A: You know the kid better than I do.
Q: But why would someone do that?
A: Do what?
Q: Why would someone pretend his father is in Iraq?
A: Some people think being in the army is better than what they’re already doing.
Q: Why did you join?
A: (Long pause..) The usual reasons.
Q: Which are?
A: (Long pause.) If you’re a black man, you either go into the army and stay Christian, or you go to jail and become a Muslim. Brother does a little time in jail and then won’t eat pork no more. I do love my Jesus. Also, barbecue pork sandwiches.
Q: (Long pause..) Surely you’re not serious.
A: Surely I am. Why do you do what you do?
Q: The simplest answer is that I became a mental health professional because I wanted to help people. (Pause..) But it’s also true that I became a mental health professional because I wasn’t argumentative enough to become a legal professional, or athletic enough to become a fitness professional, or tolerant enough of blood or bodily illness or death to become a physical health professional or a mortuary professional. And it’s also true that I became a mental health professional because the university from which I graduated allowed me to study there, and because the government gave me loans that allowed me to become indebted to it as it paid for my education. And now that I am a degreed and licensed mental health professional, it’s also true that, in the case of M., my patient, I want to help him because I want to be seen by M.’s lovely mother as someone who was able to help her son and thus someone who is worthy of her affection. (Long pause..) But mostly I became a mental health professional because I want to help people.
A: You can’t.
Q: I can’t what?
A: You can’t help people. You can’t help A.
Q: Of course I can. (Pause..) Why can’t I?
A: Because the only thing that’ll help her for sure is if I come home alive and stay home. It doesn’t take a doctor to know that.
It Hurts My Stomach to Hear You Talk Like That
Oak Street was on the north side of the river. In his book, Exley called it “the less fashionable side of Watertown.” I’d been through there a bunch of times with my parents, in the car, on the way to or from something. It looked like the side of Watertown I lived in, except the houses were a little smaller and in a little worse shape and there seemed to be a Rite Aid or a Stewart’s on every corner whereas on my side of town there was a Rite Aid or a Stewart’s on every other corner. That’s what Mother always said: “Why does Watertown have to have a Rite Aid or a Stewart’s on every other corner? It’s depressing.”
Anyway, I crossed the Black River on Factory Street, then took an immediate right onto Water Street, past abandoned factories and shingled shacks that seemed to be sliding down the hill into the river. Then I took a left, away from the river and onto Oak Street. Within five minutes after the last factory, I seemed to be in the middle of the country. It didn’t feel like Watertown at all anymore.
I followed Oak Street up a hill. It was a paved road at first, and then it was a dirt road, and then it was a dirt path with high weeds in the middle and tire tracks on either side. There were tires everywhere in the even higher weeds on either side of the tire tracks, but no cars. It was like the tires had made the tracks all by themselves. I had followed the tracks a little farther when I heard a dog barking, then some squawking, then more barking. A minute or so later the path ended. At the end of it was a house. The house looked like it had been built by many different people using many different kinds of wood. The roof was a piece of thin, rusty metal. It hung way over the side of the house and drooped a little. There was a tiny pipe sticking out of the roof, and smoke was puffing out of it. Off to the left of the house were four cars in the weeds. Two of them were up on cinder blocks and two weren’t. None of them had tires. So that’s where the cars had gone. Although I still didn’t know how they’d gotten there without their tires.
There was more barking and squawking around the other side of the house. I followed the sounds until I saw a man with a shotgun. I know there are different kinds of shotguns, but I don’t know what they are, and I didn’t know what kind this one was. I’d never seen anyone hold one before. But I wasn’t scared, mostly because it looked like it was broken. The man was holding it by the handle. The handle was parallel to the ground. But there was a mouth-shaped crack between the handle and the rest of the gun, which was pointed directly at the ground. The gun wasn’t scary, broken like that. The man wasn’t scary, either. He was wearing blue khaki work clothes, and work boots that were untied, with the tongues outside the pant cuffs. He was old and skinny and looked sick. I mean, he looked like he was going to be sick. He spat in the dirt in front of him. It was a big glob of spit and didn’t dissolve when it hit the dirt. Then I saw why he might be sick. In front of him, between the house and us, was a big dirt patch. There were two chickens pecking at it. There was one dog looking at the two chickens. There was another dog a few feet away. It was slowly eating something. I guessed it was a chicken, because I could see at least six dead and bloody chickens scattered nearby. The dog ate the last bit of whatever he was eating, seemed to almost throw it up, then swallowed it.
Just then the man noticed me. He smiled, and I could see that he had a couple of teeth left and that they were gray. I smiled back, and then he stopped smiling. He looked inside the shotgun, where it was broken, and then fixed it with one flick of his wrist. He kept one hand on the handle, the other under the barrel, put the whole thing up near his chin, and then pointed it at me. Then I got scared. I was so scared I didn’t have time to decide whether to start calling this man Exley in my head, or to wait until he proved he was Exley before calling him that. I put my hands up and shouted, “V. sent me! A guy named V. sent me!”
When the guy heard that, he lowered his gun a little, so that it was pointed at my feet and not at my face. “Why didn’t V. come himself?” he wanted to know.
“V. didn’t say.” I was about to volunteer to go back to the Crystal and ask V. why he didn’t come himself when the guy nodded, spat, and said, “Pussy.” I didn’t think he was talking to me, but even if he was, I wasn’t exactly in a position to be offended. He then flipped the gun around and pointed it, grip first, in my direction. I knew what he wanted me to do: he wanted me to take the gun. I didn’t even stop to think about whether I should do it. Because this was the kind of situation in which you did what was asked of you. Because if I didn’t want to do what was asked of me, I shouldn’t have put myself in the situation in the first place. Because if I didn’t do what this guy wanted me to do, I wouldn’t find out if he was Exley or not. Anyway, I took the gun. It was the first time I’d ever held a gun that wasn’t a BB gun. This gun was heavier than that gun, and smelled of oil and old smoke. Not woodsmoke, but the smoke from a bottle rocket or a firecracker. Now that I had the gun, though, I wasn’t sure what the man wanted me to do with it, exactly. The man must have sensed this, because he pointed at the dog nearest me and said, “I guess shoot him first.”
I didn’t say anything back, because I was afraid the man would hear how scared I was. I held the gun like the man had held the gun a second earlier, then turned to face the dog that had just finished eating the chickens. I curled my finger around the trigger, then paused. I can’t do this, I said to myself. Sure, you can, I said back. Think of it as a test. You’re good at tests. I stood there for a few seconds more, looking at the dog over the top of the gun, until the gun started to shake a little, then a lot. No, I won’t do it, I said. But what about your dad? I said back. I thought you’d do anything for your dad.