Tom Mendicino - Probation

“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.

“You’re really nice,” he says, taking my hand.

You don’t know the half of it. I’m nice, the nicest guy in the world. Ask anyone. They’ll line up around the corner, starting with my wife, my sister, my father-in-law, all eager to testify on my behalf. On second thought, we probably shouldn’t ask them. Let’s ask my mother. I solemnly swear it’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth that my son has sacrificed his own happiness to take on the burden of his poor widowed mother…Wait a minute, Duffy, that’s your mother on the witness stand, not mine.

You know and I know you haven’t made any sacrifices. It’s you who ought to be thanking her for providing the excuse to hide from yourself and the life you were born to live. While you’re at it, thank her for helping you become an achingly lonely man who grasps at the slightest act of kindness, like a ride home on an unseasonably cold late-summer night.

“Hey,” I say, “I’m really not such a nice guy.”

“Yes, you are.”

Who knows? Maybe he’s right. And if he is, why am I being cruel, denying him a few minutes of warmth in his paneled and carpeted playpen in the basement? Why am I denying myself the opportunity to allow someone to touch me with affection instead of scratching me to satisfy their own itch?

“So,” I say, clearing my throat, “it’s really late and we’re getting a little drunk. Maybe we ought to go downstairs and stretch out on that sofa for an hour or two, rest our eyes.”

Bad timing. The front door opens before he can answer. Cold air precedes the crepe-soled footsteps. The wall clock says five fifty. Duffy looks over my shoulder and smiles.

“Cold out there, ain’t it, Nancy?”

She works the arms of her coat onto a hanger.

“It’s going to get a lot colder before summer rolls round again. Did you pick up the syringes like you were supposed to? What, no coffee made?” She picks up his cup and sniffs, clicking her tongue.

“Honestly, Duffy,” she says, laughing. “Am I a nurse or your nursemaid?”

“Go on up to her. I’ll put the water on.”

Nice to meet you, she says even though we haven’t been introduced. Duffy gets up and fills the electric percolator with water.

Nancy is only gone a few minutes. He holds his breath when he sees her. Perspiration glazes his face and drips from his chin.

“I’m sorry, Duffy. I’m so sorry,” she says.

I don’t belong here. I’m a stranger, embarrassed by the intimacy of the moment. He blinks twice and blesses himself.

He reaches for his wallet and hands the nurse a twenty.

“Go have a nice big breakfast at Shoney’s. Take an hour. Take two. I’m going to have one more drink. I’ll be asleep when you get back. Wake Teresa then. Tell her it just happened. Just don’t let her wake me. Let her call the others. I don’t want to listen to their shit.”

He gives her a big hug.

“There, there. Don’t be sad. You did a terrific job.” She hugs him back and, turning to leave, gives me a hug too. I don’t know why. I take the shot of whiskey he offers and extend my condolences.

“Thanks,” he says. “Jesus Christ, it’s hot in here.” He strips off his shirt, soaked with sweat. The house is close to the airport and the first takeoff of the morning rumbles overhead.

“I have a plane to catch.”

“I know. I know. Too bad. Here, take this.”

He scribbles his phone number in Cleveland and the address of an office building in Anchorage. “I’ll be there by next April at the latest. Come out. You really should come out.”

He walks me to my car. He throws his arms around me when I go to shake his hand. His skin is on fire. It feels like he wants to squeeze the last breath from my chest.

“I’d love to fuck your brains out,” he whispers in my ear.

I back out of the driveway and he runs back to the house, doing a surprisingly nimble one-handed jump over the gate. The dogs are all over him. I roll down the window. Halfway down the block, I can still hear them howling at the dying moon.

I take the piece of paper with the phone number from my pocket, intending to toss it out the window. Something stops me and, at a red light, I fold it carefully and slip it into my wallet. I know I’ll never use it. Still, I want to keep it. Who knows? Maybe some night when I can’t sleep, when I’m tossing and turning in the single bed in my mother’s house, I’ll think about picking up the phone and calling.

Hey, Duffy, remember me? The guy who thought he could never be as pathetic as you?

“No, Matt, I did not make up the name Duffy Donlan. I swear.”

“Why do you sleep with men you don’t like?”

“I did not sleep with him. And who says I didn’t like him?”

“Did you like him?”

“He was all right, I suppose. I didn’t really get to know him.”

“Are you interested in knowing him?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then why did you keep his number?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you call him?”

I stare at him, no less astonished than if a bare-assed Santa had just dropped down my chimney and was waving his furry caterpillar in my face.

“That’s ridiculous. He lives in fucking Cleveland.”

“You think it’s ridiculous to call and say it was nice meeting you and to ask how he’s doing? I bet he’d love to hear from you.”

I’m sure he would. I doubt his phone’s ringing off the hook. He probably gets as many calls as me. None.

“I wouldn’t know what to talk about.”

“What do you talk to other people about?”

“Shelton/Murray Design Concepts!” I bellow in my best carnival-barker tones. “Tomorrow’s retail spaces today! Bold! Stimulating! Effective!”

“Why don’t you cut the crap?”

“Whoa, that doesn’t sound very professional to me,” I say, feigning shock.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I am not. Here we are, having a pleasant conversation and you have to go all aggressive on me.”

“I’m the one who’s aggressive? How would you describe that little sales pitch?”

I know where you’re going with this and, buddy boy, ain’t no way you’re going to coax the words passive-aggressive from these lips.

“Let’s try it again,” he says. “What did you talk about with Alice?”

Hearing her name, Alice, spoken in this suffocating room, is unbearable. For the past six weeks, he’s barely alluded to her. I’ve never properly introduced the two of them. He knows nothing about her; she’s a complete stranger to him. It’s disgustingly presumptuous of him. He’s taking liberties, dragging her into this sordid little exchange.

“I can’t believe you would ask me that,” I say-no-hiss, angry enough to want to smash his head against the floor and crush his smug face with the heel of my shoe.

“Why?”

He peels the foil from a Hershey’s Kiss, pops it in his mouth, and tosses a candy to me. He must think he’s Pavlov and I’m his goddamn poodle. I swat it with my fist and watch it sail over his shoulder.