Exley (16 page)

She tells me what M. told her I told him to ask her, and she also describes the discussion that followed, including her well-reasoned argument why M.'s father could not possibly be in Iraq. But back to the matter at hand: M. has misrepresented me to his dear mother.
Why, you little . . .
,
I think but do not say. “I can't tell you what I said to M. or what he said to me,” I say. “But I can tell you what I
didn't
say to him. And I didn't say to him what he told you I said to him.” I do not say more, but I do not have to: she “gets it.”

“Oh,” M.'s mother whispers. But it is a softer whisper, a more fragile and lonely one. It makes me want to give her something. The best thing I could give her, of course, is her son's mental health. “I can't tell you what M. and I talked about,” I say. “But I do wonder if you could help me.”

“How?” she asks. I can tell by her voice that she really wants to know.

“Well,” I say. I think of all the ways she could help me, professionally. I don't feel I can tell her about H.'s being struck by the man in front of the Crystal, or seeing M. kick the man in front of the Crystal, or seeing M. in the Crystal itself, or even about the man at the Veterans Affairs hospital, especially since I don't yet know, definitively, who that man is. Besides, it sounds as though M.'s mother has worries enough, and I don't want to add to them unless I have to. But perhaps she can help me clear up some other mysteries. “Do you know anyone named K.?”

“What do you mean?” she says.

“I mean, do you know anyone by that name?” I say, and then I spell it for her. “K-a-y.” While spelling it for her, I realize that M. himself did not spell the name for me, in the same way he does not spell the name of his teacher or his classmates. I had assumed — assumed and, indeed,
been operating under the assumption
— that M. knew that mental health professionals only use initials in their note taking, for anonymity's sake, and that he was simply helping to facilitate the process. Except, I assumed, in the cases of Exley, his mother and father, and this K., whose names were too important for M. to bear to abbreviate them. It did not occur to me, until just now, that M.
speaks in initials
, just as he speaks in “blanks,” just as he says “Mother” and “my dad.” Just as Exley, I realize, sometimes uses initials in the first twenty pages of his book.
You fool
, I think but do not say. “Or perhaps a woman whose first name begins with the letter
K?
” I say to M.'s mother.

“No,” she says, and then pauses. I try to read her silence, which is as difficult on the telephone as it is in person. “Shit,” she finally says.

“Wait,” I say, but she doesn't, and she hangs up, leaving me alone again.
That's the way I feel — alone — without her voice cursing at me; alone except for the book, which I begin to read. I am still reading an hour later when the phone rings again. I pick up, and this time M.'s mother gives me an opportunity to utter the conventional greeting before saying, “I'm sorry for hanging up on you again.”

“No apologies necessary,” I say.

“Maybe not,” she says. “But I'm apologizing anyway.”

“In that case, apology accepted,” I say, and wonder if this sounds as “suave” to her as it does to me. I consider apologizing myself for mentioning K. But if I do so, then I fear, inevitably, that it will lead me to wonder aloud who this K. is again. If that happens, I fear it will result in M.'s mother's hanging up on me again. Oh, unhappy result! And unnecessary, too. Because I have a hunch: I know that K. is a woman, and I know she was M.'s father's student, and I know M.'s mother hung up on me when I mentioned her initial. My hunch is that M.'s father has had an affair with this K., and that M.'s mother knows it and that M. knows it, too, and, for his own reasons, is having his own affair with her, in his head and in his own fashion. Sometimes the world is not so complicated. But until I have proof, I will remain silent. If M. has taught me anything, it's that my silence suits me.

“What are you doing?” M.'s mother finally asks.

“I'm reading
A Fan's Notes,
” I say.

“What do you think?”

What I think is that the book is trash — trash and, indeed,
trashy
—and not at all suitable for a boy M.'s age. But then again, I've only read twenty pages — unlike M., I was never an advanced reader, and perhaps the book gets better. Besides, M. has told me his mother also thinks the book is trash, and I don't want her to think I'm “sucking up.” So I say, “I think this Exley needs a mental health professional.”

She laughs — laughs! — but before I'm fully able to glory in the sound, she says, “Wait a minute, I thought you said you already read it.”

Oh
, I think,
what have I done!
I almost lie again and say,
I have already read it. And now I'm rereading it
. But I am a terrible liar — my mental health professional has properly diagnosed me as such — and I am sure
M.'s mother will hear the lie, even over the telephone. “I lied,” I whisper. “I'm sorry.”

“What did you say?”

I say it again and then curl into a ball on my couch and prepare to be assailed.

“I can't remember the last time that happened,” M.'s mother says, but her voice isn't angry: it's full of wonder, with a little sadness around the edges, too, like night's horizon beginning to threaten the setting sun.

“The last time someone lied to you?”

“No,” she says. “I can't remember the last time someone
admitted
lying to me and then apologized for it. Thank you.”

“Well,” I say, feeling suddenly “suave” again. I even uncurl myself. “You're very welcome.”

 

 

M
y dad didn't own anything and didn't
want
to own anything. He and Mother had an argument about this once. They had an argument about this more than once. But I'm thinking in particular about the time they had an argument about my dad not wanting to own the Crystal, or at least the building it was in.

This was around dinnertime. We were in the kitchen. My dad was making dinner and I was watching him when Mother walked in. She had a huge smile on her face. “Tom,” she said, “how would you like to be the proud owner of Eighty-seven Public Square?” Then she handed him the newspaper; I could see that it was opened to the classifieds. Mother was smiling. I mean, really smiling, like she was trying hard to show us all of her teeth. She looked weird, but happy, which I guess is what I mean when I said she looked weird. My dad didn't seem happy, though. He didn't look at her. He picked up the newspaper, pretended to read it (his eyes moved left to right and back again really fast, like an old typewriter in the movies, and no one whose eyes move like an old typewriter in the movies is really reading), then dropped it on the counter.

“Tom, come on,” Mother said.

“What's Eighty-seven Public Square?” I wanted to know.

“That's where the Crystal is,” Mother said.

“You're going to own the Crystal?” I asked my dad. I couldn't believe it. I don't know how old I was then, exactly. I wasn't old enough to have
started reading books I wasn't old enough to read. But I was old enough to have been to the Crystal many times with my dad. Old enough to know it was his favorite place. “That's your favorite place!” I said.

“See?” Mother said, still showing us her teeth.

“I wouldn't own the Crystal. I'd own the
building,
” my dad said. He still wasn't looking at Mother, or at me. He was now standing over the pot on the stove, stirring whatever was bubbling and smoking inside. “I'd own a building paid for by your money.”

“It's our money,” Mother said, but more softly now, and with fewer teeth showing.

“I'd be a
landlord,
” my dad said. “For Christ's sake, I don't want to be a
landlord
.”

“You don't want to be anything, Tom,” Mother said. “That's the problem.” She wasn't smiling anymore. She stood for a while in front of my dad, waiting for him to say something back. But he didn't. He kept squinting into the pot, kept stirring and stirring, like he knew what he wanted was at the bottom of the pot, and if he stirred long enough maybe it'd rise to the top. “I'm not the only one who can see you don't want to be anything, you know,” Mother finally said, really softly, like she wasn't sure she wanted anyone to hear. But of course my dad and I could, and of course we knew she was talking about me. Then she picked the newspaper up off the counter, threw it in the trash, and left the room. A second later, we could hear her stomping around upstairs, opening and slamming drawers and doors. “Mother is on a tear,” I said. This is something my dad said all the time: “Your mother is on a tear.” Except when I left off the “your” it sounded entirely different. Better, but meaner, which is what made it better. My dad could hear the difference, too. He laughed, kind of — it was a sharp, barky “Ha!” — and then said, “If I were you, bud, I wouldn't let your mom hear you call her ‘Mother.'”

I didn't ask why not, because I knew why not. I nodded and my dad went back to stirring again. He had a sad, thoughtful look on his face; I knew he was thinking about what Mother had said earlier. “I guess I could teach English,” he said.

Exley had been an English teacher, but I didn't know that yet, although
I'd seen my dad read his book a thousand times without really realizing what it was. “Well,” I said, “you definitely do read a lot.”

My dad smiled when I said that. He took the spoon out of the pot, put the lid on it, and then asked me how I'd like it if my old man suddenly became an English teacher at Jefferson County Community College. I said I would like it fine. Then he asked whether I thought Mother would like it, too, and I said I thought she would, although I wasn't too sure. After all, she'd seemed pretty hopped up on the idea of my dad being a landlord, although she hadn't said anything about my dad being an English teacher. My dad was happier now, however (he was smiling and whistling as he set the table), and I didn't want to ruin that, so I just asked, “Why would you rather be an English teacher than a landlord? Is it because you like to read so much?”

“No, bud,” my dad said. “That has nothing to do with it.”

“Well, why do you want to be an English teacher, then?”

“Because,” my dad said, “that's what people want to be when they don't want to be anything else.”

 

 

E
very day, they switch up the order of the classes. Who knows why. Maybe to convince you that the class is not the same class if you're taking it at a different time. Anyway, this was Tuesday, the thirteenth of November, 200–. I had study hall first. It was a good thing. Since I'd forgotten my backpack at school the day before, I hadn't been able to do any of my homework. But I managed to do it all in study hall, so I didn't have any problems that morning. I didn't want any problems at school. I figured if I didn't have any problems at school, I might be able to handle the problems I might have everywhere else.

After study hall, I went to social studies, then home ec, then earth science. But of course I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on in any of those classes; instead, I was thinking about Exley and how I might find him. So far I wasn't doing such a hot job of it on my own, which meant I needed some help. After earth science, it was lunch. I got my tray and my food. But instead of eating, I sat down at an empty table in the cafeteria, took out a piece of paper and a pencil, and started writing a list of Exley's favorite people. I figured if I could find them, they might be able to help me find Exley. And while I was at it, I also made a list of Exley's least favorite people. I figured if I could find them, they might be able to help me find Exley, too; I figured that maybe they'd keep especially close track of him, probably thinking if they always knew where he was, they would always know where not to go.

Here are those lists:

EXLEY'S FAVORITE PEOPLE

Frank Gifford (football player)

Freddy (bartender)

The Counselor (ex-lawyer)

Mr. Blue (aluminum siding salesman)

Vladimir Nabokov (writer)

Lolita (character)

Humbert Humbert (character)

Kinbote (character)

Christie Three (dog)

Bumpy (brother-in-law)

Edmund Wilson (writer)

His dad

His sons

His mother

His wife

Women in general

EXLEY'S LEAST FAVORITE PEOPLE

Paddy the Duke (another crazy person)

His dad

His stepdad

USS Deborah (Mr. Blue's wife)

His wife

Prudence (sister-in-law)

His mother

Women in general

The people who “play soldier” at Fort Drum

“You should probably put my name on the list of people he doesn't like, too,” Harold said from behind me. He walked to the other side of the table and sat down, his knees banging into mine. Harold looked glum and hurt. I mean that literally. His lip was still really swollen from when the guy on the sidewalk had punched him, and there was a scabby cut in the middle of the swollen part that looked like it might bust open at any time.

We didn't say anything for a while: I put the lists in my back pocket and picked up my spoon, and then we just sat there in silence, eating our tapioca pudding. Every now and then, though, Harold looked up at me
eagerly. This was the thing about Harold: I really was his friend. And so he always believed that, sooner or later, I would act like one. That I wouldn't treat him like everyone else treated him.