A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

The seams of the Middlebranch boiled wool are pulling, stretching — white fibers, threads, are showing. It is truly a power struggle, and I get the feeling the parents are the ones desperate to prove something, what or why I’m not sure. And then, suddenly, as it all seems about to explode, the boys have the rope and are doing a strange improvisational victory dance across the lawn — Martha Graham gone wrong.

The parents gather themselves up and dust themselves off, and the weekend is suddenly over. Within minutes, the fathers and mothers are hugging their sons, bidding them adieu.

Nate gives me a powerful squeeze and thanks me for coming. “Let me know you get home safe,” he says.

“Will do,” I say.

As I’m walking to the car, the man married to the Middlebranch tells me this is the way it goes — the adults rarely win. And the academy likes to keep the parting short and sweet: the boys will finish the weekend with study hall and a suckling pig for dinner, that’s the tradition. Tomorrow is Monday, a school day, and these future captains of industry, titans of banking, orthopedic surgeons, and accountants to the stars all have homework to do.

I quickly settle back into the routine at George’s house, and on Thursday evening, as I’m relaxing, rereading John Ehrlichman’s Witness to Power, George’s psychiatrist telephones.

“We’ve reached a second stage. The team thinks it would be useful for you to come and spend some time with us.”

“In what capacity?” I ask, fearing that I’ll have to somehow “enroll.”

“Think of it as a supervised playdate,” he says.

“Can I leave if I’m not having a good time?”

“In theory, yes,” he says.

“In theory?”

“There’s really nowhere to go, but we’re not going to hold you hostage.”

“All right, then,” I say.

“And you’ll bring the dog?” the doctor asks.

“I could do that,” I say — noting that the one thing missing from my otherwise great time last weekend was Tessie.

I pack a bag for myself and one for the dog. In Tessie’s I put a giant Ziploc of kibble, a smaller bag of dog biscuits, treats, toys, some poop bags, and an old towel to sleep on. In my bag, a change of clothes, pajamas, toothbrush, and a Ziploc of my new “medications,” along with the instructions, which I have to reread daily; otherwise I can’t remember in what order they are to be taken.

It feels like months since I drove George’s clothes up to the “facility.” It’s far, much farther than Nate’s school. Driving there is like taffy pulling: with every hour, the place gets farther away. Halfway, I pull off into one of those odd wooded places marked “Rest Area.” There are a couple of long-haul trucks and port-a-johns at the edge of the parking lot. I recline my seat, close my eyes, and am dreaming of Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, his passage of the Clean Air Act, the Marine Mammal Act, the Safe Water Drinking Act, the Endangered Species Act — the Magna Carta of the environmental movement — only to be woken by a tapping on the window and Tessie’s startled bark.

A man stands by the car, his fly unzipped, his anxious swollen gray underwear poking through at eye level. “Looking for love,” he says through the glass, voice muffled, hips wiggling. I look up at his face, unshaven, wild-eyed. I lunge for the key, grind the ignition, and floor it out of the parking lot. Tessie lurches forward, losing her balance, and bangs into the dash. I slow, let her get her footing, and am back onto the highway, trying to maneuver my seat upright while gunning the gas pedal.

As I am driving, speeding farther and farther upstate, I keep having flashbacks. … The guy was erect, bulging out of his pants, and wanted me to what?

“How could he have thought that was appealing?” I ask Tessie.

It’s late afternoon when I make the left at the mailbox marked “The Lodge.” Tessie growls at the man at the gatehouse, who ignores her and asks me to open the trunk, which I do. Cleared to enter, I park and let Tessie out. She bounds towards the main building, wanders into the flower beds, and immediately lets loose with a load of diarrhea.

“What’s the dog’s name?” a burly man carrying a walkie-talkie asks.

“Tessie,” I say.

He crouches, failing to notice the beastly smell. “Are you a good dog, Tessie? A soft, fluffy dog, Tessie? A kind dog, Tessie, not a big mean bitey dog, not a growly-wowly dog?” The dog licks his face. “I knew it,” the guy says. “You are a kissy-wissy dog.”

With Tessie’s name and mine officially on the list, the staff are friendlier this time around, although, admittedly, I do approach the front desk expecting trouble. I drop my bags on the counter, and practically demand, “Search me.” The receptionist all too willingly unzips the bag, pulls my big baggie of medications right off the top, and calls for a supervisor, announcing over the intercom, “We have a drug check at the front desk.”

“I’m not sure you’d call prescription medicine a bag of drugs.”

“We speak our own language,” the receptionist says. “Would you like a cookie and a cup of tea? The supervisor may be a few minutes.” She points to a hot-water pot and a tin of Danish Butter Cookies. I accept a cookie for myself and one for Tessie.

“Is that a therapy pet?” the woman asks.

“No, just a dog,” I say.

The supervisor appears and lifts the Ziploc bag high, holding it up against the glare of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling as though it’s a kind of X-ray machine. She gives the bag a shake, a kind of jingle bells, and hands it back to me. “In your room there is a lockbox like a hotel safe. You keep your medications in there at all times. Do you have any metal, cameras, recording devices, or weapons?”

“Nothing beyond whatever the CIA planted in my head,” I say.

“Humor is easily misconstrued,” the supervisor says.

“I’m nervous,” I say. “I’ve never been in a mental hospital before.”

“Nothing to be nervous about — you’re just visiting, right?”

A young man appears; he looks like a high-school student, but introduces himself as Dr. Rosenblatt.

“We spoke on the phone,” he says, shaking my hand. “I know that last time you were here you didn’t get much of a sense of the place, so I thought we’d start with a tour. The grounds were laid out by the same fellow who designed Central Park and Paris,” Rosenblatt says, leading me through the main “pavilion” and out the back door.

“Nice,” I say, noticing the dappled afternoon light on the rolling hills. “It’s like a national park.”

“We call it a campus,” Rosenblatt says.

A “campus” complete with a bowling alley, golf, and tennis. All of it enough to make insanity look appealing. Tessie loves the tour; she pees and poops multiple times. Rosenblatt ends the tour at a part of the estate slightly off the grid — a long, low building that looks like an old upstate hunters’ motel. “We use this building for a variety of purposes, including as housing for our guests. If security seems a little high, you’re not seeing things. We currently have a former presidential hopeful in-house. We need to be extra cautious: paparazzi have been known to sneak through the woods and so on.”

“Interesting,” I say.

“We treat a full range of issues.”

“Is losing an election an issue?”

“It’s very stressful,” Rosenblatt says. “We’re known for our ability to manage high-profile clients: our remote location, low staff turnover, private airport fifteen minutes away are all on our side. A few years ago, we had a major movie star who had a face lift that got infected, ended up looking like an entirely other person, almost lost his mind.”