Exley (31 page)

“Fuck,” Mr. S. said, and the woman started to cry.

WE DIDN'T TALK
on the ride back to Watertown. I knew Mr. S. had brought me to Fort Drum to teach me a lesson, but I didn't know what the lesson was supposed to have been and I wasn't sure Mr. S. knew, either. He looked sleepy as he drove. I knew he wasn't going to drive me to Alex Bay; I knew we'd be lucky to even make it back to Watertown. But we did. We passed through the Public Square, passed the Crystal, went up Washington, then went left on Flower, where we stopped halfway down the block.

“Last stop,” Mr. S. mumbled and rubbed his eyes. “Everybody out.”

I got out. I knew how to take care of Mr. S. this time. I got the chair, got him into it, pushed the button; I even rolled Mr. S. off the lift and onto the sidewalk and pushed him up the walk toward his house. At the end of the walk was a ramp that led over the steps and to the front door, which was black. The house was white. The siding was dirty. I could see J. in the window. She was frowning. I knew it was because of me. I would have felt bad about that if I hadn't been thinking of something Mr. S. had said earlier, to the woman at Fort Drum, about him not being my dad: “No, I was actually
in
the war.”

“What did you mean by that?” I asked him.

“By what?”

“‘No, I was actually
in
the war,'” I said. “That's what you told the woman at Fort Drum.”

Mr. S. didn't say anything for a second or two. I slowed down. He still didn't say anything. I stopped at the foot of the ramp. I was behind him, obviously. I stared down at his head. There was a swirl of hair and then a bald spot in the middle and then a big, red black scab in the middle of the bald spot.

“J. said she didn't think your father was really in the war,” Mr. S. finally said. “She told me you didn't even know what company he was in, what division, nothing. She thinks you've made the whole thing up. That's what I meant.” He started drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair, and I knew he wanted me to push him up the ramp into the house.

“But J.
saw
him,” I said.

“She said the guy she saw might not even have been your father,” Mr. S. said.

“Who did she say it was, then?”

“She didn't know,” Mr. S. said. “She said it could have been pretty much anyone.”

I could hear the front door creak open. I looked up. J. was standing in the doorway. She couldn't have heard what we'd been talking about—we were too far away—but I wanted her to apologize for what she'd said about my dad. I was going to wait for her to apologize. I hated her so much, because I knew, no matter how long I waited, she wasn't going to apologize.

“I know it was you who gave J. that scar,” I said. I said this loud enough for J. to hear. And she did. J. started walking down the ramp. She was wearing clogs, and they went
bang, bang, bang
on the aluminum. Mr. S. put his hands on the wheels of his chair and pushed, and the wheels rammed into my shins. I let go of the chair and took a step back. He spun the chair halfway around so he could look at me. “Fuck you, you little fucker,” he whispered. “It was her
father
.”

I didn't get this at all. “That's what I just said,” I said.

“Come on, Daddy,” J. said. She got between her dad and me and put her hands on the handles on the back of the chair. I was still so mad at her. I couldn't stop thinking of how she'd said my dad and I looked a lot alike, even though she obviously hadn't meant it.

“You and your dad look a lot alike,” I said.

“Go away,” J. said. She started rolling her dad away from me and up the ramp.

“No, really,” I said. “You two could be
twins
.” This was a lie. J. and her dad looked nothing like each other. And then I got it: Mr. S. didn't want me to call him Mr. S. because he wasn't Mr. S., because he wasn't J.'s real
father, which was why he didn't have her last name. He hadn't given her the scar, and he wasn't her real father, even though she called him Daddy. I wondered what J. called her real father. I wondered where her real father was and whether he ever wanted to say he was sorry but didn't because he knew it was too late.

J. charged up the ramp like the wheelchair and the man in it weighed nothing at all. I knew that wasn't true; I knew they were heavy. J. must have been really strong. When J. got to the top, she pushed the chair right through the open door, then kicked the door shut behind her. I waited a long time for her to come to the window again. But she didn't.

 

 

A
fter my dreadful experience square dancing, I return to my office to reread these notes, and I see clearly—the cigarettes, the slovenliness, the language!—that I am turning into Exley. Exley! In horror, I set out to reverse the transformation, beginning with my face: I put a new blade on my razor, run the water, lather my face, wet the blade, and am about to address my face with it when the telephone rings. It is M.'s mother.

“I found M.'s diary,” she says, forgoing any of the conventional greetings.

I am so taken aback by this that I forget to interrogate M.'s mother about the reasons for her attending the funeral, the reasons for her deep, dark, terrible stare. I also forget to wash off my face and put down the razor. I am holding it with my left hand, the phone with my right. “Where?” I say.

“On the kitchen counter,” she says.

“Wait,” I say, looking at the clock on the wall. It's late afternoon, and I know M.'s mother usually works significantly later than that. “Why aren't you still at work?”

“I came home to get the mail,” she says. “I do that every afternoon and then go back to work.”

That seems a curious thing to say and do, but my mind is, for the moment, on M.'s diary. “How do you know it's his diary?”

“Because he's written ‘M.'s Diary' at the top of the first page.”

“Curious,” I say, because I don't recall M.'s journal identifying itself as a diary, or even as a journal, its more proper, serious name. But in my haste I must have missed it.

“Should I read it?” she asks.

I do not hesitate, even though I am mentioned in the journal, even though I'll have a bit of explaining to do once M.'s mother has read it. “Yes,” I say. Because this is not an accident. Clearly, M. has meant to leave the journal where his mother can find it. Clearly, this is his “cry for help.” Clearly, M.'s mother's perspective on the journal will help me discover what is real and what is not and thus help me accelerate M.'s healing. Clearly, M.'s mother should read the journal. Clearly, she wants to read the journal and has called me, not to get my professional opinion, but to get my professional permission. “Read it,” I say. “And then call me back when you're done.”

“I can just read it out loud right now,” she says. “It's only one page.”

“What?” I say, but she's already begun reading.

 

 

S
omething terrible keeps happening and I just don't know who to tell, so I'm telling you, Diary. It's about Dr. ______. My mom thinks he is a nice man. His diplomas on the wall in his office say he's a nice man. He told me he was a nice man during our first session, when he had me sit on his couch and close my eyes. “I'm a nice man,” he said. “A nice man—and, indeed, a
very nice man
!” But he is not a very nice man, not to me. I knew that in our first session when, after my eyes were closed, Dr. took my hand and put it on his ______. This happens every time I see him. He tells me to close my eyes and then takes my hand and puts it on his ______ and moves it up and down. The first time he did it, I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “It's a radical therapy called journaling.” I didn't get that, but I kept “journaling” anyway, because Dr. ______ told me to and because I was scared. I was so scared. And now, I'm more scared than ever. Because last night I woke up to find Dr. ______ in my house, putting his hands in my ______. This time I was brave and said, “You're not supposed to put your hands in my ______. It's wrong.” He went away when I said that. But I'm scared he'll come back tonight and try again and I don't know who to tell, so I'm telling you, Diary. You're the only one who listens to me.

 

 

O
h, Notes, how would you have a mental health professional respond to such a journal entry? How would you have a man respond? How would you have me? “It's not true!” I say, and drop my razor on the floor: the blade pops off upon impact and skids across the floor and underneath the couch, the couch upon which M. would have me having him close his eyes and . . . “It's not fuckin' true!” I say.

“Which part?” M.'s mother asks.

“None of it is fuckin' true!” I say, even though that itself is not an entirely true statement.

“Why are you swearing at me?” she says. It's a question that begs for an apology. I offer one, and she accepts. Then silence, except for the crinkle of paper: I suspect she's rereading the journal entry. “Do you really make M. ‘journal'?” she finally asks.

On the one hand, hearing this is a relief, because I know M.'s mother knows that I have not done what her son says I have done. On the other hand, I can hear the mocking quotation marks in her voice, and so I respond with a defensive, “Well, yes, I do ask him to journal.” And then I realize what I've said and shout, “No! Not like that, for Christ's sake!”

“Why are you
talking
like that?” she says. Before I can apologize again, she adds, “Jesus, M. must be really pissed off at you for him to make up something like
this
.” M.'s mother pauses, and I know she wants me to tell her what I've done to “piss off” M. But I can't tell her that without telling her I broke into her house, etc., and so I say, “Even the healthiest doctor-patient relationship can be contentious—contentious and, indeed—” But M.'s mother cuts me off before I can continue. I expect her to tell me, once again, that this is “bullshit.” But instead she says something much worse.

“You know,” she says, “I know you've done your best with M. But maybe this just isn't working out.”

“Please don't say that,” I say, trying desperately to keep the desperation out of my voice, trying desperately to change the subject from whether “this” is not working out to just about anything else. “Let's talk about something else,” I say.

“Like what?” she says. I can hear the telltale rustling, flipping, and ripping sounds of someone going through her newly delivered mail.

“Like why do you come home to get the mail?” I ask.

M.'s mother laughs, an unhappy, burnt-sounding bark of a laugh. “M. sometimes likes to surprise me by sending himself letters in the mail,” she says.

“Letters?” I say.

“Letters that are supposed to be from M.'s dad,” M.'s mother says. “M. got to the first one before I did, and he made us both miserable, trying to convince me it really was from his dad. I figure if I get to the mail first, I can pretend the letters never got here. And if the letters never get here, then M. can't pretend he didn't write them. It saves us both a lot of trouble.”

“How many letters have you intercepted?” I ask, even though I know how many. “And what do you do with them?” Even though I know that, too. M.'s mother doesn't mention that the manila envelope is missing, however, which means she hasn't yet noticed its absence. “Did you save the envelopes the letters came in?”

“No,” M.'s mother says.

“Why not?”

“I don't know,” M.'s mother says. “Who saves envelopes anyway?”

“Do you remember what the envelopes look like?”

“Sure,” she says. “They were normal envelopes postmarked by an army post office.”

“A what?” I ask, and then she explains that letters sent from soldiers go through APOs, not through the local post office. “You wouldn't know
where
it was from, necessarily.”

“But it was definitely sent from a soldier.”

“Of course.”

“Why of course?”

“Because you know M. He knew I'd check the postmark, and so he found some poor guy in Watertown, about to be shipped out somewhere, and handed him the letters, paid him a little money, and asked the guy to send the letters to him at our address through his APO.” M.'s mother pauses to let me catch up to her way of thinking. “You know M.,” she finally says.

I do know M., and what she says sounds outlandish, which is to say, it's possible that M. has done what she's said he's done. “And you're sure M.'s dad couldn't have sent those letters?” I ask.

“Sure I'm sure,” she says. “If M.'s dad had sent the letters, then they couldn't have been sent from an APO.”

“Why not?”

“Because M.'s dad didn't join the army and would never join the army,” she says. I can hear exasperation creeping into her voice; it reminds me of how M. sounds when someone mistakes his logic for a lie. “I thought we've been over this,” she says.

“We have,” I say, and am about to say more when a beeping sound interrupts me.

“Shit,” M.'s mother says. “Can you hold on? I have another call.”

I'm about to tell her that I can and will hold on when I hear a knock on my door. I look again at the clock and see that it is time for M.'s session. “Look, I'll have to call you back,” I say, although I think M.'s mother is still taking her other call. In any case, she doesn't respond. So I hang up and open the door.

 

 

S
o, tell me what you've been up to,” Dr. Pahnee said right when he opened the door. But I didn't answer him. Because clearly he was all lathered up. I mean that both figuratively—he sounded sarcastic when he said, “So, tell me what you've been up to”—and literally: his face was covered with shaving cream and I couldn't even see his beard. He didn't have a shirt on, either. His arms were scrawny, like they hadn't been used enough, and his chest was flat and covered with wiry gray hairs.