Small Mercies

“Let me take a wild guess — Mary Pat Fennessy.”

“I can’t fucking say! I won’t fucking say!”

Bobby leans over the table, gets a good look at the bloody crotch of Rum’s jeans. “What’d she do to you, kid? She cut it off?”

“No!” Rum looks away for a bit, chewing on his lower lip like a rabbit now. “Said she would, though.”

“So where’s the blood from?”

“She, like, sliced at it.”

“Your dick?”

“Under my balls.”

“This is Mary Pat Fennessy we’re talking about?”

Rum almost nods and then snaps to, and a wave of fear smell — rank and metallic — pops through all his pores. “I’m not going to fucking say, no matter how much you ask.”

“Okay.” Bobby offers him a cigarette. “Well, what will you say?”

Rum takes the cigarette and the light Bobby offers next. “I’ll tell you what happened on the platform that night.”

Behind Rum, Vincent raises his eyebrows at Bobby as if to say: See?

Bobby places an ashtray in front of him. “You mind if my partner takes notes?”

Rum shakes his head, his eyes on the table. “Sure.”

Behind Rum, Vincent beams, his eyes the size of headlights.

When the group of kids broke up at Columbia Park around midnight, Rum, George Dunbar, Brenda Morello, and Jules Fennessy started for Carson Beach. But just before they reached Day Boulevard and prepared to cross to the beach, Brenda realized she’d left her keys back in the park somewhere. They were on a ring along with a white rabbit’s foot and a bottle opener, the latter of which had come into play a few dozen times that night.

So they went back to the park to search for the keys. They were just about to give up when Jules spotted something white under one of the bleacher seats and — voilà — Brenda’s keys. Columbia Park was empty now, so they sat back down and opened four more beers, and George passed around a joint. This was the good shit, he assured them, not the Mexican colitas he sold to schmucks but real Southern Californian sinsemilla. Truth was, Rum Collins couldn’t tell the difference, but he figured all the booze was clouding his taste buds.

That was when George Dunbar, looking out at the road, said, “That’s right — don’t even fucking look at me.”

At first no one knew who he was talking to, but then they all got a look at the car passing them, its exhaust belching, nigger kid behind the wheel looking at them.

“Drop those fucking eyes, spook,” George said in a voice so low they could barely hear it. “Or I won’t be responsible for what I do.”

The black kid did drop his eyes — either by coincidence or due to some sixth sense for imminent danger — and the car belched and sputtered its way past them, going so slow it almost seemed to be floating. It passed under the expressway, where they lost it in the vast shadow cast by the overpass, and they didn’t hear it anymore.

Jules was talking to Brenda in harsh, desperate whispers. She said, “I’m calling him.”

Brenda said, “No. Wait till tomorrow. Cool off.”

“He doesn’t have to call it his own, he just has to pay for it.”

Bobby stops Rum for a second. “You’re saying Jules Fennessy was pregnant?”

“What?”