Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom

by A. L. Haskett

  P.S. I don’t think you should hang around Benjamin anymore. He was fresh with me and refused to give your mother or me your address.

  Love, Tiffy.

  Benjamin had told him of Tiffy’s aborted attempt at seduction. He was surprised but not shocked. Nor was he upset for several reasons. First, he and Tiffy were broken up. That made Tiffy fair game, even for Benjamin. Second, he had since fallen for a crazy woman, so the affections of what Benjamin termed that whore former girlfriend of yours no longer mattered. And third, he was proud that Benjamin possessed the moral conviction and fortitude to resist Tiffy’s bountiful charms in deference to a friend. Duncan pocketed the letter and put his clothes in a dryer. He thought about Tiffy and he thought about Pris. He thought about Benjamin and he thought about Sheila. He thought about Fiona and Sean and imagined how his father would answer Tiffy’s ultimatum. He remembered the dream.

  Tiffy doesn’t love you, Sean Delaney had told him and, you will love again.

  He reflected on his life’s peculiar course as he loaded his warm, clean clothes into a basket. He stepped onto the street, speculating on what it was like in Cheyenne and where Tiffy was and who she was with and it took him a minute of walking and thinking before he realized he no longer cared.

  Duncan breathed deep a nostalgic odor fresh from his childhood as he climbed his stairs. It was the sweet, smothering smell of violets, not overpowering in the orthodox sense but insidious in its infiltration of the sinuses. He opened the door and dropped his laundry basket.

  “Jesus God!” he yelped.

  Fiona and Woody stood by the window looking down to the street. Duncan put his hand to his beating chest. A fragrance reminiscent of Fiona was one thing but the woman in person was another. In a practical sense, even if he had made the connection he still would have ascended the stairs and opened the door. He just would have been better prepared. His mother wore a staid green business suit, light green stockings, and black pumps. Woody stood awkwardly by in a western shirt with a bolo tie, brown nylon pants, and brown penny loafers over white socks. Benjamin lay on the couch, naked save his boxers, leafing through a Playboy purchased from Assan in the interim between Misty’s departure and Fiona’s arrival.

  “Duncan,” Benjamin sang, “your mommy wants you.”

  “You scared the hell out of me,” Duncan said.

  “It’s nice to see you too,” Fiona said.

  “You know that’s not what I meant.” He hugged her. “Hey, Mom. Hey, Woody. What brings you out here?”

  “I’d guess an airplane,” Benjamin offered.

  Fiona ignored him. “It’s time to come home.”

  Duncan released her and picked up his basket. He knelt and sorted his laundry into his clothes box.

  “This is home now.”

  “Now, Duncan,” Woody said, “maybe we should talk about this.”

  “How can you live in this, this . . .” Fiona encompassed the room with a sweep of her hand. “Words fail me.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Benjamin said, “once you get used to the roaches, the drug dealers, the discarded needles, the squalid toilet, and the fetid, stinking, haggard whores who ply their trade on the boulevard.”

  Fiona glanced about the room. She went for the baseball bat, but Duncan got there first. He set it out of her reach in the hall.

  “You’re not helping any, Benjamin,” Woody said.

  “Still bang . . .” Benjamin remembered his jailhouse resolution. “Never mind.” He put his pants on. “I’m off for beer. You want one Woody?”

  “Sure, I’ll have a beer.”

  “No, you won’t,” Fiona said, “you’re driving the rental.”

  Woody hung his head. “On second thought maybe I shouldn’t.”

  Benjamin theorized that Fiona had impounded Woody’s testicles long ago and held them hostage in a jar of murky liquid in the back of the refrigerator at the Circle D. Duncan claimed the jar held old olives. Benjamin did not buy it. He could not discern other grounds for Woody’s craven conduct. Sure, Fiona sporadically warmed the testicles in the microwave to allow Woody their use, but that was not the same as operating one’s gonads one’s self.

  “And what about Tiffy?” Fiona demanded after Benjamin left. “You’ll lose her if you stay here.”

  “She’s already lost, mom. She made that clear enough.”

  “I am through arguing.” She searched in her purse. “If you won’t listen to reason maybe you’ll pay attention to this.”

  Fiona found her checkbook. She opened it and wrote. Benjamin returned with the beers. He popped two and handed one to Duncan. Woody licked his lips but said nothing. Fiona ripped out a check and handed it to Duncan. Benjamin looked over his shoulder and whistled.

  “That’s three thousand dollars. It’s yours if you come home.”

  “This isn’t about money, mom.”

  “All right.” Fiona wrote another. “Five thousand. No job required. You can rent an apartment in Cheyenne and paint there if you like.”

  “Tell you what.” Benjamin took a wad of hundreds from his pocket and threw it on the floor at Fiona’s feet. “I’ll give him six thousand to stay.”

  “Holy Jesus,” Woody said. “Where did you get that kind of money?”

  “Stole it from a church collection box no doubt,” Fiona said, “or maybe telemarketing.” She wrote a third check. “Seven thousand.”

  “I may be a lot of things but I’m no damn telemarketer.” Benjamin took a wad of bills from his other pocket and threw it down. “Eight thousand.”

  Fiona scribbled a fourth check and held it to heaven like a bible in the hands of an evangelist at a snake handlers’ prayer meeting. “Ten thousand dollars!”

  Benjamin shrugged. “Out of my league.”

  Duncan took the check. It would buy a hell of a lot of paint. But in the end it made no difference. He offered the check back.

  “Thank you, mom. But no.”

  Fiona’s spine became an iron rod in opposition to Duncan’s defiance. She had never struck her son but she now experienced the urge. The last time she had felt this way towards a relative was two years before Sean Delaney’s death, when he voyaged to Ireland for his father’s funeral. Patrick Delaney was an alcoholic womanizer and petty thief known for smash and grab burglaries until a thrown brick bounced off a jeweler’s plexiglass window and hit him in the forehead. He awoke bloody in the gutter with the brick under his chin and an alarm ringing in his ears. After that he could not throw a brick without breaking out in a shivering sweat. He tried picking pockets, but his hands were clumsy. He eventually gave up thievery and made a living as a beggar, charming tourists into tossing as much as a fiver into his outstretched cap.

  Patrick had left Sean’s mother when Sean was twelve. A month before his death, he had appeared on Mary Delaney’s doorstep with a liver as big as a goat’s and a cancer eating from colon to throat. Mary took him in and cared for him. She was Catholic, never divorced, and only God knew why she still loved her errant husband. Fiona blew up when she heard the tale. She would have journeyed to Ireland herself to kill the bastard for his sins. But Patrick Delaney was five days’ cold, murder was moot, and an overseas trip for a rogue’s funeral was just so much squandered money. Fiona did not realize until Sean was gone that he went for his mother’s sake, not his father’s, and because it was the right thing to do. And now she saw Sean in Duncan, and it subdued and moved her virtually to tears.

  “Keep it,” she said. “But at least move into a place fit for humans.”

  The door slammed open. Pris stormed in. She wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a yellow collared blouse. Her hair was tied in a long pony tail. She wore no make up. She tore the cloth off the painting and stared at the canvas.

  “Pris . . .”

  She brushed between Fiona and Woody and obtained a butcher knife from a drawer in the kitchen. They watched in fear and fascination as she slashed the painting to tatters. If not for her vengeful eyes and the knife in her hand she
would have looked like a college girl instead of a homicidal maniac. She threw the knife to the floor between Duncan’s feet. It stuck in the wood, twanging like a cheap tuning fork.

  “I decide who paints me. Not you. And if I ever do decide to let you paint me I expect to be paid for it. Understand?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’m sorry.”

  Pris turned to Fiona and Woody. “Please forgive the interruption.”

  Then she was gone. Fiona and Woody looked at each other in bewilderment.

  “What the hell was that?” Fiona asked.

  “That,” Duncan said, “is one reason I’m reluctant to go home.”

  “Well,” Benjamin said, “she left the door open for you to paint her in the future.”

  Duncan smiled. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “Who is she?” Fiona asked.

  “Her name is Pris. She works across the street.”

  “Pris what?”

  That took Duncan by surprise. “You know, I never thought to ask.”

  “What was she so mad about?” Woody asked.

  “Hard to say.” Duncan yanked the butcher knife from the floor and put it away. “I guess the painting didn’t appeal to her.”

  Fiona watched Pris enter the Hollywood. “What does she do?”

  Benjamin’s face assumed the aspect of a man who, at the onset of an attack of Tourette’s syndrome, had just realized he forgot his medication. Duncan sat on the couch, picked up the check, and shook his head.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “She’s a fucking stripper!” Benjamin blurted in deranged glee. “Your boy’s in love with a goddamn exotic dancer! How do you like them apples, Fiona?”

  Fiona took the check from Duncan’s hands and tore it into small pieces. She dropped the bits on the floor at his feet and walked out.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Woody said. “A stripper, huh?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Woody turned to go. “We’re at the Beverly Hills Hotel if you need us.”

  “Hey, Woody!” Duncan called. Woody stopped. “How did you find me, anyway?”

  He shrugged towards Benjamin. “Fiona had him followed.”

  “Wait just a minute. I lost those morons in Vegas. I know I did. Hell, I can spot a car tailing me from fifty miles.”

  “Who said anything about a car? Fiona hired a Cessna, too. One mile up and two miles off.”

  “Air support!” Benjamin slapped his forehead, surprised at the expense to which Fiona would go to find her baby. So that was how Lomo and Kern located him time and again. “Damn if I didn’t underestimate the bitch.”

  Woody laughed. “You never had a chance.”

  Fiona waited at the curb beneath Duncan’s studio, staring across the street at the Hollywood Bar and Grill. Woody joined her.

  “Ever been to one of those places?” she asked.

  “Once or twice.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “I don’t know. Dark mostly. Dark and loud.”

  Fiona stepped across the gutter into the street.

  “Where you going?”

  “To talk with that girl.”

  “Duncan won’t like that!” Woody yelled as she crossed the street. She opened the door and went inside. “Oh lord,” he groaned.

  He crossed after her. Inside the bar, an imminently naked girl swayed half heartedly on an oval stage to a blaring rock song. The girl smiled at him. Woody blushed and looked away. He spotted Fiona handing a check to Pris at a table in the back. Pris folded the check and put it in her shirt pocket. She stood and went back stage.

  “That went well,” Fiona said when Woody sat beside her. A waitress set a beer before her. “Thank you, dear.”

  The music stopped. The girl picked up the bills scattered at her feet and retreated behind a curtain. Woody looked around. Fiona was the only female in the room not clad in lingerie and thigh boots.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “What?” Fiona looked distracted. “After I finish my beer.”

  The music commenced anew. Misty emerged from the curtain, strutting to a salsa beat. She wore a vinyl skirt, a white blouse, and high black leather boots. The shirt was the first to go. Fiona watched, her breathing rapid and shallow. She rubbed Woody’s thigh.

  “Fiona!” he hissed.

  "Hush! No one can see us.”

  Woody shuddered. He imagined Duncan walking in. Fiona mistook his reaction and squeezed his leg. Woody surrendered in the darkness as Misty, now down to bra and G-string and young enough to be his daughter, hung upside down from a steel pole. Lord, he prayed, as Fiona worked her way up his inseam, knowing as he prayed that he was in the devil’s workshop and that divine intervention would not be forthcoming, save me from this woman and her twisted ways.

  “So,” Benjamin said, “what did Tiffy’s letter say?”

  “Didn’t you read it?”

  “Sure. But I was willing to pretend I didn’t.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better.”

  “Two bikers came by and took your Harley.”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  “I figured. Otherwise, I’d have stopped them.” Duncan did not doubt Benjamin would have tried. “Oh,” he went on, “you had a female visitor.”

  “I was here.”

  “Not your psychotic girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “But you don’t dispute the psychotic part.”

  Duncan looked at the shredded canvas. “That would be difficult.”

  “Misty.”

  “What about her?”

  “I told you. She came by.”

  “What did she want?”

  “You I think.”

  “More’s the pity.”

  Benjamin picked up his money from the floor and pocketed it.

  “Where’d you get that anyway?”

  “I won it. Perfectly legal.”

  “Uh huh. Stopped by to see your cousins, did you?”

  “Yup.”

  Duncan changed into fresh, warm jeans and a long sleeved shirt. He gathered his paintings and put on his hat.

  “Drive me to Angela’s?”

  “Oh, no. I’m not ready to go there yet.”

  “Fine. If you’re so yellow you can’t face her I’ll take the bus.”

  “Who are you calling yellow, white man?”

  “If the color fits . . .”

  “Fine. But you can’t make me go inside.”

  “I don’t care what you do. I just need a ride.”

  Duncan stowed his paintings in the back of the Purgatory Truck. He covered them with a cloth and tucked the edges around the frames. Benjamin got in the truck. He wore new jeans, new boots, a shirt with factory creases, and a hefty dose of cologne.

  “You got prettied up just for me?” Duncan laughed as he slid in beside him. “Is it wrong to love another man?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you damn potato eater.”

  “Sure, bring my cultural heritage into it, you bigot.” Duncan was enjoying Benjamin’s anxiety. “Hell, it’s Saturday. She probably won’t be there. Besides, I’m sure she forgot about you. You aren’t that memorable.”

  “You seen my pliers?”

  “What do you want them for?”

  “To pull out your teeth,” Benjamin growled as he pulled into traffic.

  Duncan pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Haven’t seen them.”

  Sven was behind the reception desk when Duncan and Benjamin arrived. Marie had landed a part dancing in a rock video and, having lost his gallery job, Sven was happy to sit in. He wore white linen pants, brown sandals, and a white silk shirt buttoned to his neck. He was tan, tall, muscular, and blond. He looked the perfect human male.

  “How’s the scrotum?” Benjamin asked. Duncan had told him about the ruckus at the gallery.

  “Better, thank you.” Sven stood. “I will tell Angela you are here.”

  “You asshole!”

&nb
sp; Sven stepped menacingly back towards Benjamin. “Excuse me?”

  “Not you,” Benjamin said. “Him. He told me she wouldn’t be here.”

  “I said she probably wouldn’t be.”

  Duncan grabbed Benjamin as he turned to flee. Benjamin contemplated snapping Duncan’s wrist, but before his brain could send the requisite impulses across axon to dendrite, Angela strolled through the door and his neurons ceased heeding his commands. She wore a dark-blue dress cut above the knee, a pearl necklace hanging to her sternum in the vee of her blouse, and precision make-up that enhanced her exotic splendor. Despite believing all history culminated in the moment, Benjamin felt out of his depth. On a western road beneath a wide sky with only the wind to come between them he could handle her, but here? Duncan had not seen Benjamin so nervous since the sixth grade, when he discovered him behind the oil rig showing Stephanie Haskell his organic tomahawk.

  “Coward,” Duncan whispered.

  “Let go before I damage you. I feel the need for flight.”

  “Angela,” Duncan said as he released him, “you remember Benjamin.”

  “Of course. How are you Benjamin?”

  Benjamin breathed deep and stood straight. “I am as a man standing in awe before a goddess,” he said in a deep clear voice.

  Angela rolled her eyes. “With a rattler penis as I recall.”

  “More like a boa after seeing you again.”

  “Do you always come on this strong?”

  “Only in the face of overwhelming beauty.”

  “You don’t seem overwhelmed.”

  “I’m so nervous I could shit.”

  Angela laughed. Duncan leaned his paintings against Sven’s desk.

  “I’ll just leave these here. You can tell me what you think later.”

  “Would you like a beer, Duncan?” Angela had purchased a case after their first meeting.

  “No thank you.”

  “Benjamin?”

  “I could sorely use one.”

  “Sven, two bottles and two glasses in my office, please.”

  She was three inches taller than Benjamin despite his boots. But, as Benjamin was fond of saying whenever his stature was questioned, height don’t mean nothing when you’re lying down, which was equally applicable, though in differing senses, when either a man or a woman was doing the questioning. Sven took two bottles from a refrigerator. Duncan was a card-carrying heterosexual but he could not help but notice Sven’s great physical beauty. He was a male version of Pris on a modified steroid diet. Duncan envisioned Sven on his couch across from Roscoe, two men from disparate planetary ends, creatures of light and darkness.