Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

But today is a different story.

* * *

By the time Kieran picks him up at Kelly’s to drive him to the mall, Franky is four beers in and the day has been draped in a soft gray blanket. He has decided not to give a fuck about Wade or Tina or Peter or his mother; he’ll make a day of it and fuck the rest. It’s all bullshit anyway. When Kieran’s busted blue Camry pulls in front of the bar, things are already looking up; he put four hundred on North Carolina minus three and they’re up seven at the half. He does a quick shot for good measure before walking out into the harsh daylight of early afternoon.

“Christ, Kielty,” he says as he gets into the passenger seat. “Is it possible that you’re even fatter than the last time I saw you?”

Kieran looks out the side window, away from Franky. He takes his Coke-bottle glasses off with one hand and pinches his nose with the other. He has gotten fatter; he’s wedged between the seat and the steering wheel and the lower folds of his stomach are peeking out from below his powder blue golf shirt. His face is a sheen of greasy acne and his brown hair is pocked with yellowish-white spots.

“I’m not taking you unless you’re nice to me,” Kieran says, still facing the street. When he hears Kieran’s voice, Franky realizes that he’s close to tears.

“Kieran, Christ. I’m only busting balls. That’s what friends do.”

Kieran puts his glasses back on and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. A thin film of snot attaches to the meaty bulge where his thumb and index finger meet.

“Megan says that you’re not a real friend to me. That you use me when you need me. Like today.”

Franky doesn’t need this, doesn’t have the patience to reason with this whimpering half-wit. If he only had a fucking car. He swallows hard, puts a hand on Kieran’s shoulder. He hopes no one inside Kelly’s is watching through the window.

“Kieran. I’m sorry I was rude.”

He tries to sound sincere. Kieran’s eyes — huge and hopeful behind his glasses — shift toward him.

“It’s all right. Megan doesn’t think I stand up for myself.”

The unabashed meekness of Kieran’s voice makes Franky want to smack him. He reminds himself that Bobby loved Kieran, would have wanted him looked after.

“Megan doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. We’ve been friends for years. Remember when we went down to Atlantic City for the weekend? Or the night we ended up at FlashDancers and I paid that Russian chick to give you like, what? Twenty lap dances? Megan doesn’t know about that, right?”

Kieran’s face goes a shade whiter than usual.

“You’re not gonna tell her?” he asks. It takes Franky a beat to recognize that his concern is serious.

“Jesus Christ, Kielty. Of course not. That’s my whole fucking point.” This was beyond useless; it was like talking to an infant. “Megan doesn’t understand everything about how guys hang out. Like how guys bust each other’s balls.”

“I don’t bust your balls, Franky.”

“But you could, kemosabe. You could. And that would be fine.”

He watches as the logic circulates through Kielty’s enormous cranium, eventually turning his gray lips up into kind of a half smile. Franky smiles back.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Kielty puts the keys in the ignition. He looks over at Franky again, his hand paused in mid-twist.

“You’ll take me to Applebee’s for lunch?”

Jesus H. Christ, Franky thinks, that’s exactly what you need. Another meal.

But he nods agreeably.

“Applebee’s. Chili’s. McDonald’s. Burger King. Whatever the fuck you want.”

Kielty’s smile expands. He turns the key and the car struggles to life. The fog of good cheer has been lifted during this conversation, a combination of Kielty’s incessant simpering and the sunlight glaring off the hood. And the mall is a twenty-minute ride. Franky needs a restorative shot. Maybe two.

“Hold on, Kieran. We’ve been talking so long I need to piss.”

He gets out of the car and walks back into Kelly’s. He puts a crinkled ten on the bar and orders a Jameson. He checks the score in the Carolina game.

Tied with twelve minutes left. What the fuck happened?

The daytime bartender, some bald grump with no personality, pours the golden liquid into an impossibly small vessel. Franky downs it with a quick shift of the head, the whiskey tingling his lips and tongue.

He walks to the bathroom as the beer and the booze slosh around his otherwise empty stomach. He needs to eat something. He’s getting ahead of himself. He’s right back where he was last night before the curtain fell: no pain, not a care in the world. He takes a long piss, one hand pressed against the wall.

He walks back to the bar, claps excitedly as a Carolina player nails a three. He needs another shot. One more will do the trick, keep the day rolling in the right direction. He watches the bartender pour the whiskey, watches as a meniscus forms at the lip of the glass.

“One more,” he says as he lifts the shot glass. “One more then out the door.”

* * *

By the time they reach the mall, Franky is furious. He spent the entire car ride listening to Kielty lament the end of the Cody’s pool in the most simplistic, repetitive fashion imaginable. His buzz has started to drift and his stomach is in full protest after being ignored all morning. But it’s not any of that.

It’s his mother and her fucking favor. Show up sober and not cause a scene? Seriously, was that really necessary? Bobby’s his nephew, his godson. Did she really think he would ruin the kid’s fucking birthday? Wasn’t he here now, at the goddamn mall of all fucking places suffering through the company of Kieran fucking Kielty, all so he could get the kid a proper present?

The whole thing could drive a saint to drink. And he was no saint. He knew that much about himself.

He hates the mall, hasn’t been in years. Everywhere he looks, he sees the reasons why: chain-wearing guidos with spiked-up hair, over-tanned mothers in bright, skintight jumpsuits, a group of cocky black teenagers wearing red Yankee hats, the labels still attached, the brims as straight as diving boards. There are more Russians than the last time he was here, but that was no surprise; they were moving onto the Island in droves, always looking for beachfront property, no matter how shitty the beach. Thank God it was a Saturday. At least there wouldn’t be any fucking Hasids.

He spots a Foot Locker a few storefronts down and heads for it. Kielty is a few paces behind him, trying to avoid cataclysmic collisions with other obese mall goers.

Then Franky sees something and, for a second, he thinks he’s hallucinating. He shakes his head, but there they are: a cluster of women in hijabs, that tongue-clacking filth ricocheting between them. He stops walking as they approach. They float right through him, one momentarily disengaging from her two companions, stepping outside him and then returning to her friends after she passes him. He watches them glide away, only their feet visible beneath the long draping sheets.

Kielty catches up with him, follows his gaze.

“What’s up, Franky?”

“Fucking Arabs?” he says, loudly.

“I guess.”

“There are fucking Arabs at the Staten Island Mall now?”

A few passing teenage kids looked at him uncertainly, like maybe he’s making a joke or they’re being filmed. Kielty shrugs his shoulders, sending his entire upper torso jiggling.

“I guess.”

Franky looks around, sees mostly regular people milling around, flitting into stores, carrying shopping bags, sipping from oversize Styrofoam cups. But in the cell phone store across from him, he notices an Arab with a mustache comparing cell phone chargers. He’s wearing an old-fashioned New York Giants jacket, the once shiny blue now faded and dusty. A small, dark-skinned boy holds his hand.