Exley (22 page)

“I
hate
driving in the snow,” Mother muttered. She put her foot on the gas, and we crept past the driveway, then past the VA hospital. The car moved on, but in my mind, I could still see us going into the hospital, my dad waiting for us, us bringing him home.

But before I knew it, I had something else to think about. Mother pulled up in front of the Crystal, put the car in park, and turned off the engine. The lights were on in the Crystal. I could see a bunch of people at the bar. Almost all the tables and booths were full. Someone walked out of the front door, and for a second or two I could hear voices. They sounded happy, upbeat. I didn't hear music, but with voices like that, maybe you
didn't want or need music. Then the door closed again. It was snowing harder now. And it was getting cold in the car. I could see my breath. The Crystal looked like a nice place to come in out of the weather. I was still looking at the place as though it had nothing to do with me.

“What are we doing here?” I asked. I looked at Mother. She was grinning at me again.

“It's your birthday dinner,” Mother said. “We always go here for your birthday dinner.”

This was true. Mother and my dad always took me here for my birthday dinner. Or at least since I was five. When I was about to turn five, Mother asked me if I wanted to stay in or go out. I said I wanted to go out, to the Crystal. Because I knew it was my dad's favorite place. The Crystal wasn't Mother's favorite. But she said, “The Crystal it is.” Because it was my birthday and she'd asked what I wanted and that's what I wanted.

“But my birthday isn't for another two days,” I said.

“I know,” Mother said. She explained that the next night she had to give a talk at the YWCA. And the night after that, my birthday night, she had an important meeting. She really needed to go to it. It was really important. But she could get out of it if I really wanted her to. If it was really that important to me. Was it really that important to me? Because if it really was, she'd try to get out of it. By that time, I just wanted her to stop talking about her meeting and to stop using the word “really,” so I said, “No, it's OK.”

“I'm really sorry,” Mother said. I could tell by her voice that she really was. I told her again that it was OK, and she seemed relieved. She took off her seat belt, and I took off mine. “Come on, birthday boy,” she said.

We got out of the car and walked into the Crystal. You might find this hard to believe, but I wasn't thinking of it as the place I'd been in the day before. I wasn't thinking of it as the place where Mr. D. had asked me if my parents knew I was skipping school. It wasn't the place where Mr. D. had told me that he'd tell Mother if he saw me in there again. It was my birthday. It was the place I always went on my birthday. That's how I was thinking of it.

We sat at a table opposite the bar, near the door. Mother sat with her back to the kitchen. I sat facing it. A waitress brought us menus. Mother
thanked her for the menus. The waitress asked if we would like something to drink. Mother said she'd have a Saranac, which is a beer. I said I'd have strawberry milk. That's what I drank on my birthday and only on my birthday. My dad, if he'd been there, would have had red wine. It's the only time he ever drank that, too. The waitress left to get our drinks. Mother seemed happy. I was, too. Everyone is always happy when they're doing the thing they do only once a year. Mother picked up her menu and started reading it. I didn't. She noticed and said, “I think I know what you're having.”

“A BLT,” I said. Because that's what I always ate on my birthday. On my fifth birthday, Mr. D. had even stuck a lit candle in it. My dad or Mother must have told him it was my birthday. Mr. D. didn't sing or anything. I was glad about that. He just brought me the sandwich and put it in front of me and I blew out the candle. He didn't ask if I'd made a wish. I was glad about that, too. Because no one ever remembers to make a wish, and when someone asks if you made a wish, you have to lie and say yes, or tell the truth and say no. Either way, you feel stupid. Anyway, Mr. D. had done the same thing on the four birthdays between that one and this one. I could picture him, standing over my table with a pleased look on his face, just as he'd stood over me the day before and asked “Miller, your parents know you aren't in school right now?” with a displeased look on his face.

That's
when I remembered. When I did, I actually stood up. The waitress came back with our drinks right when I did. She saw the look on my face and must have thought she recognized it, because she said, “The bathroom is downstairs.” I knew where the bathroom was; I had been there many times before. And so I knew it was just a closet with a toilet and a sink in it. There was no window I could climb out of. That's the way I was thinking, already. I sat back down again. The waitress gave me a funny look; she put down our drinks and then said she'd give us a few more minutes without us even having to ask for them.

The beer came in a glass and not a bottle or a can. Mother drank from it but kept looking at me over the top of the glass. That's probably why some of it ended up on her chin. She wiped it off with the little square napkin that came with the drink, and asked, “Are you OK?”

I didn't say anything. I was scared. Too scared to talk. Too scared to even drink my strawberry milk. I was scared to look at the kitchen, but I was more scared not to. Faces flashed by the window in the doors leading to the kitchen. Then the doors opened. Another waitress — not ours — walked out. But before the doors shut, I saw Mr. D. standing behind a metal counter, looking at a piece of paper. Then the doors closed again before he looked up and out into the restaurant. My legs started bouncing and swaying, hitting the table legs on either side of me. Because I knew Mr. D. would come out of the kitchen eventually. He always liked to ask people how their meals were. If he knew them personally, he'd ask something more personal. He knew me, obviously. But more importantly, he knew Mother. He didn't know her as well as he knew my dad. But he knew her well enough to tell her about what happened yesterday. About me being at the Crystal instead of at school. About me asking questions about Exley. My legs hit the table legs again, and some of the milk spilled out of my glass. “What is
wrong
with you?” Mother said. Her face looked worried, but her voice sounded mad.

“I miss my dad,” I said. It was the first thing I thought of, and it was the right thing to say.

“Miller, come on,” Mother said. Her voice softened a little bit. She put her hand over mine on the table. “Don't think about that. It's your birthday dinner.”

“That's what I mean,” I said. I started to cry a little, for real. I wasn't pretending. “He should be here.” And then when I said that, I thought,
But he can't be, because he's in the hospital. And so we should be with him. But we can't because you won't even admit he's in the hospital, just like you won't admit he went to Iraq. And I don't understand why not, just like
I
don't understand why my dad went to Iraq in the first place. I really don't. The only thing I understand is that Exley is the only person who can help my dad, which was why I was in the Crystal yesterday, looking for him, and which is why today I shot Petey, twice, and killed him
. And when I remembered that, I started crying a little harder.

“You're really worked up about this, aren't you?” she said. I looked toward the kitchen and saw Mr. D.'s face filling up one of the windows in the doors. I could imagine his hands on the doors, too, imagine them
pushing the doors open, imagine him walking out of the kitchen, toward us. I really was worked up. Mother was right.

“I don't want to
be
here anymore,” I said. Before she could say anything else, I jumped up from the table and ran out the front door. And then I just kept running and running. It was snowing even harder and the snow was sticking to the sidewalk, and so I had to watch where I was running so I didn't slip. After a while, my nose started running. I stopped to wipe it with my sleeve. Then I looked up. I was in front of the VA hospital. It was completely dark. I mean, there wasn't a light on in the place: not in the lobby, not even in any of the rooms. It was the darkest, spookiest thing I had ever seen. Much spookier than the New Parrot. It was like the building itself was asleep or dead. It was the kind of building you wouldn't want to go in, no matter how much you loved the person inside it. I put my head down and started running again. I didn't stop until I got to my house. I don't think I've described my house yet. It's red, and the roof has too many peaks: it looks like a house in the Alps that Heidi might live in. Especially when it's snowing and there's snow on the roof. I knew that when the snow got too heavy, it would slide down the roof with a roar and then make a sudden, soft
thump
when it hit the ground. I loved that sound. I wished it would happen now. Once, I was in the living room with my parents, and I said, to no one in particular, “I wish the snow would slide off the roof right now.”

“Why?” my dad wanted to know.

“Because I love the way it sounds.”

“If you knew it was going to happen,” my dad said, “it wouldn't sound as good.”

I thought Mother was going to say something like,
That's a pretty lame excuse for not getting up on the roof and shoveling the snow off yourself
. But she didn't. “Your dad's right,” she told me. “It wouldn't sound the same.”

I remembered all that as I stood there, trying to catch my breath after running home from the Crystal. My bike was still in the driveway, and it was covered with snow. The lights were on in the house. I mean, all of them were on, and for a second I thought I saw someone in the living room, looking out at me. I got my hopes way up, thinking that somehow, some way, my dad was home from the hospital. But then I looked closer
and thought harder and knew that all that wasn't true. I'd probably just forgotten to turn the lights off earlier. And I probably hadn't seen anyone at all, even though, for a second, I was certain — certain and, indeed,
most certain
— that someone had been in the living room. I wanted someone to be in the living room; I wanted it to be my dad. I wanted that so badly. I closed my eyes and imagined my dad inside the house, waiting for me. Even with my eyes closed, the house was so bright it looked alive.

 

 

D
ear Miller,

I haven't heard from you since your last letter. It's been nearly a ______, bud, and I'm starting to worry. But we've moved to ______ now, and your letter probably hasn't caught up to me yet, is all. ______ is about a ______ from ______, where we were before. I'm in the group that goes out in the ______. The guys who go out at ______ have it much worse. It's much worse at ______. I'm not telling you this to make you worried, bud. I'm just telling you because I want you to know that I'm in the group that goes out in the ______, and I'm lucky. I'm fine.

But it's lonely, at ______, when I'm in camp and I can hear the ______ going off, and none of us know who is ______ at whom, or who is getting ______. We won't know until the ______. None of us want to talk about it until then, until we have to. We go to our tents, or somewhere where we can be alone. It's like we're sick. It's like what the Counselor told Exley: “We're
all
sick, Freddy.”

But it's lonely there, when I'm alone in my tent. So sometimes I talk to you. I ask you how your mom is. I ask you about school, about the other kids in your class. I ask you what you're reading now, and whether you like it, and whether it's better than
A Fan's Notes
, even though we both know the answer to that question! I don't know if you and your mom have talked about why I'm here. There are lots of reasons. That's true about everything you can think of. But you don't need to know all of them. So I just tell you one of them: that I didn't want you to think you had a dad who lounged around on the davenport all the time. I tell you that I want you to be proud of me. I tell you to tell your mother that I want her to be proud of me, too. Then I tell you I'm coming home soon and not to
worry about me. That I'm fine. I'm always fine. When I'm done talking to you, Miller, I feel better. I feel good enough to leave the tent and do it all over again.

Write me when you can, OK?

I love you, bud, Your dad

 

 

M
other got home just a minute after I did. I didn't even have time to change into my pajamas. I got into my bed wearing my clothes and pulled the covers up to my chin. I wanted to make sure I was tucked in before Mother came up to see me. Because it's hard to get mad at someone who is already in bed, especially if you were going to send him there anyway.

I could hear Mother throw her keys on the kitchen counter. She rattled around in the kitchen for what seemed a long time, then clomped up the stairs and into my room. I could hear Mother standing there, breathing. I'd closed my eyes, like I was asleep, even though we both knew I wasn't. No one falls asleep after they've been running in the snow and the cold. Still, I kept them closed, trying to wish myself to sleep. I could hear Mother take two steps toward me, then stop. I wondered if she'd left the Crystal right after I did, to follow me, in a hurry, or if Mr. D. had talked to her first. If Mr. D. had talked to her, then Mother would know I'd skipped school, would know I was trying to find Exley. Mother had been furious at just the idea of me reading his book; I couldn't imagine what she'd do if she found out I'd been looking for him. At the very least, she would make sure I stopped trying to find Exley. And then Exley would never have a chance to help me and my dad. And everything would be ruined. Mother moved a little closer to the bed. She smelled like burnt food. She smelled like a restaurant.
Please
, I wanted to say to someone, in my head, but I didn't know who I should be saying it to, didn't know who would help me. It felt like someone was blowing up a balloon in my chest. Mother sat on the edge of my bed, and the balloon in my chest got bigger and bigger. I knew now how Exley must have felt when he thought he was having a heart attack in chapter 1. I
wanted
to have a heart attack
so I wouldn't have to be around to see what happened to me next. Then Mother brushed my hair to the side with her hand. That's when I knew she hadn't talked with Mr. D.