Things I Learned from My Dad, Who Learned Them from Exley (Lesson 1: Exley Is Everywhere)
Every Sunday morning my dad and I would walk down to the Crystal, which was my dad’s favorite restaurant and bar, eat breakfast, take a few laps around the Public Square, then walk home. Usually we’d run into someone my dad knew, and my dad would talk to him (it was almost always a him, and it was almost always someone my dad knew from the Crystal, and as a matter of fact, it was usually someone who was either going to or coming from the Crystal) for a while. I’d never paid much attention to the guys my dad talked to. I just stood there and let the noise of their talking go back and forth over my head and didn’t think about anything in particular until my dad said, “OK, bud, let’s get going.” But the Sunday after I found out about A Fan’s Notes — how my dad loved it, how it was set in Watertown — every guy my dad talked to I thought might be Exley. When my dad talked to the guy wearing a baseball hat and a Watertown High team jacket in line at the ATM, I asked my dad if he was Exley. When my dad talked to the guy in the grease-stained white apron having a smoke outside the Crystal, I asked if he was Exley. When my dad knelt down and gave a quarter to the guy sacked out on the sidewalk in front of the army-navy store, I asked if he was Exley. When my dad talked to the guy unlocking the door at the used-book store, I asked if he was Exley, even though I’d been with my dad before to the used-book store and was pretty sure that guy was a girl. “For Christ’s sake, Miller,” he said that last time. I knew I was bugging my dad; I knew I was making him sorry that he’d ever mentioned A Fan’s Notes in the first place. But I couldn’t help myself.
“There’s no use looking for Exley in Watertown, bud,” my dad said. “You’re not going to find him here.”
“Where am I going to find him?”
“He’s everywhere.” I was about to point out that if he was everywhere, that meant he might be in Watertown, but my dad said, “He’s in your head. He’s in your heart. He’s in the air. He’s in his book. You can’t get rid of him. He’s everywhere.”
I’d heard stuff like this before. Not about Exley, but about Jesus. My parents and I didn’t go to church, but some kids at school did, and from the way they talked about Jesus, he wasn’t someone who watched you from up high, but someone who followed you around, like a policeman or a hall monitor. “Like Jesus,” I said to my dad.
“No,” my dad said. “Not like Jesus.”
Doctor’s Notes (Entry 3)
M.’s third session. He walks into my office. I offer the conventional greeting, and in response he hands me a piece of paper titled “Things I Learned from My Dad, Who Learned Them from Exley (Lesson 1: Exley Is Everywhere).” I begin to read the first sentence out loud but stop when I get to mention of the Crystal Restaurant. Everyone in Watertown knows of the Crystaclass="underline" it’s “locally famous.” I’ve never eaten there myself, although I once went there with that intention. There was a sign — square, with a wood frame and a chalkboard inside the frame — on the sidewalk out in front of the establishment, the words SPECIAL OF THE DAY: LIVER written on the sign in white chalk. There was a man leaning on the sign. His face was bloated and he was swaying and his cheeks were puffing out in an obvious attempt to keep something in, and all I could think of was how “special” his “liver” was. And so I didn’t go into the Crystal and haven’t been tempted to do so since. I often walk past there, however, on the way to the adjacent health food store, where I buy bulgur wheat in bulk. The Crystal is always full, whereas the health food store is always empty. Even the health food store’s proprietor — graying ponytail, hiking boots — is often inclined not to “man” his store. He trusts me to leave the money I owe him on the counter, which I do. Sometimes, when I’m by myself in his store, weighing my bag of bulgur, I can hear the loud, happy sounds of carousing and comradeship coming from the Crystal. That is loneliness. That is how I often feel in Watertown.
In any case, just the mention of the Crystal casts a pall over M.’s father’s lesson, and so I thank M. and tell him I’ll read the rest of it after our session. M. doesn’t respond. He simply reaches into his jacket pocket, and like a magician with his hat and his hares, he pulls out another piece of paper. It is a letter, included below in its entirety.
Dear Miller,
Well, I’m in __________ now with the __________ __________ Division. I wrote __________ __________ because the censors are going to cross out all the names anyway. But I’m doing fine. They have me manning the __________ at __________ and then I get to sleep all __________. There are __________ other guys with me. They take me for what I am, a youngish-old teacher from Watertown, one who is a little too tetched on the subject of A Fan’s Notes; but they seem to like me and don’t seem to begrudge me that I had a job and a house and a wife and son and I left all that at age __________ to come here. They don’t begrudge me, but they don’t exactly understand it, either. I don’t understand it myself sometimes. I have a feeling you understand it better than I do. I hope you do.
I’m sorry I didn’t write you until now, Miller. But I wanted to actually be in __________ before I wrote you, so that you and your mom would know that I actually did it. I did it. But I miss you. For Christ’s sake, I really miss you, bud.
Love, Your dad
I read the letter once, twice, three times. It is handwritten in blue pen. The handwriting looks neither especially adult nor especially juvenile. The piece of paper has three horizontal crease marks, as though it has been folded into an envelope and then folded and unfolded many times thereafter. I look up from the letter and ask M. the whereabouts of the envelope in which the letter must have arrived. I expect him to shrug and say, “I threw it out,” and that is, in fact, what he does and says. I ask him what the envelope looked like. I expect him to shrug and say, “I don’t know. It looked like an envelope.” He once again meets my expectations. I nod, return to the letter, and read it once more. Or rather I pretend to read it while I determine the best way to proceed. I know after my first session with M. that the best way to proceed is not to express doubt about the veracity of the letter. Perhaps it is better to inquire about the manner in which the letter is written.
“Your father has a most unusual — most unusual and, indeed, most unique — writing style,” I say.
“Unique how?” Miller says.
“‘For Christ’s sake,’” I say, with some reservation, making sure M. hears the quotation marks, making sure M. knows that this is not acceptable language for a juvenile. “And his use of blanks.” As I say this, I recall M.’s use of the word “blank” during our previous session. I remind M. of this. He once again shrugs. I’ve long held the opinion that we mental health professionals would have a significantly easier time restoring juveniles to mental health if we first removed their shoulders. “That’s just the way my dad and I talk,” M. says. That’s right, I think. You also call your father “my dad,” and your mother “Mother.” That’s the way you talk. The question is, why do you talk the way you talk?