Brock Clarke - Exley

“Miller, ” Mother said. She was leaning over the steering wheel. She was grabbing it tight. Her knuckles were white. I always thought that was just a saying, but I guess not. She glanced at me and said, “What are you doing? Put your seat belt back on.”

I hadn’t even realized I’d taken my seat belt off. I put it back on. But in my mind, it was still off. In my mind, I was jumping out of the car and running into the VA hospital. Mother was right behind me, in my mind. Outside my mind, we were almost at the VA hospital. We were a building away. The building was the Daily Times building. There was a driveway between the Daily Times building and the VA hospital. We were even with the Daily Times building, and almost to the driveway, when a car came screaming out of it. It didn’t stop to see if anyone was coming. Mother slammed on the brakes, even though she wasn’t really going fast enough to need to slam them on. The car took a left, fishtailed, then, like us, headed south on Washington Street.

“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.”