Exley (6 page)

And then, like in a nightmare, I could see someone, or something, walking down the hall toward me. My first thought was,
It's an elephant, and it's coming to kill me
, and I thought how weird it would be to read in the newspaper,
BOY KILLED BY ELEPHANT IN NEW PARROT.
Because that's what it looked like in the dark: an elephant, or at least something with a trunk sweeping the floor as it came toward me. And then, as it got closer, it looked more like an elephant on its hind legs, or with only two legs, with its trunk sweeping the floor and making a squeaking sound, like a mouse. And then, when it was right in front of me, I could see that it wasn't an elephant at all: it was a man, an old man, leaning on an upright vacuum cleaner that wasn't totally upright but was instead curved, like an elephant's trunk might be, and squeaking, like a mouse might. It was like waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a man sitting on your floor and asking him who he is, what he's doing there, and he doesn't answer, and he doesn't answer, until you gradually realize he doesn't answer because he's a pile of dirty clothes that you were supposed to put in the hamper, and you end up being relieved and then disappointed. The man pushing the vacuum cleaner turned it on when he got to within a foot of me. It whined.

It whined, but the man didn't seem to want to push it any farther. He didn't even seem to notice I was standing right there, in his path. He just stared at the vacuum cleaner, then at the carpet, then at the vacuum cleaner, maybe thinking about the relationship between that which is dirty and that which is supposed to clean it. I took the book out of my jacket pocket — my eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness by now — and looked at the author photo on the back cover, then looked at the man in
front of me. Both the man in the picture and the man in front of me wore beards and had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. The man in front of me looked a little thinner, a little more stooped, a little more wrinkly, a little more used, but that made sense: after all, he was —— years older than he'd been when he'd written the book, when the picture on the book had been taken. I could see him smoking and drinking his way from the way he was then to the way he was now. He still hadn't looked at me; he was still staring at the vacuum cleaner. But I knew it was Exley: it was definitely Exley. I knew it in my bones, too. I felt lucky. That's what I was thinking —
I am so lucky. My dad is so lucky
—as I took a step closer to him and said, “Mr. Exley, my name is Miller Le Ray. My dad is a big fan, the biggest.” Then I stuck out my hand, as I'd been taught to do.

Exley looked away from the vacuum cleaner and at me, his watery eyes full of suspicion, if they were full of anything at all. I couldn't blame him. Who knew how many of his adoring fans came to the New Parrot to get his autograph, to soak up some of his wisdom, to get something from him, some more of what the book had already given them? Who knew how many people had rung that bell, rung it so often that it had begun to go
thunk
and not
ring?
Maybe that's why he didn't shake my hand. Or maybe he wasn't strong enough to raise his hand high enough to shake or be shaken. He made a sad, weak noise deep in his throat, staggered a little, then grabbed on to the vacuum cleaner for support. I moved closer to him, and when I did, I started to feel sorry for the vacuum cleaner. He smelled bad, like a baby who'd been left too long in his wet diaper, a baby who'd thrown up and then been covered with that powder that school bus drivers keep handy to cover throw-up, a baby who'd been drinking booze instead of formula. I swore I saw something crawl out of his beard and drop on the floor. I moved back a few steps and toward the door, in the direction of my waiting three-speed.

“Mr. Exley,” I said, “are you OK?”

He shook his head, then kept shaking it, for far longer than was necessary for me to understand that he wasn't OK, just shaking his head and shaking it like he was rabid. I knew then I had a problem. There was no way I could bring Exley to my father in this condition, which was way too close to my dad's condition. No, I had to get Exley better before he could
do what I needed him to do. And the first thing I needed to do was to get him home, wherever home was.

“Let's get you home,” I said.

He nodded and made another noise that I understood to mean yes.

“Good,” I said. “Where is it?”

Exley nodded again and opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words, a smell came out. It smelled like something had died in his mouth. The smell did all the talking for him, and what it said was that he wasn't going to be able to
tell
me where his home was. But maybe, like a dog in a movie I once saw, he could
show
me the way home if I just got him out of the New Parrot. I couldn't expect him to walk while I rode, though, and I couldn't expect him to ride, either. And I didn't think I could support both Exley and my bike. So I let him bring his vacuum cleaner. “Let's go home,” I told him. He nodded and pushed the vacuum cleaner out the front door, out of the parking lot, and left, down the long, long hill into town.
It's working
, I thought.
I found Exley already and he's leading me to his house, and as soon as he's ready, I'll lead him to my dad. It's really working!
But I should also say that even if it was working, it wasn't working very fast: plenty of cars had time to pass us, turn around, and pass us again to make sure they'd seen us right the first time. I don't blame them. We probably made quite a scene, me walking with my three-speed Huffy, Exley walking with his beat-up upright Hoover, making our slow way down Washington Street. If a book is made up of things that are hard to believe, then we were like something out of a book. Maybe, I thought, once I got Exley back into shape, he'd end up writing it.

 

 

A
fter three unproductive — unproductive and, indeed,
counterproductive
— meetings with M., I try a new approach and ask the patient if he has ideas as to how I might help him. M. considers this for several moments and then makes an odd request: that I become a different doctor, with a different name, a different manner of speaking and dressing. Even a different hairstyle. Even a beard. M. goes so far as to suggest — suggest and, indeed,
encourage
—specific things for me to say at certain moments during our meeting: when I first greet the patient, after the patient tells me his most innermost thoughts and fears, when I say good-bye to the patient, etc. Strangely, I agree. Possibly because M. is onto something. Possibly because normal strategies seem not to be working. Possibly because M. is right: possibly a change in doctoring is in order. Possibly Dr. Horatio Pahnee (the name M. has given me) will be able to heal M. whereas I have failed. In any case, I shall think of it as a study — a study and, indeed, a
clinical study;
if findings are satisfactory, I will present them during my speech at the North Country Mental Health Professionals' annual meeting later this autumn.

After our meeting, I open the front door to let M. out. I am about to exclaim our newly agreed-upon good-bye when I see the patient's mother sitting on the porch railing. I have not seen her since our first session, and my arm and arm hair tingle wildly. She and I exchange conventional greetings. She kisses her son on the top of the head and then asks him if he wouldn't mind waiting in the car, just for a second. M. walks to the car; as he does so, he looks at me over his shoulder. I know how to read his look, and I look back, to tell him I will not betray his confidences. When he is in the car, M.'s mother asks, “How's it going?”

“Not well,” I answer truthfully. I do not want to tell her the rest of the truth — that we've had something of a breakthrough today — because then she will ask for details about the breakthrough and I fear I will tell her.

“Oh,” she says. She looks sadly at the car. Her sadness seems genuine. This is not my area of expertise, exactly, but I believe her to be a good mother. I almost touch her on the arm as she touched me on the arm, to console her. But I fear that my touch won't tingle her arm as hers tingled mine, and how unbearably sad that would be. She looks back at me. She is still sad about M. Sad, she is still beautiful. “Do you think there's anything else you could do?” she asks.

“Such as?” I ask. I genuinely want to know.
Please help me
, I almost say but don't, as it would be unprofessional in a mental health professional.

“You've already read . . .” And she names the book with which M.'s father was obsessed, causing, I believe, his son's obsession, although M. claims not even to have read the book, let alone be obsessed with it. I glanced at the first chapter, and so I know the book is of local origin. Or at least the author is “from around here” (I myself am from Rochester, a veritable metropolis when compared to Watertown). But other than that, I haven't read the book. I almost tell M.'s mother that and then suggest she read my article in the official proceedings from last year's North Country Mental Health Professionals' meeting, which suggests that whereas in the past, people turned to literature to improve their lives, they now turn to their mental health professionals. But clearly she expects me already to have read the book, especially since she gave me a copy of the book after M.'s last session. So I say, “I have read the book.” I try to make my voice as noncommittal as possible, but M.'s mother hears something in it — perhaps what she wants to hear — and says, “I know, it's awful.” M.'s mother sighs, through her nose, and it sounds light and musical. It is my professional opinion that mental health professionals should never, ever use the word “crazy” to describe their patients, or anyone else for that matter. But it occurs to me that M.'s father must be crazy — crazy and, indeed,
insane
— to leave someone like M.'s mother. “I worry so much about M.,” she says. “Do you have any other ideas?”

“I have a few ideas,” I say, again noncommittally. M.'s mother waits, I believe for me to list the ideas. When I do not, she says: “Well, do you think you should follow M. or something?”

“Follow him?” I say. I try not to sound offended, although I am. Because I don't want M.'s mother to think I'm a man who is easily offended. Unless she likes men, or mental health professionals, who are easily offended. “I am a mental health professional, not a private detective.”

M.'s mother doesn't reply. She just looks at me with her deep, deep black eyes. M. has described to me these eyes and their effect. I believe that M.'s mother respects me for standing my professional ground. I also believe that I will end up being a private detective, if that's what M.'s mother really wants me to be.

 

 

A
bout halfway down the Washington Street hill a pickup truck pulled over to the shoulder and stopped in front of Exley and me. The driver's-side door opened and an Indian got out. I don't mean an American Indian; I mean an Indian from India. I'd seen an Indian before, of course, and of course I'd also seen a pickup truck, but I don't think I'd ever seen an Indian driving a pickup truck. Maybe that's why I just stood there like a doofus, staring at the Indian, who was staring at Exley, but not like a doofus.

“Where do you think you're goin' with my vacuum cleaner?” he finally said. He didn't have an Indian accent, either; he sounded like most any white guy from Watertown. He sounded a little like Exley would probably sound once he started talking again. But for now, Exley still wasn't talking, not to me, and he didn't answer the Indian's question, either: he just put his head down and leaned a little more heavily on his vacuum cleaner.

“I'm taking him home,” I said.

“That's fine,” the Indian said to me. “But the vacuum cleaner comes back with me to the motel. And if he wants to keep his job, he needs to come with me, too. If he doesn't, he can go home with you. Entirely up to him.” The Indian took a step closer to Exley and said to him, in a louder voice, “You understand me, S.?”

“S.?” I said, a bad feeling bubbling up from my stomach and into my throat. “His name's not S. It's Exley.” But neither of them seemed to hear me. The Indian turned and walked back toward his truck, and the guy who I'd been thinking was Exley but who was apparently just a guy named S. followed him, still pushing his vacuum cleaner. “Don't go,” I whispered to S. What I really meant was,
Don't do this to me. Don't do
this to my dad. Don't be S. Be Exley
. But S. probably knew what everyone knows: that the only time you say “Don't go” to someone is if it's too late and he's already gone. Anyway, he went; he didn't even look at me to say good-bye or apologize with his eyes for letting me think he was one guy when in fact he was another. When they got to the truck, the Indian took the vacuum cleaner away from him and chucked it into the bed of the truck. S. staggered around the truck and got in the passenger's side. The Indian got in the driver's side. His window was open; unlike S., he looked at me one last time, like he expected me to say something. I was so mad at him because he'd turned Exley back into S. and he'd done it so fast, without seeming to care at all about what it would do to me or my dad, and so I said, “I've never seen an Indian drive a pickup truck.”

“I'm from Pakistan, dude,” he said. “Or at least my parents are.” And then he started the truck, hung a U-turn, and headed back up Washington Street, toward the New Parrot. I watched them until they crested the hill and were gone. I was sad, of course, that S. was S. and not Exley. But I shouldn't have been. Because it was my fault for really believing I'd found Exley so easily. I should have known better. Like I should have known finding Exley wasn't going to be easy and would take more time than I wanted it to. That made me sad, of course. But I was also still pretty excited, because my dad was home, and even if he was sick, I had a plan to help him get better. Just because S. wasn't Exley didn't mean that Exley wasn't out there, waiting for me to find him. Just because the plan hadn't worked yet didn't mean it wouldn't work ever. In other words, I was part let down and part
jazzed up
. And when you're a boy and you're part let down and part jazzed up, you do one of two things: you go see your mother, or you go see a woman who is definitely not your mother. I decided to go see a woman who was definitely not my mother.