Exley (5 page)

“There's no use looking for Exley in Watertown, bud,” my dad said. “You're not going to find him here.”

“Where am I going to find him?”

“He's everywhere.” I was about to point out that if he was everywhere, that meant he might be in Watertown, but my dad said, “He's in your head. He's in your heart. He's in the air. He's in his book. You can't get rid of him. He's everywhere.”

I'd heard stuff like this before. Not about Exley, but about Jesus. My parents and I didn't go to church, but some kids at school did, and from the way they talked about Jesus, he wasn't someone who watched you from up high, but someone who followed you around, like a policeman or a hall monitor. “Like Jesus,” I said to my dad.

“No,” my dad said. “Not like Jesus.”

 

 

M
.'s third session. He walks into my office. I offer the conventional greeting, and in response he hands me a piece of paper titled “Things I Learned from My Dad, Who Learned Them from Exley (Lesson 1: Exley Is Everywhere).” I begin to read the first sentence out loud but stop when I get to mention of the Crystal Restaurant. Everyone in Watertown knows of the Crystal: it's “locally famous.” I've never eaten there myself, although I once went there with that intention. There was a sign — square, with a wood frame and a chalkboard inside the frame — on the sidewalk out in front of the establishment, the words
SPECIAL OF THE DAY: LIVER
written on the sign in white chalk. There was a man leaning on the sign. His face was bloated and he was swaying and his cheeks were puffing out in an obvious attempt to keep something in, and all I could think of was how “special” his “liver” was. And so I didn't go into the Crystal and haven't been tempted to do so since. I often walk past there, however, on the way to the adjacent health food store, where I buy bulgur wheat in bulk. The Crystal is always full, whereas the health food store is always empty. Even the health food store's proprietor — graying ponytail, hiking boots — is often inclined not to “man” his store. He trusts me to leave the money I owe him on the counter, which I do. Sometimes, when I'm by myself in his store, weighing my bag of bulgur, I can hear the loud, happy sounds of carousing and comradeship coming from the Crystal. That is loneliness. That is how I often feel in Watertown.

In any case, just the mention of the Crystal casts a pall over M.'s father's lesson, and so I thank M. and tell him I'll read the rest of it after our session. M. doesn't respond. He simply reaches into his jacket pocket, and like a magician with his hat and his hares, he pulls out another piece of paper. It is a letter, included below in its entirety.

Dear Miller,

Well, I'm in __________ now with the __________ __________ Division. I wrote __________ __________ because the censors are going to cross out all the names anyway. But I'm doing fine. They have me manning the __________ at __________ and then I get to sleep all __________. There are __________ other guys with me. They take me for what I am, a youngish-old teacher from Watertown, one who is a little too tetched on the subject of
A Fan's Notes;
but they seem to like me and don't seem to begrudge me that I had a job and a house and a wife and son and I left all that at age __________ to come here. They don't begrudge me, but they don't exactly understand it, either. I don't understand it myself sometimes. I have a feeling you understand it better than I do. I hope you do.

I'm sorry I didn't write you until now, Miller. But I wanted to actually be in __________ before I wrote you, so that you and your mom would know that I actually did it. I did it. But I miss you. For Christ's sake, I really miss you, bud.

Love, Your dad

I read the letter once, twice, three times. It is handwritten in blue pen. The handwriting looks neither especially adult nor especially juvenile. The piece of paper has three horizontal crease marks, as though it has been folded into an envelope and then folded and unfolded many times thereafter. I look up from the letter and ask M. the whereabouts of the envelope in which the letter must have arrived. I expect him to shrug and say, “I threw it out,” and that is, in fact, what he does and says. I ask him what the envelope looked like. I expect him to shrug and say, “I don't know. It looked like an envelope.” He once again meets my expectations. I nod, return to the letter, and read it once more. Or rather I pretend to read it while I determine the best way to proceed. I know after my first session with M. that the best way to proceed is
not
to express doubt about the veracity of the letter. Perhaps it is better to inquire about the manner in which the letter is written.

“Your father has a most unusual — most unusual and, indeed,
most unique
—writing style,” I say.

“Unique how?” Miller says.

“‘For Christ's sake,'” I say, with some reservation, making sure M. hears the quotation marks, making sure M. knows that this is not acceptable language for a juvenile. “And his use of blanks.” As I say this, I recall M.'s use of the word “blank” during our previous session. I remind M. of this. He once again shrugs. I've long held the opinion that we mental health professionals would have a significantly easier time restoring juveniles to mental health if we first removed their shoulders. “That's just the way my dad and I talk,” M. says.
That's right
, I think.
You also call your father “my dad,” and your mother “Mother.” That's the way you talk. The question is, why do you talk the way you talk?

“The question is,” I say to M., “why do you talk the way you talk?”

I expect M. to shrug once again, but he does not. Instead he looks me in the eye and asks, “Why do you talk the way
you
talk?”

“How do I talk?”

“ ‘Your father has a most unusual — most unusual and, indeed,
most unique
— writing style.' ” M. makes his voice high and nasal and unattractive; the voice is not mine, to my ears. But I do recognize the words as my own. Many of my fellow mental health professionals narrate their notes into a tape recorder, but I handwrite mine so as to avoid hearing my own words in my own voice. I can't speak for my colleagues and their voices, their words, but I find it much more difficult to maintain my own mental health if I have to hear my attempts to minister to the mental health of others. It is an even less pleasant experience hearing my words in M.'s version of my voice than it is in my own.

“And when did you receive this letter?” I ask Miller. I try to keep my anger out of my voice, but M. hears something anyway. He sits up straight and his eyes become wary.

“Four months after my dad left for Iraq.”

I nod significantly, although I do not yet know the significance of the information. “And did you receive any other letters from your father?”

“No,” M. says. He opens his mouth to say something else but then closes his lips before the words escape.

“I see,” I say, although I don't yet know what I'm seeing or what M. wants me to see or not to see.

“Did you show this letter to your mother?” M. nods and drops his eyes
to his sneakers, which are untied. I fight off an urge to nag him to tie his laces. The paternal instinct is not more attractive in a mental health professional than its absence is in a pater. “And what was her response?”

“She thought I wrote the letter myself,” M. says, still looking downward.

“I see,” I say.

“What do
you
think?” M. asks me, looking up at me hopefully. This is a moment familiar to every mental health professional. I think what M.'s mother thinks. But I must not let M. know that. But I must not lie to him, either. In these moments, the job of the mental health professional is not to tell the patient what he thinks, but to lead the patient to a conclusion that mirrors the mental health professional's conclusion without revealing to the patient that the mental health professional has a conclusion. It is a tricky piece of business, admittedly. One has to approach it carefully, relying upon all of one's considerable training and acuity.

“What do you think I should think?” I ask M.

M. nods, puts his head down again, and then starts weeping. If there is one way in which I lack as a mental health professional, it's in my inability to “deal” with my patients' weeping. I tell M. to please stop, that crying doesn't do anyone any good. This only causes him to weep harder — harder and, indeed
louder
. I tell M. it's important that he stay positive, which only results in an intensification of his weeping. Finally, I decide to remain quiet. Once again I fix my eyes on the letter. This time I'm not pretending to reread it. Because M.'s crying is so genuine and awful that it makes me think that something in the letter must be true, or at least true enough. I wait until M.'s weeping has diminished and then I ask, “What is
A Fan's Notes?
”

“It's my dad's favorite book,” M. says. “He reads it all the time.” His voice quavers and he wipes his nose with the back of his right hand.

“What's it about?”

“I haven't read it,” M. says quickly, too quickly.
Aha
, I think but do not say. I consider pressing M. on the subject, but he looks so pitiable, so sad and small. Pressing onward might be the best thing (diagnostically), but I just don't have the heart (figuratively).

“I think that's quite enough for today,” I say. We both rise. M. is a mess—his shoelaces floppy, his blue eyes red, his face splotchy — and suddenly I
panic with the thought that his mother is waiting outside my office and will see M. in his sorry state and blame me. “Is your mother picking you up?”

M. shakes his head. He tells me he rode his bike here and will ride it home as well. I tell him that I am also something of a cyclist and that, for reasons environmental, physical, and fiscal, I much prefer my Schwinn to my Subaru. But M. appears to be unimpressed by our commonality. He leaves and I immediately pick up the phone and call M.'s mother's office. The phone rings and rings and then I hear her voice. Alas, it is only her recorded voice, but still deep and lovely and stunning. Which is to say, it stuns me, so much so that I forget what is required of me “after the beep” for several seconds, until I realize how creepy the silence must sound. I identify myself. “Remember me?” I say, which, even to my ears, sounds unattractively needy — needy and, indeed,
full of need
. “M. mentioned a book today,” I say, and then state its title. Then I hang up before incriminating myself any further. But then I realize the hang-up is so abrupt that it is its own kind of incrimination. Oh, despair! Some people, when desperate, retreat to pills or hard liquor. I nap. After the phone message, I nap for two hours, then, feeling better, awake slowly to the sound of a bell ringing. This strikes me as an apt metaphor for how the mind announces that it has healed itself, until I realize that it is not a metaphor: someone is ringing my doorbell. I open the front door and walk out to the porch. There is nobody there. But at my feet I see a book. I pick it up. Attached to its cover is a yellow Post-it note that reads, “You asked for it!” and then M.'s mother's signature.

 

 

T
here were no parrots — that was one thing I noticed — nothing bright or feathered or talkative at all. The other thing I noticed was that this wasn't a restaurant, like the book said it would be: it was a motel. The book had gotten it wrong. Or maybe the place had changed owners or something. Because it was definitely a motel. The neon sign outside said so, even though the
O
and
T
and
E
and
L
were out. Just the
M
was lit, flickering and buzzing to let you know what kind of place you were about to go into. I didn't want to go into the New Parrot anymore. I
really
didn't want to. It was scary. You know something is scary if you've read the book, even if you've only read part of the book's first sentence, and what you're seeing isn't out of it. But I got off my Huffy, leaned it against the wall next to the door in case I needed to make a quick getaway, and went in anyway, for my dad.

It was so dark, and once my eyes adjusted to it, I saw why. The walls were covered in dark brown wallpaper that was meant to look like wood paneling. The carpet was dark brown, too, and wet: it squished as I walked on it. It was like walking on the kind of giant sponge you washed your car with. I looked up and saw why it was wet: the ceiling was one giant water stain, and water was dripping everywhere, with no buckets to catch it.
Drip
, the ceiling went,
drip, drip
. It was like a cave. Before I'd read
Waiting for Godot
, I'd read
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
. The New Parrot's lobby, or whatever it was, reminded me of the cave at the end of
Tom Sawyer
, except there was gold and bats in that cave; in this one there didn't seem to be anything, not even furniture. I turned around and saw, at the far end of the room, a square opening in the wall, with a handwritten sign above the opening that said
CHECK IN.
I walked over. There was a chair on the other side of the hole but no one sitting in it. On
the counter, there was the familiar bell, the nipple-shaped clanger that lets people you know you're
here
. I hit it, gently at first and then harder, but it didn't go
clang
, or
ring
, but instead went
thunk
. It was the most depressing room I'd ever been in: more depressing than whatever room my parents happened to be arguing in, more depressing than my dad's hospital room, more depressing than my room right before I was made to clean it. Beyond the desk and to the left, I could see a hallway, also dark, and a series of doors on either side of it. It was the kind of hallway you see in nightmares.