Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

“So, how are you?” Wade asks once he’s settled, a pint of dark ale in front of him.

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not, but do you really want to hear about it?”

“Of course I do. We’re friends.”

Wade takes a sip of his beer. Peter looks him over. He’s gotten so used to false sincerity that the real item is tough to recognize.

“I fucked up. I fucked up big time. I won’t go into the details, but you can probably guess. So, I’m living out of the house, I’m not sure whether my marriage is salvageable, I’ve seen my kids five times since Christmas, I’m a pariah at my firm, I may have to move to Chicago, and on top of it all, I get woken up every morning by the goddamn Staten Island ferry.”

Wade laughs at the last bit. Peter takes another sip of his drink. It felt good to lay out all his problems. At least they were finite, could be listed. Fixing them would be considerably more difficult.

“I know, fucking hilarious right? Goddamn ferry.”

“I’m sorry, Pete. I really am.”

“Not your fault.”

He finishes his drink, orders another. When did he start drinking like this? His head feels light and airy, like a balloon that could float away if he loosens his grip.

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I haven’t a clue, honestly. Things are so fucked, I can’t see a way to make it right.”

He takes a sip of his fresh drink. He should probably switch to beer or get something to eat. He’s having trouble giving Wade his full attention. His thoughts are drifting to Gina; he’s trying to remember the sensation of being with her. It seems like ages ago. This is what happens when he drinks. He gets to think of Gina without guilt, gets to pretend it all didn’t turn to shit. He pushes the martini away, grabs a handful of bar nuts.

“Anyway, we didn’t come here to talk about me. What’s up?”

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I’m dating Tina. Still dating Tina.”

Peter’s brain stalls for a minute. He knows a Tina, but Wade can’t mean that Tina. But somehow he does.

“Tina? Bobby’s wife?”

Wade looks crestfallen for a beat but recovers.

“Yes, Tina Amendola. I called her after you gave me her number.”

Peter puts a hand up.

“Wait, what?”

“You gave me her number last spring. You told her I was going to call her. You set us up.”

Peter vaguely remembers doing something like what Wade is describing. He didn’t think it was a setup. He thought of it as introducing two grief-stricken souls, sort of a support group or something. But it didn’t happen. Wade never called, he remembers Tina saying that.

“But you didn’t call her. I remember Tina giving me shit about it.”

“I didn’t call her initially. Work was crazy. I was in Asia for half the summer. Besides, I thought it was too soon. Two years sounds like a long time, but it’s not. I went on one date about a year ago and it felt disrespectful. I couldn’t get Morgan’s face out of my head.”

He takes a long pull from his pint, wipes his lips.

“Anyway, I’m sitting home by myself on Halloween — you know how Morgan loved Halloween, all the elaborate costumes she dreamed up — anyway, I’m sucking back Amstels and wallowing, looking at old pictures: the year she went as Kenny from South Park, the year she dressed like Velma from Scooby-Doo . So I go to the fridge to get another beer and I see Tina’s number, which I must have pinned there months ago. And I know this sounds silly, but it’s like I could hear Morgan in my head saying, ‘Go for it!’ I called Tina the next day.”

Wade takes another sip of beer.

“Anyway, we went out and we really hit it off. I mean, she’s a fantastic woman. I can’t even imagine the courage it took to raise those kids alone. And the kids are great. I mean, Alyssa’s at a tough age, you know, those awkward years, but Bobby Jr.’s wonderful. What spirit.”

Wade keeps talking, but Peter’s gone numb. Not the soft, boozy numbness he was slipping into a few minutes earlier, but a tingling, humming numbness, like his body is steeling itself for action. Realities are realigning in his muddled head to accommodate this conversation. Wade and Tina went on a date. Wade and Tina are still dating. Wade has met Tina’s children. Bobby’s children. Wade wants to talk to Peter.

A dark urge lurches inside of Peter and he springs out of his seat, grabs Wade by the throat, and brings his face inches from Wade’s.

“That’s my brother’s fucking wife,” he hisses, his teeth dangerously close to the flesh of Wade’s face.

“Peter, calm down,” Wade gets out, but there’s real fear in his eyes. Peter wants to pound him, wants to inflict pain. The bartender, an older guy, races down the bar toward them.

“Hey, fellas, fellas,” he says, as he waves a bar towel. “You can’t do that here.”

“My brother’s fucking wife,” Peter says again, but the bile’s already gone out of his voice. The rage has faded. His grip on Wade’s neck relaxes, leaving a bright red scratch in its wake. Wade steps a pace back. Peter slumps back into his stool.

“I think maybe you should leave, fella,” the bartender says to Peter. He sounds like a character in that Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life that his mother used to make them watch every year. Peter starts to laugh, a heave with more motion than noise.

“It’s all right, he’s okay,” Wade assures the bartender, who looks unconvinced. “You’re okay, right, Pete.”

Peter nods. The bartender walks away, his gaze still fixed on Peter.

“Well, I may as well get it all out now. I’m in love with her, Pete. I think we have a future together,” he says. He takes another half step away. Peter nods, he lifts his hands to his eyes, rubs the tears into his cheeks. The laugh starts again.

“I’m guessing, by your reaction, that you are not too happy with the idea.”

Peter can’t control his laughter. He breaks out into a cackle. A few of the other patrons cast concerned looks at him. The Wonderful Life bartender starts to move back in his direction. Wade leans toward him.

“Peter, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Peter contains his laugh for a moment, looks up at Wade through red-rimmed eyes. He brings his hands, gently, to Wade’s cheeks.

“I’m the last person in the world who should pass judgment, Wade. Particularly when it comes to Staten Island girls. Go with God.”

The laugh won’t be contained any longer. It leaks out and starts to rise. It turns back to a cackle and then a howl until the bartender returns and tells them, both this time, that, really, it’s time for them to go.

* * *

Peter wanted to kill Garrett Holworth, the decrepit, fucking fossil. Eighty-five years old and “retired” for ten years but still hobbling into the office three days a week, ostensibly to work on pro bono cases, but really to cause problems. Like when he lured a paralegal into his office to retrieve something from under his desk and then put his hands under her ass, like a quarterback waiting for the snap. Or when he spoke at a summer lunch and decried the lack of skirts among female associates, emphasizing how one of the first female lawyers at the firm, Amy Donahue, always wore skirts. He even managed to throw in a few references to Ms. Donahue’s lovely “bottom.”

Or like when he told Gina Giordano that she had the language and bearing of a stevedore, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, which had led to Gina’s coming into Peter’s office at seven o’clock that night for his advice, closing the door behind her, sitting in the chair across from him, and promptly dissolving into tears.