Brock Clarke - Exley

He’s my stepdad. I call him my dad because my dad isn’t around anymore.

I don’t really want to talk about it, OK?

No, I didn’t believe M. when he first told us his dad went to Iraq, either.

I don’t know. I still don’t really believe him. But Mrs. C. seems to believe him. ( Long pause ) I guess I don’t know what to believe.

I guess we’re friends. We’re friendly, at least.

What do you mean, he likes me?

What do you mean, do I know a K.? Who’s K.?

That’s gross. He’s only a little kid. Why would you say something like that?

Anyway, like I said: he can be weird.

No, he’s not a bad kid. ( Long pause .) He probably just reads too many books.

Would I be mad if I found out he lied about his dad going to Iraq? I guess so. It’s not something you should lie about. My dad would be mad, for sure.

Dad! This psychiatrist wants to talk to you!

A mental health what?

Whatever. I have to go back to school.

Yeah, I know H. I have gym class with him this afternoon.

Why would you want to go to my gym class?

OK, I guess. I’ll wait outside while you talk to my dad. But hurry up. I don’t want to be late, OK?

He lost his legs when he stepped on a bomb.

Thanks. I’m sorry, too. He’s sorry. My mom’s sorry. Everyone’s sorry.

Does my dad seem different since he got home? He doesn’t have legs anymore. So yeah, he seems different.

Doctor’s Notes (Interview with J.’s father)

Yeah, I met him. Quiet kid. A little nerdy. Laughed at my joke. Outside the hospital he said me and his dad have been. J., what is it? ( Pause .) Right: he thinks America has incapacitated us. That’s bullshit. She also thinks he might be lying about his father even being in the army. That’d be bullshit, too. That’s so bullshit I don’t even believe it’s true. But him thinking America has done something to me and his dad is believable. Bullshit, but believable bullshit. It’s like those protesters.

Out by Fort Drum. With their bullshit bullhorns and their bullshit signs, thinking they know everything about me and guys like me when they don’t know. They don’t. They sound like your little patient, except all grown up and with bullshit bullhorns and bullshit signs. They’re what your little patient’ll be like in twenty years if he’s not careful.

Well, you know, I might just try to show him that. I might just. I’ve got nothing to do and that special van just waiting for me to drive it. The army paid for it, and it didn’t cost me nothing except for my legs.

Because I thought joining up was the right thing to do.

I still think it was the right thing to do. But I wish I hadn’t’ve done it. I shouldn’t have done it. But fuck me if I’m going to let anyone else say so.

Doctor’s Notes (Entry 21)

Imust now emerge from the cocoon of my interviewing, Notes. For it isn’t just any gym class to which J. allows me to accompany her. It was the gym class everyone dreaded in my day, and I assume, by the looks on all the juveniles’ faces, the class they still dread. I know from talking with some of my patients — some of my patients are in therapy because of their parents, some of them because of their siblings and friends, but all of them are also in therapy because of their gym classes — that normally in physical education the boys occupy one half of the gym and the girls the other. But today is the day they all come together and square-dance.

“Bow to your partner,” says the voice on the tape player. Coach B. (I recognize him from M.’s description) has pushed its Play button and, that feat accomplished, stands off to the side, talking with an adult female, who must be the girls’ gym coach. I don’t know what Coach B. is saying to her, but she looks most unmoved as she stands there, sweat-suited legs far apart and white Reeboked feet rooted to the shiny gym floor, twirling her whistle and masticating her gum. I leave J.’s side — to be true, before I leave her she leaves me to talk to H., who frantically waves her over when he sees us enter the gymnasium — and walk over to the coaches. I suspect that if I tell the truth and say that I am M.’s mental health professional and not H.’s, the coaches will not permit me to speak to H. So I lie and introduce myself as H.’s mental health professional and ask if I might have a talk with him. Other than the accelerated twirling of her whistle, the girls’ coach doesn’t respond to my presence or my words. But Coach B. nods and says, “There’s your stick figure, Doc. You can have him, for all care.”

I look over and see H. looking lost and forlorn and without a partner. Everyone else is paired up. I do a quick count and find that there is one more boy than girl. M. has told me that he and H. are in the same gym class, and so I assume he would be H.’s partner if he were here. So I take M.’s place. I walk over to where H. is standing. H.’s eyes get large and “freaked out” when he sees me walking toward him, and no wonder — his lip is still engorged and scabbed from where “Exley” struck him, and since I first introduced myself immediately afterward, he must associate me with that day, that blow, that wound — and so to put him at ease, I bow. To my surprise, H. bows back. His is a formal bow. He puts his left hand across his stomach and his right hand across his lower back as he completes his move. I look at all the other students: all they do is lower their heads a little. But Harold is very serious and proper about it. I laugh at him because I am certain that’s what M. would do.

“What?” he says. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it.”

“Bow to your corner,” the voice on the tape player says.

I turn to my corner. My corner is J. She does not bow but instead glares at me. Perhaps this is just a manifestation of her hatred for square dancing. In any case, I bow at her like H. bowed at me. I hope this might cheer her up and she might laugh at me like I laughed at Harold. But she doesn’t laugh at me; on the contrary, her glare only intensifies, so deep is her dislike for this particular dance.

“Swing your partner,” the voice on the tape player says. I turn away from J. and back to H. I can feel a crazy grin washing over my face. Because I, too, was often stuck with other boys for partners when I square-danced in gym, and the one good thing about having a boy for a partner is that you could swing him as hard as you could and not worry about hurting him or having him think you were a “goon.” I hook my arm in H.’s, and as I do I notice a look of absolute terror on his face, but I do not have sufficient time to consider it before we commence swinging. Of course, I am bigger than H. and so end up doing most of the swinging. In order to keep up, H. is forced to sprint. At one point, I swing H. harder than I mean to, and his feet leave the ground for a second and I hear him shriek. Then I hear the female coach’s whistle. I look over and see Coach B. press a button on the tape player. The square-dance music and calling stops, and Coach B. starts to yell at a girl and a boy who, evidently, weren’t swinging properly. “You’re not supposed to be doing the Lindy,” Coach B. tells them.

“So I didn’t think we were,” the boy says, and I know from that “so” that he is M.’s classmate L.

“We weren’t doing the Lindy,” the girl confirms. “I don’t even know what the Lindy is .” I can’t help noticing that the girl is pretty: when it’s the day when there’s just one gym class and you have to hold their hands, all the girls are pretty. But this girl is especially pretty, freckled, with long white legs coming out of her gym shorts. Coach B. wipes his palms on the sides of his shorts, then smiles eagerly at the girl. The girl glances at the female coach, but she is still too consumed by her whistle, her gum, to notice. Coach B. puts out his hands — presumably to show her what Lindy swinging is, and then to show her how square-dance swinging is different — and the girl places her hands in his because she has to. It is hard to watch, and so I don’t. Instead, I turn back to H. He seems even more terrified than before and even puts one hand in front of his face before saying loudly, “Please don’t hit me again!”