A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“How’d you treat that?”

“Encouraging him to grow a beard until he felt comfortable,” he says, as though it was obvious.

Rosenblatt unlocks the door, ushering me into a room that could have been designed by a Martian who read books in translation about American history: everything is red, white, or blue — or brown. All of it conspiring to seem entirely Yankee, Norman Rockwell, and good for one’s health. The furniture is Ethan Allen, wooden, 100 percent made in America, a style I guess best described as Colonial — I think I’d nickname it “safe” and “timeless.” The hangers don’t come off the rod in the closet, there is a battery-operated electric clock, the lamps all have very short cords. On top of the dresser there’s a small basket with two bottles of water, a protein bar, and some dried cranberries, in case you have to go into survival mode. And as an ironic antidote to the faux-homey approach, a large red-and-white glowing EXIT sign hovers over the door. It’s all like a flashback to an America that never existed, America as it was dreamed by Ozzie and Harriet. On the night table next to the bed, there’s a notepad featuring the logo of this place — an excellent souvenir if you’re into the ephemera of insanity.

I think of Nixon’s furniture: The beloved brown velvet lounger that he used to nap in after lunch in his “private” office in the Old Executive Office Building, around the corner from the White House. I think of the “Wilson” desk Nixon requested for the Oval Office thinking it was the one used by President Woodrow Wilson, but instead receiving the desk that belonged to former Vice-President Harry Wilson, within which, in 1971, Nixon had five recording devices installed. The desk, now back in its original location, the Vice-President’s Office within the United States Capitol, has since been used by Walter Mondale, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden. I have no idea what happened to the “bugs” Nixon had wired from the desk down to an old locker room in the White House basement. I look around the motel room and wonder about bugs of all kinds, electronic and bed — there’s been extensive news coverage about epidemic levels of bedbugs.

“Are conjugal visits allowed?” I ask Rosenblatt.

“Up to the doctor,” Rosenblatt says, forgetting that he is a doctor.

Noting that there is no television in this room, I ask, “Does George have a TV?”

“No television on campus, but we have movie nights on Fridays.”

“At home, he has a television in every room. He can’t bear to be alone. Even when he’s peeing he needs someone to be talking to him. You do know he ran a network?”

Rosenblatt nods.

I go on, waxing poetic about George. “He changed the face of television. George was singularly responsible for shows such as Your Life Sucks and Refrigerator Wars, My Way or the Highway, Doctors in the Off Hours. ” Rosenblatt doesn’t seem to be listening. I throw in a couple of titles that I make up myself as a kind of test, like Better Dead Than in My Wife’s Bed, and Rosenblatt’s head bobs along. “Not much of a TV guy, are you?” I ask.

“Don’t own one,” Rosenblatt says. “Never have. Would you like a glass of water?” he asks Tessie.

“She’s more of a bowl dog than a glass half empty,” I say, still on a roll. As I’m unzipping Tessie’s bag and digging out her bowl, she finds the bathroom and has a nice long drink from the toilet.

“So — where did you do your medical training?”

“Harvard,” he says.

“And how’d you end up here?”

“I’m an expert on electroshock,” he says. “As a teenager I treated my cat for extreme anxiety with a home electroshock system, which has since been adapted for use in third-world countries.”

“A lot of pet anxiety in the third world?”

“Human use,” he says.

“I didn’t know anyone still did electroshock.”

“It’s very popular,” he says. “Made a real comeback as one of the few successful treatments for drug-resistant depression.”

Something about the way Rosenblatt says “treatment for drug-resistant depression” makes me think of those commercials for detergent that show the detergent lifting grass stains right out of the khaki knee and washing them away. I now have electroshock and Tide inexorably bound in my mind.

“I had no idea,” I say. I honestly thought it had been banned as inhumane and perhaps cruel. “By the way, what does this place cost?” I ask.

“Your brother has very good insurance.”

“How good?”

“As good as it gets.”

“Where do people go from here, you know, when they ‘graduate’?”

“Some go to other residential programs, others to a transitional facility, and some go home.”

“How about jail?”

“You sound angry at your brother,” Rosenblatt notes.

“Just a little,” I say.

“You’d like him to be punished.”

“I don’t think he can be punished — at least, that’s what my mother used to say.”

“Really?”

“Yes, she often said, it’s funny about your brother, he can do whatever he wants, because if you try to punish him he doesn’t care.”

“Interesting. Do you think it’s true?” Rosenblatt asks.

I nod. “It’s hard to make much of an impression on him,” I say. “Speaking of which, when will I be seeing George?” I check my watch; it’s five-thirty.

“Dr. Gerwin, who is taking the lead in your brother’s care, would like to speak with you briefly, and then we’ll take you to George.” He pulls out a typed schedule and hands it to me. And then he hands me a second sheet — a feedback report. “If you could complete this before you depart and leave it with the front desk. The reports are graded, and we earn points, like miles that can be used for travel, shopping, or other services, depending on the grade.

“I’m about to go for a jog,” he says, looking at Tessie. “I’d be happy to take the dog.”

I think of Rosenblatt and his cat experiment. “Thanks, but I’ll keep her with me.”

Back in the main building, Dr. Gerwin and I meet in a small room like the kind of place you’d go to sign up for a gym membership or apply to join the navy — generic, antiseptic. We shake hands, and then immediately he pumps foaming Purell onto his hands.

“Perhaps I should as well,” I say, trying to make light of it. Gerwin pushes the Purell towards me; I fill my hands with foam and rapidly rub them together. “What fun.”

Gerwin looks like the actor Steve Martin; his features are somewhat rubbery, but his facial expression remains fixed, as though he has studied himself in the mirror and decided this one — a kind of tolerant but uncommitted half-smile — works best. He pulls out a manila folder and makes himself comfortable behind the small desk.

“When did you first see a psychiatrist?” he asks.

“Me?”

“Yes,” he says.

“I didn’t. Or I should say I don’t. I’ve never seen a psychiatrist.”

“Does it seem strange to you, to have come this far in your life without getting help?”

“No,” I say.

“Moving on,” Gerwin says, “your sex life.” And I’m not sure if it’s a declarative statement or a question.

“Yes,” I say.

“How would you describe it? The flavor?”

“Vanilla,” I say.

“Any sex outside of your primary relationship?”

“No,” I say, wondering how much he knows about the events that have brought us to this moment.

“Prostitutes?”

“Is this about me or George?” I ask. “Feel free to write down ‘defensive’ there, in that box. I want to help my brother, but, that said, I do feel I am entitled to have a private life.”