Brock Clarke - Exley

“So,” she said, “can we go see your dad now?”

“What?” I said. “No.” I must have said “No” louder than I’d meant to, because J. took a step back. “I mean, you can’t.”

“Why not?” J. said. When she was with her dad, I’d kept waiting for her to touch her scar. She hadn’t, but she was touching it now. I felt bad that I was making her feel worse than her dad, who didn’t have any legs. But I didn’t want her to see my dad, not before I saw him myself. If I could be sure he would be doing better than the day before, if he was talking and stuff like that, then it would be different. But there was something in Mrs. C.’s “Oh, he’s still kicking!” that worried me. Suppose my dad was the same as when I’d left him the day before? Suppose he was worse? Suppose he was worse than J.’s father, who had no legs but who could at least tell jokes? Suppose he was just lying there? It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my dad; I was ashamed of myself, for not finding Exley yet, for not being able to help my dad yet. I made up my mind then that I didn’t want anyone to see my dad until I found Exley, which meant that the next person to see my dad besides me would have to be Exley. But I couldn’t tell J. all that, and so I said, “He’s not allowed visitors except for family.”

“Is he OK?”

“Oh, he’s OK,” I said. “He’s getting better. I’m sure you can come see him soon. Maybe in a week.”

“My dad might not be here in a week,” J. said. For a second I thought J. was saying that her dad might be dead in a week. But then I realized she meant they might let him leave the VA hospital and go home. Her face was shining now, and she’d stopped touching her zipper scar. I could tell she had stopped thinking about me and my dad and was thinking about hers again. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” she said, and then went back into her dad’s room.

AFTER THAT, I went to see my dad. The first floor was much quieter than the second, and I realized that’s what the first floor was for: for patients who didn’t make much noise. I walked into my dad’s room. The lights were dim. The Dixie cups were gone, which worried me a lot. My dad was still sleeping, and not kicking at all. Unlike J.’s father, he’d been shaved again. I wondered if they shaved everyone who couldn’t tell them he didn’t want to be shaved. I sat down next to my dad, put the back of my hand on his forehead. He’d always done that when I was sick and he wanted to see how hot I was. His forehead wasn’t slick anymore, but it was still cool. I wondered if he liked my hand there, whether it felt good, or whether it bugged him. Then I wondered if he felt anything at all, and if he didn’t, why did I even bother putting my hand on his forehead? So I took my hand away. But once you stop wondering about someone, it’s hard to stop yourself. And so I wondered how well I really knew my dad anymore. Do you miss having a beard , I wondered, or are you the kind of guy now who likes to shave, or at least likes to be shaved? What about the guy who punched Harold: would you be proud of me for not kicking him in the face, or would you be disappointed? Are you more like the Exley who wouldn’t hit kids, or like the Exley who hit a black guy and a white guy for walking together, the Exley who fantasized about hitting women, the Exley Mother hates so much? Or is it possible to be one and not the other? And what about K.: if I told you I’d been to her home and eaten her cookies, what would you say? Why did you leave us, Dad? Why did you join the army and go to Iraq? Why, after writing me that one letter, didn’t you write me again? What kind of dad are you? Are you the kind of dad who just lies there in your bed and doesn’t say anything to me, or are you the kind of dad who tells me knock-knock jokes? If you don’t wake up, would you mind, or even know, if I’d spent more time with J.’s father and less with you?

And then I felt terrible. I put my hand on my dad’s forehead again and told him I was sorry. I told him I was sorry for wishing he’d be more like J.’s dad, and I told him I was sorry for not finding Exley yet, too. Whenever I apologized to my dad before he went to Iraq, he always said, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, bud. You’re just a kid.” This was always why I apologized in the first place: so that he’d tell me I didn’t have to. This was why I said I was sorry in the hospital, too: so that he’d wake up and tell me I didn’t have to be. Please , I told my dad in my head, please wake up and tell me I don’t have to be sorry . But he didn’t, and I was.

Finally, I opened up the copy of A Fan’s Notes I’d brought with me and began reading it out loud. My dad didn’t wake up, but I kept reading it anyway. I read it OK. I didn’t sound like Exley, but I didn’t sound bad. Then I came to the part after Exley thinks he’s having a heart attack, but before Freddy takes him to the hospital, where he finds out he’s not. “You son of a bitch!” Exley said to himself. “I want to live!” I choked up a little when I read that. Because I realized that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want my dad to tell knock-knock jokes. I just wanted my dad to say what Exley had said and mean it. I wanted him to say, You son of a bitch! I want to live! But he wasn’t saying that; he was still sleeping. So I said it for him, and to him. “You son of a bitch!” I said. “I want you to live!” I kept saying it, over and over, louder and louder, until I hoped he got the message. Someone else on the floor might have gotten the message, too: I could hear shushing sounds coming from the hallway. So I lowered my voice and read the rest of chapter 1. When I was done, I left the book on the table. Then I kissed my dad good night, told him I loved him, and went home.

I Go to Bed without My Supper

Igot home after Mother. It was around five o’clock. I walked into the kitchen. Her work clothes were everywhere: her suit jacket was crumpled in a ball on the floor by the stove; her shoes were lying sideways next to the fridge, where she’d kicked them. Her briefcase was on the counter. It was brown leather and had big dents and rips from where Mother had banged it against something.

Let me tell you about Mother’s job.

Mother was a lawyer who brought charges against soldiers who hurt their wives. Or husbands, I guess. But as far as I knew, Mother had never brought charges against someone who had hurt her husband. She had an office inside Fort Drum, but she didn’t work for the army, exactly. The government made the army set up an office and put someone like Mother in charge of it. It was clear, from what Mother had said, that the army didn’t want her or her office there. But they paid her salary anyway. Or the government did, because they paid for the army. It was confusing, at least to me. Maybe even to Mother. Maybe that’s why she was so angry all the time after work.

Mother stomped into the kitchen while I was still staring at her work things. She was wearing a gray T-shirt that said CORNELL — she’d gone to law school there — and no shoes, but she still had on her black pinstriped work pants. My dad always complained that even when Mother was home, some part of her was still at work. Maybe that explained the pants.

“It’s just unbelievable, ” she said. This meant Mother was on a tear. I was glad. If she was on a tear, then maybe she wouldn’t ask why I was getting home after her, and where I’d been all afternoon.

“What is?” I said. But Mother didn’t answer. She opened a cabinet door, pulled out a pot, filled it with water, put it on the stove, and turned on the gas. Then she got out a glass and went to the liquor cabinet. This was just a regular cabinet in the kitchen where she happened to keep her liquor. It didn’t have a lock on it or anything. She pulled out her bottle of Early Times and filled half the glass with it. Then she drank half of what she’d poured.