Brock Clarke - Exley

“M. and I went out for M.’s birthday dinner,” she says.

“Where?”

“The Crystal,” she says.

I think immediately of seeing M. outside the Crystal this morning, seeing him kick the man on the sidewalk, etc. And then I think of all the things — true and untrue — that I’ve learned about M. by reading his journal. And then I think of his fraudulent letters, and I think I should tell his mother about them, all of them. But I cannot, because in telling her about the former, I will have to admit I did nothing to stop him. And about the latter, I will have to admit that I broke into their house. Suddenly I feel tired, bloated, and disgusted with deceit, and when I say, “Oh,” M.’s mother must hear something of that in my voice, because she says, “I know. But it’s M.’s favorite place. We always go there for his birthday.” Her voice suddenly sounds distracted and far away.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” I ask. She does: she tells me about how she and M. were having a good time until he “freaked out,” and then she describes the freak-out. “I’m so glad you’ll be seeing him tomorrow,” she says. “I really do think you’re helping him.”

“I think I’m helping him, too,” I say. But then I picture M. standing in the college classroom by himself, and I wonder if I really am helping him. I wonder if a better mental health professional would have ignored the security guard and walked into the classroom and demanded M. admit that whoever K. was, she wasn’t his student, because he wasn’t teaching a class. I wonder if a better mental health professional would be sneaking around his patient’s house and wooing his patient’s mother. I wonder if a better mental health professional would be telling his patient’s mother about what he’d found out about her son. I wonder if a better mental health professional would be talking to his patient’s mother at all . But the thought of not speaking to M.’s mother at all is too much: my brain — my brain and, indeed, my mind —can’t handle the thought, and I blurt out, “Did your husband really teach at Jefferson County Community College?”

“Why?”

“M. says he did,” I say. “It might be easier to know what M. is making up if I know what he isn’t.”

M.’s mother sighs again. “M. might really think his dad was an English professor,” she says. “For that matter, his dad might have thought he was an English professor, too, after telling me for so long that he was one.”

“But he wasn’t,” I say.

“No,” M.’s mother says. “Instead of teaching a class every Tuesday, he was. ” And here she pauses for a moment. Clearly M.’s mother won’t, or can’t, finish her thought. Fortunately, one of the main tasks of the mental health professional is to finish his patients’ thoughts for them, even when, as is the case with M.’s mother, they are not my patients.

“Out conducting an extramarital affair,” I say at the same time that M.’s mother says, “Out drinking beer with his buddies.”

“Did M. tell you that?” M.’s mother asks. “That his dad was having an affair?”

“In so many words,” I say.

“Oh Jesus,” M.’s mother says, her voice quivering. After that, she is quiet for a long time, except for the regular clinking and sipping of her alcoholic drink. I wonder what she’s thinking. I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking: that it’s a terrible thing for a son to know the truth about his father; that it’s a terrible thing for a wife to have to know the truth about her husband; that it’s a lucky thing for a mother and a son to have another man around to be a father and husband figure, if that’s what they want him to be.

“I’m so tired,” M.’s mother finally says. That’s how I know that this part of the conversation is over. But I don’t yet know what the next part of the conversation is or how to begin it. All I know is that I don’t want the conversation to end. All I know is that I want to keep talking to her tonight, and tomorrow night, too. Except tomorrow night M.’s mother is giving her own talk.

“Would you like me to come to your lecture tomorrow night?” I ask.

“That’s sweet of you,” M.’s mother says. “But I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” I say. Perhaps she can hear my woundedness, because she rushes to reassure me.

“It’s just that it’s been so easy to talk to you on the phone,” she says. “We’re going to see each other in two nights anyway, right? I’d just love to be able to talk on the phone until then. Is that OK?”

I tell her it is. “Will you call me tomorrow night after your talk?” I ask, and she says she will. She does sound tired, and so I suggest we hang up and talk again tomorrow night.

“Hey, you’re not mad at me, are you?” she says, and I tell her I’m not. Because I do know what she means. I want to tell her that. I want to tell her that I was lonely before I started talking to her on the phone, and now I don’t feel lonely anymore. When we stop talking on the phone and start “seeing” each other (in the ocular sense), will something go wrong and will I start feeling lonely again? As she says, we will see each other soon enough; until then, we should talk on the phone. M.’s mother is right: it’s so easy to talk on the phone.

“Good luck tomorrow night,” I say. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

“Thank you,” she says. Her voice sounds happier, but also frantic. I’ve heard this shift in tone before: my patients sound this way when they’re depressed but frantically trying to convince me and themselves that they’re not depressed. “And I really am looking forward to your talk!” She asks what she should wear to the gala, and I tell her that I’m sure she’ll look beautiful in whatever she wears. “That’s so sweet,” she says, which I take to mean I’ve said the right thing. “But what do the other women wear?” she asks. “Other women?” I say. Because the NCMHP is, frankly, mostly male — mostly male and, indeed, male dominated —and most of the males either don’t have spouses or partners, or choose not to be seen with them in public. There are two female mental health professionals in the NCMHP; they are former nuns and tend to wear long black jumpers made out of an indeterminate fabric. I tell all this to M.’s mother. “Oh,” she says, which I take to mean I’ve said the wrong thing. I hasten to get off the phone before I say anything else.

After we hang up, I start reading A Fan’s Notes from where I left off, in the middle of chapter 4, “Onhava Regained and Lost Again.” Because while I have solved some of the mysteries surrounding M. and his family, some mysteries remain. Perhaps the book doesn’t have all the answers. But that does not mean it doesn’t have some of them.

Doctor’s Notes (Entry 19, Part 2)

The wee hours of the morning, and I am furious and am furiously smoking (cigarettes) for the first time in years and years. If I die of lung cancer, I shall blame M. Why am I smoking? Why shall I blame M.? Why am I furious? Because on page 142, I find myself in Exley’s book. Not myself, rather, but my name; not my real name, rather, but the name M. has given me. The name M. has given me is not the name of a real character in the book or a real person in this Exley’s life; rather, it is the nickname he gives his — I can barely bear to write these words, Notes! — male pudendum . Exley claims this is the French word for the male pudendum. In this he is incorrect, of course: the proper French term for the male pudendum is le pénis . But still. But still . As Exley himself would say, for Christ’s sake! This is an unacceptable way for a patient to treat his mental health professional, no matter how ill the patient. I pledge to myself to teach M. this lesson immediately before taking him to the public memorial service on the Public Square, where I will teach him another lesson. But between now and then, I will read the rest of A Fan’s Notes . Strangely, I am looking forward to it. Strangely, now that I know the part of the book — the part of the book and, indeed, the part of the male anatomy —that M. has used to name me, the more enraged I am, and the more enraged I am — the more pissed off I get — the more the book speaks to me, the more it seems to be just as much about me as it is about Exley.