Small Mercies: A Novel

by Eddie Joyce

  “Well, thank you. For walking him home. He’s fallen a few times, hurt himself.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They stand, uncertainly, nothing left to say.

  “I’m Michael, by the way.”

  “Gail.”

  “I was really hoping your name was Goodness.”

  She fights down a smile. He feels a flutter in his chest. He’d do anything to make this girl smile, make this girl happy.

  “Buy you a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  * * *

  She picks a quiet bar, middle-of-the-street joint on Fifth Avenue. A handful of solitary customers nurse drinks, pick absently at nuts and pretzels. The jukebox plays older music: The Moonglows, The Platters, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como. Michael and Gail sit in the front, around the curve of the bar. Gail is halfway through her first beer when she talks.

  “I love this bar.”

  “Yeah. Why’s that?”

  “Only bar in Bay Ridge my father hasn’t ruined for me.”

  “Oh.”

  Michael finishes his beer, orders another. The bartender refills his mug, walks down to the other end of the bar. Gail looks over at him, assessing.

  “You know this is never gonna work out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because if we get married and have kids and live happily ever after, we’ll never be able to tell our kids how we met. Daddy walked Mommy’s drunk of a dad home because he could barely see. C’mon.”

  “Why do they even have to know, our kids? I don’t know how my parents met.”

  “Really? I know how my parents met.”

  “How?”

  “My mother walked my father home because he was drunk.”

  Michael smiles, takes a sip of beer.

  “What if I promise not to tell anyone?”

  “Cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “If things work out between us and we get married and have kids and live happily ever after, I promise not to tell anyone, including our seventeen children—I want a big family, by the way—how we met. Sound good?”

  She shrugs, finishes her mug of beer.

  “Still might not work out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I haven’t decided whether I like you yet.”

  * * *

  The Leaf has the hushed stillness of an establishment slowly recovering from an epic night. The bar is darker than usual for a weekday, with just the artificial light from the televisions flickering off the bottles behind the bar. A few bands of dust-specked sunlight stream into the smallish dining area adjacent to the bar; the tables are empty but ready, the plates and cutlery arranged and waiting for lunch customers who are unlikely to come. The whole place is festooned with green and white St. Patrick’s Day decorations that are looking a little sheepish, a little sad, now that their purpose has been served. Today is officially St. Patrick’s Day, but the Leaf’s party was the night before and the Island parade was a week ago Sunday and well, the day itself seems like a bit of an afterthought. Besides, it’s the first day of the NCAA tournament and the Cody’s pool takes precedence.

  Michael pauses after he walks in, captures a dry, barking cough between his wind-chilled hands. His eyes drift to the massive 9/11 memorial poster behind the bar, with the icon of the towers in the foreground and the list of names blurred in the background. Somewhere on that poster is Bobby’s name. He looks away.

  Two customers sit halfway down the bar turned toward each other, an empty stool between them. He knows them both: Jack Walsh, a retired NYPD detective, who has been drifting from functional heavy drinker to full-blown alcoholic in the year since his wife died, and Tiny Dave Terrio, still his best friend after all these years. A cup of steaming coffee rests on the bar in front of Tiny; Jack is holding a rocks glass filled with whiskey and ice.

  “Michael,” says Tiny.

  “Tiny, Jack.”

  A handshake for Jack, a hug and a kiss for Tiny.

  “Tell me something, fellas, why is it that ginnies have no problem kissing other men but won’t go down on their wives?”

  Typical Walsh, sex and tribes from the go. Michael considers a joke about wives, remembers that Jack’s is dead, and stays silent. Tiny doesn’t.

  “It’s not that we won’t go down on our wives, Walsh, it’s that we don’t need to. We have the equipment to get the job done without resorting to tricks of the tongue.”

  Laughs all around.

  What’s left of Tommy Flanagan slides out from the back room and slithers behind the bar. When Michael left last night, Flanagan was wearing an oversize green leprechaun hat and doing shots of Jameson with a couple guys half his age. The morning has not been kind to Mr. Flanagan. Michael takes a twenty out of his wallet, puts it under a coaster. Tommy places a bottle of Budweiser in front of him.

  “Thanks, Tommy. Shot of Jameson on this fine Saint Patrick’s Day morn?”

  “Fuck yourself, Amendola.”

  Chuckles all around, except for Tommy.

  “So I guess Tommy got the gold. Silver?”

  “Phil Linetti,” says Tiny.

  “Basis?” asks Michael between sips from his bottle.

  “He made out with crazy Gabby at the bar for a good hour. They left together.”

  More chuckles, Tommy included this time.

  “Dear God. Bronze?”

  “Probably a tie between everyone else in the place,” says Tiny. He takes a sip of coffee.

  “Did you hear about the kid from Tottenville?” Walsh asks Michael out of the blue. His face is a bruised mélange of red and purple and small flakes of dried skin are peeling away in batches. His tone is aggressive and challenging lately, even to his friends.

  “No.”

  “Killed in Afghanistan. Twenty years old.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Old enough to die for his country, but can’t walk into a bar and order a beer. This country is fucking insane.”

  “What was his name?” Michael asks.

  “Liam Curcio,” Tiny says reverently.

  “Of course it was. Of course it was. Micks and ginnies are the only white men still dumb enough to die for this country.”

  Walsh sounds drunk. It’s tough to tell these days. Tiny and Michael exchange knowing glances. Walsh is never too far from a rant about one group or another. Most of his rants used to be about the “fucking niggers” but, now, all his rants are about the “fucking sand-niggers.”

  Progress Staten Island style, Michael thinks.

  “What about the kid from South Beach last year?” asks Tiny. “Olchenski, wasn’t it? Isn’t that Polish?”

  “Russian,” says Flanagan.

  “Either way. Same difference.”

  “What do you mean?” asks Walsh, angry that the conversation has drifted away from him.

  “Well, Walsh, micks and ginnies aren’t the only ones getting killed.”

  “Fine, fucking polocks too. Micks and ginnies and polocks.”

  “Hey,” says Flanagan, “what about the kid from the Bronx a few weeks back? Raheem something or another.”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Tommy, I said white men. The only white men still dumb enough to die for this country.”

  “So if the niggers and the spics and the micks and the ginnies and the polocks are all dying for this country, Jack, who isn’t?” asks Tiny.

  Walsh turns back to Tiny, an ugly look on his flushed face.

  “The fucking Jews.”

  Tiny and Flanagan snicker. Tiny nudges Michael as if to say “Walsh is a piece of work,” but Michael is half paying attention; the name Curcio has been flipping around in his head, looking for traction.

  “Shit, I was in a fireh
ouse with a Steven Curcio from Tottenville.”

  Tiny shakes his head.

  “That’s his uncle. His father works for Con Ed. Mother’s a nurse.”

  “Farrell kid?”

  “Tottenville. Advance all-star in baseball.”

  “Liam Curcio. Rest in peace,” Tiny says, his mug raised.

  “Liam Curcio,” they all mumble in reply. They clink glasses.

  An impromptu moment of silence passes.

  “His father lost his mind when he found out, apparently. Inconsolable.”

  “Any other kids?” Michael asks.

  “A daughter. Senior in high school.”

  “Small mercies,” Michael says.

  “A-fucking-men,” chimes in Walsh.

  Another silence, drinks at lips.

  “Jesus, lose your kid, can you imagine?” Flanagan says, leaning over the bar and trying to sound profound. Michael stares at him.

  “I don’t have to imagine,” he says. He feels Tiny’s hand on his shoulder.

  Flanagan backs away, embarrassed. Michael wanted to get here, but he’s already had enough of the Leaf, enough of Walsh’s drunken vitriol and Flanagan’s hangover. He finishes his bottle of beer and zips up his jacket.

  “Ready to go, Tiny? We have all the sheets?”

  Flanagan reaches below the bar and pulls up a manila folder and an envelope filled with cash.

  “Twenty sheets total. Four thousand dollars.”

  He pushes both across the bar to Michael. Tiny puts up his hand.

  “We can’t leave yet. Knucklehead’s dropping off a few sheets from his office.”

  Michael groans. Knucklehead is Tiny’s son-in-law, Tony Ragolia. Married to his daughter Maggie. An asshole of the highest order: full of himself, doesn’t shut the fuck up. He’s the last thing Michael needs this morning. Tiny shrugs his shoulders.

  “Hey, Mikey, what can I do?”

  Michael unzips his jacket. He looks up at the television. The first game is about to tip off. Cody’s accepts entries until five o’clock on the first day of games. If one of the favorites goes down early, everyone will be scrambling to change their sheets.

  “I’ll take another beer, Tommy.”

  Flanagan flicks off the bottle’s cap in an opener that hangs down from the other side of the bar. He pushes the beer over to Michael.

  “On the house, Mikey. I’m sorry,” he says, softly, so Walsh can’t hear.

  Michael smiles. Flanagan’s not a bad guy. A lifer behind the stick. Never had kids. Doesn’t know. Couldn’t. The things you do, the sacrifices you make, the decisions made for their benefit.

  “No worries, Tom. No worries at all.”

  * * *

  He is a newly married man, grateful and growing more so each day. Grateful that he came back from Vietnam in one piece, grateful that he has a good city job and a good wife, grateful that his parents are healthy, but mostly grateful for a bit of news that pushes a smile across his face whenever he thinks about it.

  He’s going to be a father.

  His gratitude is an oddity in these times, in this place. Anger is the prevailing mood of the day. The future is unclear, the fabric of things seems to be coming apart. Things that once seemed solid fall to dust overnight. New York City is in decline, sliding toward a precipice. The drugs have gotten worse, more insidious, and they’ve started turning up in places no one expected. White people are leaving in droves, to Long Island, to New Jersey, to Westchester and Connecticut, to other cities entirely.

  Let it burn, they say, and let the niggers and the spics and the faggots burn with it.

  He doesn’t want the city to burn. His job is to ensure it doesn’t burn. He loves this job. This job gives him moments he cannot describe to his new wife, moments when he feels as though he were dancing at the razor’s edge of humanity, moments when he feels as though he were an ancient Greek hero, descending into a blazing hell to save souls. A knight in modern armor, fighting not the dragon but the dragon’s breath and all the horror it spreads.

  It’s not all roses. Sometimes the people he is trying to save throw bottles. Sometimes they spit at him. He has seen things on this job. A crib and its occupant charred beyond recognition. A woman just out of the flames, convulsing so violently that it takes two men to hold her down. He has seen abject fear in the eyes of a comrade who sees his life—his wife and his kids, his house and home, his Sunday football, his six-packs and White Owl cigars, his summers at the beach, his friends and his laughs—slipping away from him. This comrade has seen his own funeral. He has attended it time and again. He has heard the bagpipes keening. He has seen the uniformed body in the casket, he has seen the casket closed as well, he has comforted the widow. He can see Michael attending his funeral, can see Michael contemplating it even as Michael looks into his eyes and says, “You’re gonna be fine. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

  He tells Michael this weeks later in the hospital. His lungs on the mend, his life rescued.

  “I saw you attending my funeral, comforting Terry.”

  “I would have enjoyed comforting Terry.”

  They laugh because that’s all you can do. When death taps you on the shoulder and you manage to slip away, you laugh. To do anything else would be madness.

  How do you feel when you walk out of the hospital room and his family is there? When his wife hugs you and you feel her wet tears on your chest? When his daughter hands you a picture she drew for you of you carrying her father out of a burning building? When his son thanks you and runs in to see his daddy and you know that you made this moment possible, that you created it?

  You feel like a god. Anyone who says different is lying.

  So Michael has to remind himself what Gus used to tell him: that feeling like a god is as dangerous as the fire itself. He is only a man, one with a new wife and a kid on the way. A man who doesn’t want to see the city burn, but who doesn’t want it to burn him or those he cares about either. A man who can’t afford Westchester or Connecticut, who can’t fathom Long Island, who doesn’t want New Jersey.

  Michael knows what to do, where to go. He knows a place that is still safe, an idyllic patch in the ravaged city. Right over a bridge. Staten Island. He’s always intended to return. After they got married, he and Gail moved into an apartment in Bay Ridge, a temporary concession to Gail’s desire to be close to her parents and to the demands of his job. They had no car. They had no money. It was easier to live in Brooklyn, easier to get to work and to save money. But it’s been almost two years in that tiny, cramped apartment and he is sick of it. He wants some space, some fresh air. It’s time to put their plan in motion, time to look for a house on Staten Island.

  Actually, this is his plan. He has never articulated it to Gail; he has assumed her acquiescence. An apartment is fine for the two of them, but he wants his children raised in a proper house.

  An opportunity has knocked, as they say, and though it’s sooner than he would have liked, you have to strike when the iron is hot, as they also say. He is fond of his sayings. He grew up in a house where the adages were in Italian, so the English ones hold more allure for him. A house for sale in Great Kills. Cheap.

  Why the discount?

  “Older couple, no kids. Died within a month of each other. They were renting from the bank. No one can remember why we own it in the first place. Couple lived there for forty years. We want to sell it,” whispers Tiny Terrio into the other end of the phone. Tiny works at a bank on Staten Island. The bank that wants to sell the house. A bank that could give them the mortgage, Tiny mentions, if they can move quickly and if they have ten thousand dollars to put down.

  Michael hangs up the phone and frowns. He is nine thousand dollars short. The door to their apartment opens and Gail walks in. Her blue eyes are blood-shot and her face is blotchy. She has been crying.

  “I’m pregna
nt,” she says.

  There are no coincidences in life. Michael isn’t sure if this is a saying or not, but it’s what he believes. You do not get a phone call from your best friend about a house in one minute and your wife telling you she’s pregnant in the next for no reason at all. The next day Michael has off, Enzo picks him up and they drive across the Verrazano together.

  The bridge is beautiful, a majestic baby blue span in the sky, soaring above a strip of water called the Narrows, giving all who cross it a panoramic view of New Jersey, then Staten Island, Jersey again, New York Harbor, the Manhattan skyline, the low-lying infinitude of Brooklyn, and finally, a glimpse of eternity in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a bridge that explains New York, reveals why it soared to greatness in the first place. It’s a bridge that should be loved, but somewhere deep inside him, Michael is starting to hate it. He is starting to think that Gus Feeney was right: it’s going to ruin Staten Island.

  The car descends on the Staten Island side of the bridge and Michael feels peaceful, happy to be in a place more green than gray. They meet Tiny on a dead-end street in Great Kills. Wirra Lane. It’s a little farther out than Michael would like. His parents’ house, in Dongan Hills, is ten minutes closer to the bridge. The house is run down, will need some work. The backyard has been neglected for years. Weeds and bushes grow unimpeded. But the structure is sound. There are three bedrooms, a basement, a nice-size kitchen with a quaint bay window. It’s two quick turns from Hylan Boulevard, the thoroughfare that runs the entire length of the South Shore. They’d need a car, obviously, but if they had one, they could be at his parents’ house in four turns. The street is a good one; there’s space between the houses. When they drove up, a flock of young kids was playing Wiffle ball at the end of the street. Not a lot of car traffic. Bicycles lie unguarded in front of houses.

  They stand outside, the three of them, and consider the house.

  “Tiny, excuse,” Enzo says. He puts his heavy butcher’s hand on Michael’s shoulder and guides him to the side of the house. Michael looks over his shoulder at Tiny, who is leaning against his car, gently pulling at the knot of his tie. It is humid; they are all sweating.

  “Take it,” Enzo says. He smells of sausage, of chicken and pork, of bone and blood. His English regresses when he’s being urgent. “You take it.”