Exley (17 page)

“Sorry about yesterday,” I finally said.

“Thanks,” Harold said, and he smiled, although not all the way. I could see the lip skin stretch over the swelling.

“He wasn't even Exley,” I said. “It was just some random guy.”

“Why'd you even think he was Exley in the first place?”

“Exley's from here,” I said. “He's from Watertown.”

“Really?” Harold's parents were from Watertown. His grandparents were, too. Harold had been born in Good Sam, just like me. “Where'd he grow up?”

“I just told you,” I said.

“No, I mean, what street?”

“I don't know,” I said. I was starting to get annoyed that Harold had asked that question and that I didn't know the answer to it. “What difference does it make, what street? He's from
Watertown
. He grew up here.”

“And now he's homeless?”

“No,” I said. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you thought that guy on the sidewalk was him.”

“I told you,” I said. “That wasn't him. That was a mistake.”

“What's his name again?”

“Exley
, Harold,” I said. “You should remember that in case
he
ends up wanting to hit you in the face, too.”

Harold put his head down and scraped his spoon around in his empty thing of pudding. It was hard to be Harold's friend, even if he was your only friend. Especially if he was your only friend. He would always end up saying something that would make you mad. And then you'd say or do something to him that would make him sad. And then you'd regret it. And then he'd do something else to make you forget that you'd just regretted the thing you were about to do again. “I just never heard of him,” Harold finally said. “Not before yesterday.”

“Well, you should have,” I said. “He's a famous writer.”

“If he's so famous,” Harold said, “how come I never heard of him?”

I almost told Harold to shut up. But I didn't. Because it was a good
question. Mrs. T. hadn't heard of him. Harold hadn't heard of him. No one in advanced reading had heard of him. The guys in the Crystal hadn't heard of him. I thought of the Watertown Public Library and the historical society. The library I went into all the time. It had big, comfortable leather chairs and creepy guys cruising the Internet and helpful sayings etched into the walls and ceilings, like
MIND IS THE GREAT LEVER OF ALL THINGS.
The historical society I'd been to a few times on class trips. They had an exhibit about the Watertownian who'd invented chloroform, and an exhibit about the Watertownian who invented the bedspring. The historical society evidently liked Watertownians who helped people go to sleep. But I didn't remember the library or the historical society having anything about Exley. If he was from Watertown, and he wrote this book and got famous, how come no one had ever heard of him? If I hadn't seen the book and seen my dad read it hundreds of times, and if I hadn't read it myself, two days earlier, for the first time, I would have wondered if I'd made up Exley and his book, the way Mother thought I made up other things. This was a problem. Because the Exley I presented to my dad had to be the famous writer he loved, not some guy no one had ever heard of. Which meant I had to find him and remind people of what a famous author he was
before
bringing him to my dad. I didn't know how long that would take, but I did know that I wouldn't have time to find Exley's favorite and least favorite people and ask them if they could help me; I would have to find Exley on my own, and fast. But how? Where? I knew Exley wasn't at the New Parrot or on the sidewalk outside the Crystal. But the guys at the Crystal said that there was a guy on Oak Street who looked like Exley. I didn't know if I should believe them, but I did know where Oak Street was and how to find out if they were telling the truth.

“Miller,” Harold said, “are you going to answer my question?”

“No,” I said. I got up from the table with my tray, and Harold followed me. We chucked our pudding things and milk cartons in the garbage, then put the trays on top of the can. Harold started to go one way, toward advanced reading. But I went the other way, toward the art and music rooms, which were right down the hall. Between them was the back door. Harold didn't even realize I wasn't walking with him. I knew this because he was talking to me. I could hear him as he walked one way and I walked
the other. “Well, maybe he's famous,” Harold said, “but just not
locally
famous.” And he started talking about how someone couldn't even
be
locally famous. “That's an
oxymoron,
” I heard Harold say. I turned and looked at him. Two girls walking by
had
heard him talking to himself. They looked at each other with bug eyes, mouthed the word “moron,” turned around, and followed Harold, making yakking motions with their hands. One of them had big, bright bracelets that hula-hooped around her wrist as she opened and closed, opened and closed her hands.
Hey, that's my best friend
, I said to them in my head.
He's actually a good guy. Leave him alone
. Then I turned, pushed opened the doors, and was gone.

 

 

O
h, happy night! After M.'s mother thanked me for apologizing for lying to her, we spent a wonderful fifteen minutes speaking on the phone. Rather, M.'s mother spoke — whispered — about M., about her job at Fort Drum, about her dislike — dislike and, indeed,
antipathy
—for Watertown, and I listened. I've become quite good at this listening business. M.'s mother confirmed this: “Thank you for listening to all that,” she said. I told her she was most welcome, again. After that, it was clear it was my turn to say something, and so I said I was looking forward to our “date.” The minute I said the word, I wondered where I'd gotten the “balls” to say it. My mental health professional is always saying he wishes he could write me a prescription for some “balls.” “Date?” M.'s mother asked. It's possible she was simply teasing, but nonetheless my heart rose to my throat and began to quiver there. “Yes,” I said, and reminded her of my talk at the NCMHP annual meeting on Thursday, and how she'd agreed to accompany me. “That's Thursday?” she said. “Shit.” And then she explained that Thursday was also M.'s birthday. “We always go out to dinner on his birthday!” she said. I could appreciate her situation. But I wanted her to appreciate mine as well: that I would die if she could not come with me to the annual meeting; that I would die if she would not, after all, be my date.

“Why don't you take him out to dinner tomorrow or Wednesday?” I suggested.

“Wednesday night is no good,” she said, and explained that she was delivering her own talk that night.

“Tomorrow night, then,” I said. “And then on his actual birthday, you could do something special for him after our date.” I assured her the
meeting would be over early. Mental health professionals are early-to-bed, early-to-rise types, I explained.

“Yes, I bet you're like farmers,” she whispered, and I could hear the wry, slightly mocking laughter in her voice. Instead of curling up into a ball, though, I decided to laugh with her. I do think M.'s mother, like her son, is turning out to be good for me.

“Exactly like farmers,” I whispered, “except we're mostly vegetarians who don't like to get our hands dirty.”

She laughed at that and then said good night. Oh, that laugh! It stayed with me all sleepless night. Oh, happy night!

But oh, sleepy day! I am barely sentient when my first patient arrives for her eight o'clock session. She is an African American girl named A. Her father is a soldier stationed in Iraq; unlike M., there is no doubt that A.'s father is a soldier and in Iraq, and unlike M.'s, her problems are relatively simply to diagnose: she thinks her father is going to die.

“Why do you think that?” I asked her in our previous session.

“Because he's in a place where people want to kill him,” she said.

“Not
everyone
there wants to kill him,” I said, and A. looked at me like I was “lame” (figuratively).

“I don't know why he's even there in the first place,” A. said. “I don't know why he's not here with me.” This would have been the time for A. to cry, and for me to tell her that crying doesn't help anyone, etc. But A. didn't cry. Very few of my patients whose parents are soldiers cry when they're supposed to. They say these terribly sad things matter-of-factly and they don't cry; they don't even slouch. This is how I know they're unwell, mentally; I try, subtly, to model correct grieving behavior for them by slouching in my chair as they tell their sad stories. By the end of my last session with A., I was practically horizontal.

I open my front door and find A. standing on my porch. She is not alone; usually she's accompanied by her mother, but today, standing next to her is a tall, slender adult African American male in military uniform. I am tired enough that one part of my brain actually wonders,
Well, who do we have here?
while the other part says,
It's A.'s father, you fool
. Alas, my mouth appears to be connected to the former part of my brain, not the latter.

“This is my dad,” A. says. She's smiling. I don't think I've seen A. smile before. I wonder how her father, knowing that he can make her smile like that just by virtue of his “being around,” could ever bear to leave her. This is a question I would like to ask him, among other questions. But I don't, not immediately. Instead, I tell the father that it's nice to meet him, and he returns the sentiment. Then I ask A. if she wouldn't mind waiting in my office while I talk to her father. Her smile disappears, and it occurs to me that now that A.'s father is home, she doesn't want to let him out of her sight, not even for a brief consultation with her mental health professional. “Don't worry,” I say. “This won't take long.” She doesn't move. “It's OK, baby,” her father says softly. A. nods, turns, and enters my office.

A general observation about men in military uniform: they look impatient. A.'s father looks even more impatient than most soldiers; in particular, he looks like the kind of man who'd mistake a mental health professional's time-honored sort of give-and-take as “psychobabble” or “bullshit.” Perhaps this is why I try a different tack. Or perhaps it's because my normal method of inquiry at the VA hospital turned out so disastrously. Or perhaps it's my personality that's the trouble, as my own mental health professional has suggested. In any case, I decide, with A.'s father, to act not as though I am the doctor and he is my patient's father, but rather as though I am the interviewer, he the interviewee. Or rather, as M.'s mother suggested, as though I'm a detective, and he's a suspect or a source.

Q: A. is a good kid.

A: (
Silence.
)

Q: She misses you, though.

A: (
Silence.
)

Q: But of course that's normal. Nothing to worry about. She's fine.

A: If she's so fine, what am I paying you for?

Q: Yes, well, as I suggested, I know she's happy you're home. For how long will you be home?

A: A month.

Q: How long have you been in the army?

A: Eight years.

Q: How long were you in basic training before you were deployed?

A: I don't remember.

Q: Approximately.

A: Six months, more or less.

Q: How long between when you signed up and when you went to basic training?

A: Four months.

Q: Is this timeline typical?

A: I guess. Why?

Q: (
Long pause to make another observation, mentally, about men in uniform: when they ask you a question, you answer it
.) Another patient of mine, a boy your daughter's age, thinks his father went to Iraq. The boy's mother disagrees. As proof, she's argued that according to the boy's own insisted-upon timeline, the boy's father wouldn't have had enough time to sign up, train, and be deployed. Your timeline confirms that.

A: Maybe not. I hear they're short on the numbers.

Q: The numbers . . .

A: They're running out of guys. So there's less time between when they sign up and when they're shipped out.

Q: Very well. But the patient's mother also says the patient's father is too old to be in the army.

A: They're letting in older guys, too. We've got a grandfather in our unit.

Q: But just one, correct?

A: (
Long pause
.) One's all we need.

Q: But it is rare. The patient is most likely making the whole thing up.

A: You know the kid better than I do.

Q: But why would someone do that?

A: Do what?

Q: Why would someone pretend his father is in Iraq?

A: Some people think being in the army is better than what they're already doing.

Q: Why did you join?

A: (
Long pause.
.) The usual reasons.

Q: Which are?

A: (
Long pause
.) If you're a black man, you either go into the army and stay
Christian, or you go to jail and become a Muslim. Brother does a little time in jail and then won't eat pork no more. I do love my Jesus. Also, barbecue pork sandwiches.

Q: (
Long pause.
.) Surely you're not serious.

A: Surely I am. Why do you do what you do?

Q: The simplest answer is that I became a mental health professional because I wanted to help people. (
Pause.
.) But it's also true that I became a mental health professional because I wasn't argumentative enough to become a legal professional, or athletic enough to become a fitness professional, or tolerant enough of blood or bodily illness or death to become a physical health professional or a mortuary professional. And it's also true that I became a mental health professional because the university from which I graduated allowed me to study there, and because the government gave me loans that allowed me to become indebted to it as it paid for my education. And now that I am a degreed and licensed mental health professional, it's also true that, in the case of M., my patient, I want to help him because I want to be seen by M.'s lovely mother as someone who was able to help her son and thus someone who is worthy of her affection. (
Long pause.
.) But mostly I became a mental health professional because I want to help people.