There’s a For Sale sign in front of the wood shingle house where he lives with his mother. He insists I meet his dogs. Four nervous huskies with meat on their breath are trotting behind a chain link fence. He introduces me to Wolf Larsen, the Malamute Kid, John Barleycorn, and Buck the Third, who rattles the gate with his enormous paws.
“I take it you like to read,” I say, amused by the names of his dogs.
“I like to read about Alaska,” he says, shyly, assuming I’ll think he’s stupid because he still reads boys’ adventure novels. There’s no reason to tell him I had a son, never born, named after Jack London.
He invites me inside for a cup of coffee. It’s after two o’clock and I have an early flight. An unpacked bag waits at the hotel and my body aches for sleep. But his loneliness appeals to me for some reason, another grown man living with his mother. The tiny mudroom at the back door isn’t much bigger than the peep booth and smells of cat litter and wet garbage. I watch him padding around the damp kitchen in his stocking feet, spooning instant coffee into plastic cups and waiting for the kettle to boil. He’s nervous because the conversation is trickling away and he’s afraid I’m going to get up and leave. He rips open a bag of chocolate cookies, bribing me to stay.
He asks if I’m a Catholic. I deny it. He tells me he’s a lay deacon at his parish. I remember the holy medal dangling from his neck. There’s probably a box of breaded fish sticks in the freezer, waiting to be thawed for Friday’s dinner. He asks if I’m cold, it’s pretty nippy for this time of year, and spikes the coffee with Canadian Club. The furnace roars and heat swells in the room.
The whiskey is cheap and burns my throat. I put my hand over my cup when he offers a refill and he tops off his own. It’s warm and I’m sleepy and Duffy feels like talking. For all his size, he has a boy’s voice, a lovely tenor that’s pleasing to the ear. By his third shot of whiskey, he even has a hint of a brogue.
“I’m going north for the dogs, really. No, that’s a lie. It’s for me. I can’t wait to see the winter. The ice. I’ll be thirty-nine this Christmas. I don’t suppose I’ll ever settle down now. Nothing to keep me from going. Sweet Jesus.” He blesses himself. Either he’s a little drunk or he’s more comfortable with me.
“I’m talking about her like she’s already gone. Poor thing.” He nods to a room above the kitchen. “She’s had last rites twice now.”
She used to be his mother. Now she’s nothing but a shell with a big wet hole where her left breast used to be. She’s on morphine, and all that’s left to do is keep her comfortable and check for bedsores. He describes her clinically, without emotion. Duffy Donlan has no feelings for women, not even his mother.
“It’s been hard on her since my dad passed.” He pronounces dad the Irish way, with a silent “d.” I follow him into the dining room. He wants to show me the photographs on the sideboard. He points to Dad, a beautiful cocky young man with wild black hair, wearing an Eisenhower jacket.
“He died when I was twelve,” he says.
Someone clears her throat, announcing her presence. A red-haired woman with pale milky skin is standing in the doorway, a Botticelli in wire-frame glasses. She’s as modest as a nun, hiding her skinny bare feet under her nightgown.
“Teresa, the ghetto cruiser disappointed me once again and my friend Andy here gave me a lift home. Andy, my sister Teresa.”
“Good night, boys,” she says with such a wicked stress on the word boys that I’m embarrassed by the dirty implications in her voice. Duffy ignores her.
“She’s pissed that the house is all mine. Her dago husband’s last job was managing a Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Didn’t he hear me when I told him my last name? “It lasted all of three weeks. That was four years ago. She’s playing nurse, trying to make me feel guilty and give her a share of what I manage to get for this dump. I probably won’t even be able to sell to whites. Fuck her.”
I pick up a formal family portrait in somber black and white. Duffy, about sixteen, is standing behind his seated mother, his hand resting on the back of her chair. Seven younger Donlans surround them. The mother has a long Katharine Hepburn neck and that same arrogant stare. All her children are striking, with arresting eyes.
“Teresa, you’ve met. Maureen was the great beauty. She’s in Vegas now. A cocktail waitress and the mistress of the owner of a GM dealership,” he says. Duffy feels compelled to share the history of every sibling in the photograph, the common theme being his sacrifices for all the younger Donlans. His nobility is suffocating. It’s creepy, his playing house with his mother and being a daddy to her children. There’s something discomforting about a grown man sleeping under his mama’s roof, eating the food she cooks.
He asks about my family. Nothing extraordinary, I say. “Any more of that whiskey left?” I ask to avoid admitting what he and I have in common.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says.
The bright kitchen feels like walking into daylight after the mausoleum of the dining room. I settle back on one of the hard chairs. He says we’d be more comfortable in the basement. He’s fixed it up real nice, with a huge sofa, thick carpet, and a wide-screen TV. I’m comfortable right here, I say, no intention of being lured into his lair.
“Is there anyone special in your life?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, a blatant lie.
“You’re lucky,” he says.
“How about you?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“No. Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“He got scared. He’s a transit cop. Divorced. Buddy’s his name. He has custody of his teenage son, so we had to spend all of our time here. My mother really liked him. He knew how to talk to her, never looked bored when she complained. I met the kid when he came over to watch the Super Bowl. I was careful, really careful, watched what I said, not dropping any hints. But the kid asked too many questions once they were home. Buddy said we’d have to cool it, at least until the boy moves out of the house. He still calls, asks after my mother. He’s going to be a pallbearer at her funeral. Does your mother like your friend?”
“Yes. Yes. Very much,” I say, completely comfortable with lying.
“You sure you don’t want to go downstairs?”
“Yeah, I like it up here.”
“It’s a shame you live so far away.”
“I don’t always plan on living in Charlotte,” I say, surprising myself.
“I bet you’d really like Alaska.”
I tell him I’m a Southern boy, so terrified of ice and snow I won’t even touch a Popsicle.
“You ought to try it. Come up. You have a place to stay. That would be great. I never meet anyone like you.”
You never meet anyone like me? Count your lucky stars.
“Then again, you already have someone in your life.”
Right, Duffy Donlan. I’m taken. And even if I weren’t, how could we run off together, live happily ever after, until death do us part? Don’t you see we have a little problem here? Whose mother will we live with? Yours or mine? Or maybe we could pack them up together, the four of us in a cottage with a white picket fence.