There are fathers and father figures. But then there are men who kind of take the patriarchal model and turn it on its head. Joe Durkin, a 43-year-old entrepreneur, has done just that.
First some background: Joe Durkin — I’ll call him Joe — spent much of his childhood on the South Side before his father moved the family to northwest suburban Inverness. Joe’s father was an entrepreneur with a successful modeling and acting school. His mother was a successful stay-at-home mom who often volunteered. Both created a family life that allowed Joe and his siblings to be children.
Michael Wallace’s upbringing in a two-bedroom Rogers Park apartment wasn’t nearly as accommodating. Born to blind parents, Michael, an only child, had to grow up fast. His father left the family when he was a year old. Before Michael was 9, he was proficient at traveling Chicago’s streets via CTA buses.
“I knew how to buy groceries and do chores like most kids,” said Michael, 25. “But I was also reading the mail and paying bills by writing out checks.”
In 1992, when Michael turned 11, his mother wanted him to have more of a male presence. She called his father, who played a role for a while; and she called the Friends First mentoring program, part of the non-profit Mercy Home for Boys and Girls.
Meanwhile, Joe was a 28-year-old single man, a lawyer who recently had walked away from a legal career. Having mentored before, he had gone to Mercy hoping to become a big-brother type. He passed the background check and completed hours of training. He committed to spending the required minimum of four hours per week mentoring for a year. Soon Brother Paul McDonough, who worked with the program, believed Joe and Michael would make a fine pair.
Mercy had been around since 1887, as a residential facility, or an orphanage, but was fairly new to mentoring. Still, staffers’ experiences provided some basic don’ts for mentors: Don’t make promises you can’t keep, because these children were used to broken promises. Don’t expect them to trust, because for many trust had dried up. Don’t do this for gratitude. It may come. It may never come.
Mercy stressed that mentors shouldn’t spend a lot of money, either. Even though the kids were poor, time was the more valuable commodity.
Joe and Michael made their introductions. Soon they were spending afternoons together, biking and visiting museums and the library. They played board games and shot off model rockets in the park. Initially, Michael was shy and reserved.
“I’d say it was three months or so when he started to come out of his shell,” Joe said. “One day we were in McDonald’s and he picked up one of my sayings. He said, ‘You know what I mean, jelly bean?’
“We both laughed. After that, we’d have these deep discussions about anything. He was bright and a deep thinker. Children hold back, believing, ‘Here’s a guy who’ll feel good about himself for a while and then he’ll take off.'”
Joe didn’t take off. In fact, when his year with Michael was up, he re-upped for another year.
When Michael turned 13, his mother was concerned when gang members began clawing at him. Joe didn’t preach, only reasoned: Which was the better support system, the type of family gang members offered, or the one Michael had with Joe, especially since Joe’s parents and siblings also treated Michael like kin?
Michael never joined a gang. Instead, he took on two part-time jobs to keep busy.
The years passed and Joe continued to re-up. He attended Michael’s 8th grade graduation. He helped Michael get into Gordon Technical High School (and later attended that 1999 graduation too). Joe was there for the crises as well. Michael called Joe when he landed in the emergency room after a bad hit on the football field. He reluctantly called Joe when, at 16, his home life was crumbling and he needed a place to stay.
At first, Mercy’s residential facility was an option. “But I told Brother Paul, ‘I live alone. We’ve established a relationship. He can live with me.'” Joe said. “I was a big brother, but now I was taking on more of a father role.”
“I never bought him a Father’s Day card,” Michael said. “But he was my brother, father, friend, counselor.”
Michael lived with Joe for 18 months until Michael left to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he lived on campus. He majored in art and architecture and was primarily an A-student until his senior year. He said he began to lose focus and feel as though he needed more direction, more of a purpose.
In 2003, after the Iraq war started, he surprised his mother and Joe by dropping out and signing up for a five-year stint in the Army.
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In a few weeks, Michael will be deployed to Iraq for 15 months. When this tour ends — he already has served in Germany and Afghanistan — so will his enlistment. He plans to come home, finish school and marry his fiance, who’s Joe’s niece. Joe, by the way, also is engaged and will marry in August.
Joe and Michael’s formal mentoring relationship with Mercy ended years ago. But their relationship had outgrown formalities long before then. And what about gratitude that might come, or might never come?
“It’s immeasurable how he’s changed my life,” Michael said. Joe said the feeling is mutual.
On July 4, Michael will turn 26. “I asked Joe if he realized that I’ll soon be the age he was when we first met,” Michael said. “I told him now it’s my turn to help somebody the way he helped me. I just hope I’ll do as good a job as Joe.”
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