Brock Clarke - Exley

Here are the lists:

EXLEY’S FAVORITE PLACES AND THINGS

The New York Giants

Books

Beer

Vodka Presbyterians (possibly a made-up drink?)

Cigarettes

The Crystal

The New Parrot

Davenports

Chicago

America

Watertown

EXLEY’S LEAST FAVORITE PLACES AND THINGS

Work (noun and verb)

Nuthouses

Schools

Hospitals

Marriage

Army

Institutions of any kind

Books

Beer

Vodka Presbyterians

Black River Country Club

Fort Drum

Watertown

America

I’d just finished writing out the list and putting it in my pocket when Dr. I. came in.

“You’re Miller,” Dr. I. said.

“Are you Dr. I.?” I said. Since this was a military hospital, I expected the doctors to be dressed in military uniform, even though the nurses were dressed like regular nurses. But Dr. I. was dressed like a regular doctor: he had a stethoscope around his neck and was holding a clipboard and wearing a white lab coat, and his face was a grayer white than the lab coat and looked tired, like maybe he hadn’t had enough coffee, even though he was bouncing the clipboard off his chest, like maybe he’d had too much coffee.

“I am,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear what’s wrong with my dad,” I said.

Dr. I. frowned at me in an especially fatigued way, like he wasn’t going to bother trying to understand a joke that he knew wasn’t going to be very funny anyway, and then told me what was wrong with my dad. He told me what had been in my dad’s head: not bullets, or bomb or rocket parts, but pieces of concrete. My dad had been near a concrete wall when a bomb went off. Dr. I. said that they’d taken some pieces of concrete out of his brain in Iraq, and then they’d had to wait until yesterday for the swelling in my dad’s brain to go down enough for them to take out some more pieces. Now, Dr. I. said, they’d gotten out all the pieces that they could get out.

“You mean he still has pieces of concrete in his head?”

“There are pieces in his head, but not in his brain,” Dr. I. said. He said this like I’d understand the difference, which I did, kind of.

“He woke up a couple of days ago,” I said. “When’s he going to wake up again?”

Dr. I. looked at his clipboard, and he was still looking at it when he said, “Your father has extensive brain damage.” Then he said some more things, but I couldn’t really hear them: all I could hear was the sound of the machine, breathing and breathing for my dad.

“He’s not going to wake up, is he?” I said.

This startled Dr. I. He looked up from his chart and said, “Your father is critical, Miller. But as you say, he woke up once. And we certainly were surprised when that happened, I can tell you! If it happened once, it could happen again.”

“But probably not,” I said. I was doing that thing when you say the worst thing you can think of and then hope that someone will tell you that you shouldn’t be saying it.

“Probably not,” Dr. I. said. “Wait, where are you going?”

Because I was already running out of the room. Because I knew from what Dr. I. said that I didn’t have any more time. I knew I had to find Exley right away or else there wouldn’t be any reason to find him. I ran down the hall, through the lobby, past Mrs. C., and out the door, just in time to see J.’s father. He was in a wheelchair; the wheelchair was on a platform, and the platform was attached to a white van. J. was sitting in the passenger seat. Her eyes were closed, her head was tilted up. A woman was standing with her back to me. It must have been J.’s mother. “I’m trying,” she said. She had her left arm inside the van, and I wondered if she was pushing a button. The platform went up, then went down. The platform went up, stopped, seemed to begin to go back into the van, then stopped and vibrated a little. “I’m trying ,” J.’s mother said again. I don’t know who she was talking to. Because J.’s father hadn’t said a word, not that I’d heard. He was staring at the hospital with his lips pressed together. He had a blanket over his lap, and his hands were holding tight on to the arms of the wheelchair. J.’s father looked so helpless, just like my dad, and that made me mad; it made me so mad thinking about what joining the army and going to Iraq and fighting for America had done to my dad and J.’s father. Earlier, in the hospital room, talking to Dr. I., I had felt so sad that I wondered if I would ever feel anything else besides sadness again. But now I felt mad, and that was a much better, and much easier, thing to feel. I thought about the lists in my pocket, about what Exley would feel about what had happened to my dad and J.’s father. It would make him mad, too, I was sure of it. I was too far away to show J.’s father my lists, so instead I yelled, “America has incapacitated you!” This was something Exley had written in his book. Actually, he’d written, “I had incapacitated myself.” But whoever had incapacitated whom, America sure hadn’t helped him, or my dad, or J.’s father, either. I yelled it again —“America has incapacitated you!”—and this time J.’s father seemed to hear: he yelled back something that I couldn’t make out. But he didn’t look happy when he was yelling it. Then the platform vibrated again, finally sucking J.’s father into the van. J.’s mother pulled the door shut. The door didn’t have windows. Maybe there were some on the other side. J.’s mother trudged over to the driver’s side, got into the van, and drove them all home.

Doctor’s Notes (Interview with J.)

No, no one at school believed M. when he said his dad went into the army; no one believed him when he said his dad went to Iraq.

Because he didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t know what division his dad was in or anything like that. He didn’t know anything you would know if your dad was in Iraq. He just didn’t.

It’s hard to tell if M. knew no one believed him. He can be a weird kid, you know? But yeah, I think he probably knew. That’s why he brought in a letter. It was supposed to be from his dad, and it had all these underlines and it didn’t make any sense to me.

I guess it’s possible M. wrote it himself. Like I said, he can be weird.

Yes, only one letter.

I don’t know anything about any other letters. He only brought in that one.

Yeah, I saw the guy in the hospital. That was weird, too. M. didn’t seem to know what was wrong with the guy or when he was coming home from the VA hospital or anything like that. And they didn’t exactly look like each other, either. The guy seemed like he could have been anyone. But Mrs. C. was talking to M. like it really was his dad. And she let M. go see him, too. I don’t think she would have done that if he wasn’t really his dad. That’s Mrs. C.’s job, mostly: to make sure no one sees a patient unless they’re related to him.

No, I didn’t look at his bracelet. You don’t just walk up to a kid in your class’s dad in his hospital bed and look at his bracelet. Who does that?

Well, no wonder they kicked you out.

No, I’d never seen his dad before. My mom told me he’s a famous Watertown alky. But I don’t think she’s met him, either.

Because that’s what people mean when they say someone’s famous: that they haven’t met him.

I met his mom a couple of times. Parent-teacher nights, I think. She seemed nice.

She said hi when we met, and then said it was nice to meet me when we said good-bye. That’s what I mean when I say she seemed nice. Plus, she was there , at least, meeting his teachers and stuff. His dad wasn’t. From what my mom says, they don’t seem like they should be married to each other. Then again, my mom shouldn’t have married my dad, either. She’s said so herself.