Small Mercies (24 page)

“Sean,” the bartender yells. “Sean. Wake the fuck up. Sean.”

Sean does not respond.

“Sorry, buddy. Can you hold him there for a sec? I’ll call someone to fetch him. He lives two blocks away.”

The guy reaches under the bar for a telephone. Michael glances over his shoulder. Sheila is laying into Tiny. The friend is looking down, sheepishly. Tiny catches Michael’s eye, gives him a beseeching look.

“I’ll walk him home.”

The bartender looks at him like’s he’s half cocked.

“You sure, pal?”

Screw Tiny.

“Positive.”

“Two blocks down and make a right. Halfway up the block. Three-sixteen Eighty-ninth Street. Press the button for Maguire.”

Michael gets him outside. Fresh air partially revives the stumblebum. His eyes open, taking in his new companion.

“You’re not Goodness,” he slurs.

“Let’s go home, buddy.”

They make their way along bustling Third Avenue, bypassing small crowds of revelers. When they reach Eighty-ninth Street, Sean starts laughing, pushes Michael away, sits down on a stoop. After a few seconds, Sean stops laughing, looks around bewildered, like he’s just landed on the moon. Michael considers leaving him there—the guy’s nearly home and Michael’s pretty confident it’s not his first rodeo—but decides against it. He cajoles Sean back onto his shoulder and they continue down the block. When they get to number 316, Michael looks at the names on the panel, sees Maguire 1C. At least he won’t have to get Sean up any stairs. He presses the button, ready to explain, but the buzzer sounds. He carries Sean, now nearly comatose, into the dimly lit lobby. They cross a black-and-white-tiled floor to the apartment door. Michael knocks three times. He slaps Sean’s cheek a few times, trying to rouse him.

The girl who answers the door has the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. So intensely blue that it’s hard for Michael to answer her stare.

“Jesus Christ,” she says, more tired than surprised.

“Goodness,” Sean roars, awakening. “Goodness, I’m home.”

He stumbles up the single step into the apartment and hugs the girl.

“Okay, Dad, here we go,” she says, helping her father into the apartment. The door is nearly closed when she sticks her head back, eyes blazing.

“Wait right there,” she says. The door slams shut.

Michael stares at the closed door, unsure what to do. He’s more than done his duty, no reason in the world to wait around. But he waits anyway. A minute passes. Two. Five. He’s pretty sure he’s been forgotten. As he turns to walk away, the door opens. The girl steps into the hallway, closes the door behind her.

“What’s the big idea?” she says, angry.

“What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you a little young to be one of my father’s asshole drinking buddies?”

“Hey, take it easy. Your father—Sean, is that his name? Your father fell off a bar stool into me. I walked him home.”

“Are you some kind of pervert?”

“Jesus Christ. Are you out of your head? The man was legless, in no condition to get home by himself. I walked him home. Tried to do a good deed. That’s it. That’s all. Good night, Goodness.”

He turns. She reaches out, grabs his arm.

“Hold on. I’m sorry. It’s just, you know, this isn’t the first time he’s come home like this.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hey, he’s not a bad guy, my father. He just shouldn’t drink.”

He steps back, exhales, rolls his neck around. She’s a few years younger than Michael. A little plain-looking. But those eyes.

“Hey, I’m sorry too. What do I know? I’ve been there before, had a few too many. We all have, right?”

“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 firehouse 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.