Small Mercies

No drugs were found on his person. The papers make sure to mention that. All that means to Mary Pat’s neighbors (and most of the whites in West Roxbury and Neponset and Milton and everywhere else in or around the city that’s stayed uniformly white) is that whoever killed Auggie Williamson — whether with intent or by accident — stripped him of the drugs he was carrying.

And if this didn’t have such a personal aspect for her — if Auggie wasn’t Dreamy Williamson’s son, if Jules wasn’t a “person of interest” in his death — Mary Pat would have written it off the same way.

But reading through the papers, chain-smoking one Virginia Slim after another, she allows a picture to emerge in her mind of an Auggie Williamson who might not have done drugs, who most certainly was not from a broken home, who possibly didn’t try to steal a car or rob someone for cab fare but was, instead, a twenty-year-old kid whose car broke down in the wrong neighborhood.

And what neighborhood is that, Mary Pat?

My neighborhood.

When she walks out of work at the end of the shift, Marty Butler’s butterscotch AMC Matador is parked at the curb. Weeds stands by the back door, and as soon as Mary Pat has exited Meadow Lane Manor, he opens that door and she spies Marty sitting in the back.

She doesn’t move for a moment, just stands on the sidewalk pretending she has options. Once that little fantasy runs aground, she gets in the car with him.

He smiles and kisses her cheek and tells her she still looks as lovely as the day she married Dukie, thereby reminding her that he was at her first wedding, reminding her that Dukie worked for him, reminding her that he doesn’t just own the present, he owns history too.

Marty looks like he stepped out of a JCPenney circular. The Dad Model, wearing cardigans with a football cocked in his hand or fake-laughing with the other Dad Models. Square haircut, strong jaw, cleft in his chin. Eyes that smile without a shred of joy. Never has a hair out of place, a whisker or shadow on his cheeks. His teeth are white and straight. He’s handsome in the blandest of ways and hasn’t seemed to age for at least twenty years.

It’s a mystery what made Marty Marty. Some say it was the tour of duty in Korea. Others whisper ever so quietly that Marty Butler was always fucked in the head. A guy Dukie used to drink with, who grew up with Marty on Linden Street, told Dukie, “In high school, ’member he had a sister died from TB? He skipped her funeral to play basketball. Scored twenty-four points.”

As Weeds drives them back toward Southie, Marty asks Mary Pat, “Will you be at the rally Friday?”

“Oh, right.” In truth, Mary Pat had forgotten. The busing outrage, which seemed to consume everyone in Southie right now — and had consumed her up until three days ago — had slipped from her mind.

“‘Oh, right’?” Marty chuckles. “It’s only the future of our way of life at stake, Mary Pat.”

“I know,” she says. “I know.”

“You know who the truly happy countries are? Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Iceland. You never hear a bad thing about those places. They don’t fight wars, they don’t suffer unrest. You never see them on the news. They have unity and prosperity because they stay whole. They stay whole because the races don’t mix because there are no races to mix.” He sighs, blowing it out through his lips. “First they’ll tell us where our kids can go to school, next they’ll tell us which god we’re allowed to pray to.”

“You pray?” She doesn’t mean to insult him, but it’s never occurred to her that someone like Marty Butler takes to prayer.

He nods. “I pray every night.”

“On your knees?” She just can’t picture it.

“On my back. In bed.” He shoots her an amused grimace. “Mostly for wisdom, sometimes for special dispensations for members of our flock.”

Our flock. His and God’s. That explains it.

“Do you recall when little Deidre Ward had the cancer? Sure, she was only seven or eight. I prayed hard those days, and wouldn’t you know the cancer went into remission. The Lord listens, Mary Pat. The trick is to have a pure heart when you ask Him for something.”

“Will that bring my Jules back to me?”

He gives her a distant smile and pats her leg. Gives the flesh above her knee a firm squeeze. His thumb and index finger dig all the way into the tissue. And then he pats lightly again and removes the hand as they cross over the bridge into Southie.

“How’s that car of yours?” he asks. “Still running?”

She nods. “As unlikely as that may seem.”

He gives his own reflection that distant smile of his. “Some things don’t know when to quit.”

“Why should it?” she says. “As long as it’s still getting me where I need to go.”

He looks at her and wiggles his eyebrows up and down like they’re in on a joke together. “And your apartment there? At Commonwealth?”

She shrugs. “The same.”