrible, there was too much bullshit—but he misses aspects of it: the camaraderie, the sense of purpose. He missed being home too. Missed his parents, missed his friends, missed the kindhearted but streetwise sensibilities of Staten Islanders. He did not miss the shop.

  He hears his mother call up to him, tell him in Italian that dinner is ready.

  “Il tuo preferito,” she adds. His Italian is rusty, but he knows this one.

  Your favorite.

  * * *

  Tiny picks him up after dinner. It’s the night before Thanksgiving, the biggest night of the year. Michael has been itching for a night out since he got home.

  “Where we headed, Tiny?”

  “There’s a big party over at the Feeney house. Jerry is shipping out next week.”

  The Feeneys are a well-known clan on the Island. Seven boys, all good athletes, all tough as nails. A little crazy. They live in a sprawling wreck of a Victorian at the top of Forest Avenue. The father is a living legend, got the Silver Star in WWII, is some kind of a big shot in the fire department.

  “Is that the one we played against?”

  “No, that was Ryan. I think he’s in the army now.”

  “Who was the lunatic who got thrown out of Curtis for stealing the principal’s car and taking it on a joyride?”

  “I think that was John. Maybe Tommy.”

  Michael opens the window, smells the ocean.

  “Laura Gentile’s gonna be there,” Tiny says.

  “Jesus Christ, Tiny. Give up the ghost.”

  Tiny never got in Laura’s pants before he went away to college, but he hasn’t stopped trying. Every holiday, every summer break, he renews his efforts, never mind that he has a steady girl back at school.

  “Ye of little faith.”

  “No man is getting in there until a priest says he can.”

  “We’ll see. I’m close.”

  Michael looks over at his friend, wonders how so much drive and determination could be packed into so slight a package. Tiny’s nickname actually fits him; he is short and thin. He is handsome, in an almost impish fashion, and does not lack for confidence. The teasing and ridicule that often plague short men is not a problem for Tiny. As soon as he steps onto the field or the court or the diamond, all the jokes stop. He is fast and fearless and he delights in making larger men look ridiculous.

  Michael knows; he was one of them.

  Before the first day of freshmen football practice, Michael and a few other guys were mocking Tiny, calling him a midget and asking him when he was due back at the North Pole. Then practice started and no one could touch him, never mind tackle him. They played football together for four years and somewhere along the way, they became fast friends. Tiny was quicksilver in the open field and Michael blocked as hard as he could to get him there. As a senior, Tiny was first team all-city at halfback. His success garnered perks: a football scholarship, write-ups in the Advance, the attention of attractive young ladies, and a measure of fame on the small-town Island.

  Michael isn’t envious of Tiny, not exactly, but he wishes he had some of his confidence, especially with girls. The army made him a man, in more ways than one, but he could really use a bona fide girlfriend. He needs something to distinguish the long, silent days that languish between shakes on his shoulder.

  “There are gonna be a lot of girls at this party, Mikey,” Tiny says, as though he could read his friend’s mind. “Lot of girls looking to welcome home an army man.”

  * * *

  The party is in full s
wing when they arrive. Despite the cold, people are out in the front yard talking, drinking, making out. Music—the Stones—blares out of an open window. Michael looks up as they sidle past the revelers out front; the house is enormous, but it looks like it could collapse at any moment. As soon as they’re inside, Tiny abandons him in search of his ever-elusive prey. Michael wanders from room to room for a bit, bumping into old friends, yelling to be heard over the music. He runs into Danny Olsen and they reminisce about the Thanksgiving Day game they played in a torrential downpour. He throws a friendly shoulder into John Feeney, still clearly a lunatic, who launches a mock punch at him. He talks to Amanda Panek for a bit until her boyfriend shows up. He chats a while with Paul DiZinno, a high school buddy who’s also recently returned from a two-year stint in the army.

  The house is packed, the party a little wilder than the ones he attended before he left. People are drinking with abandon, the girls are a little more flirtatious. There is an edge in the air. The prospect of Vietnam casts a long shadow. People are nervous. Michael feels unsettled, like he’s somehow both older and younger than everyone at the party. The house is thick with hormones, overheated. Too many bodies in the same place at the same time.

  Michael walks into the less populated kitchen, steps out onto the back porch to get some air. He is a little drunk. From the back porch, he can see the lights of Manhattan. He watches a ferry slink toward the city, takes a sip of beer. His gaze wanders over the low bulk of Brooklyn. He leans over the railing to get a better view of the Verrazano.

  “Checking out the ginny gangplank?”

  He turns, startled, and sees a bright red ember floating in the darkness on the other side of the porch.

  “Incoming,” says an older man’s voice. A second later, a can of beer flies out of the shadows. Michael raises his right hand just in time to snag the can.

  “Good hands.”

  “Thanks.”

  The ember disappears, then blazes full. He watches the red circle rise and move toward him until a burly man with a bald head and a thick, reddish brown mustache emerges from the shadows, a cigar trapped between his teeth. He walks up, stands against the railing next to him. He’s holding a large, yellow container—a Polly-O cheese tin, with the parrot in the chef’s hat—in his right hand. He takes the cigar out, raises the container to his lips, and drinks deeply. He points the stub of the cigar out toward the bridge.