Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

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.

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.”