A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“And with the courts, do you think having brain surgery is a plus or a minus?”

“It certainly says we took an aggressive approach. I’d say it’s a plus.”

“And what does George say?”

“He doesn’t know it yet; no one does. I haven’t even told Gerwin. I’m doing some research, and then I’ll make my case.”

“Would you have psychosurgery?” I ask, knowing I never would.

“In a heartbeat,” he says, “no pun intended. I wouldn’t even mind performing it on myself.”

“Interesting,” I say, and that’s an understatement. Fucking crazy, is what I’m thinking. “Okay, so what else is on the docket, and how’s Tessie?”

“Good. She had breakfast in the kitchen and has gone out for a walk. Our plan is to have you and George do some structured play, geared towards bonding and team building.”

“Like what?”

“Fun stuff.”

I’m suspicious. George comes in from his morning session, stinking of sweat, his clothes plastered onto his body.

“How are you?” I ask.

“Fantastic,” he says.

“Glad to hear it,” Gerwin says, following him into the room, carrying what looks like a cardboard treasure box. “So today I thought we’d play some games.”

George’s eyes brighten, “Risk? Monopoly? Trivial Pursuit? Mafia? As kids we played murderball: you throw the big red rubber ball as hard as you can right at someone’s face and you murder them.”

I can still remember the sting of the ball. “You weren’t supposed to aim for the face.”

“Let’s start with a balloon,” Gerwin says, pulling a limp yellow balloon from his pocket, stretching it a couple of times, and blowing it up.

“I’m not exactly the playful type,” I say, dreading whatever is coming next.

“I can assure you we know that and have taken it into consideration,” Gerwin says, tying a knot in the end of the balloon. “I would now like the two of you to stand face to face.”

We dutifully do.

“I am going to place this balloon between you,” Gerwin says, fitting the balloon into the space between our bodies. The balloon slowly falls to the floor. “Let’s try again. Can the two of you move closer, more nose to nose?”

George steps closer; reflexively, I step back — he’s out of focus. George steps closer again, and again I step back — like a dance.

“Ahh,” Gerwin says.

“The fact is, I can’t see him so close up, he becomes a big blur.”

“Perhaps focus on a point beyond George,” Gerwin suggests.

I do. And we stand with the balloon lodged between us, and I feel George’s hot breath on my face, I smell his sweat.

“Are you bathing regularly?”

“I think so,” he says, as though he doesn’t know.

“Enough,” Gerwin says, and we are quiet.

“The goal of this game is for the two of you, working together, to move the balloon from here to there”—he points to the far side of the room—“without letting the balloon touch the floor. Capisce? ”

“ Capisce, ” George says, and he starts to walk south, towards the far wall. I take a couple of sideways steps to catch up with him. The balloon slides from our sternums to our diaphragms.

“Should we make a plan?” I ask George. “Do you want to call out each step before you go?”

“Step. Step. Step.”

We make good progress, and then George seems distracted and heading not straight across the room but towards me. “We’re going more north — we need to head south,” he says. The balloon slips lower, we’re about to lose it, George knees me in the groin — to push the balloon up. I double over and the balloon falls farther still.

“Can’t you do one thing right?” George asks.

I don’t answer. I wriggle one thigh and then the other, pressing the balloon against George’s body, working the balloon up higher, I get it from his knees up to his crotch.

“Your turn,” I say.

“Step. Step. Step.”

We do it, we get the balloon across the room. “Yes!” I say, giving George a high-five. “Yes!” It is only when we are safe on the other side that it occurs to me that perhaps there are people who don’t make it to the other side — not making it wasn’t something I thought of as an option.

“You may pick a prize,” Gerwin says, holding the treasure chest. “One per customer.”

I stick my hand in and pull out a paper glider, similar to the ones I used to get as a child for being good at the dentist’s office. George gets a sheriff’s badge — with a sharp pin, so they make him switch it for something else, and he picks a rubber snake.

“Our next game is …” Gerwin starts, and as he’s saying it, George jumps on the yellow balloon, popping it. Rosenblatt swoops down and picks up the shards of balloon, and Gerwin repeats, “Our next game is …” And so it goes: we play game after game, collecting prize after prize. And then Gerwin brings out the hand puppets.

I put one on and turn to George. “I am not a crook,” I say.

George puts one on and aims it at himself: “Good night and good luck.” He slips a puppet onto his other hand. “Thank you, Edward R. Murrow.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Cronkite. How about we go over to Toots Shor’s and get ourselves a steak.”

“Let’s start this somewhere else,” Gerwin says.

“Fine,” George says, pointing to me. “I’ll be F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can be Hemingway and kill yourself.”

“Why don’t you be William Burroughs and shoot your wife?” I say.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Gerwin is jumping up and down between us. We’re loading our hands with puppets and sometimes throwing them across the room, hurling puppets like epithets.

“Winston Churchill,” George says.

“Charles de Gaulle,” I say.

“Nikita Khrushchev,” he says.

“Barry Goldwater and Roy Cohn,” I say.

“Herbert Hoover,” he says.

“Willy fucking Loman,” I say.

Gerwin picks up something that looks like a can of deodorant, holds it high in the air, and sprays — a deafeningly loud BLAST, an air horn, like from an eighteen-wheeler.

“TIME OUT!” Gerwin shouts. Both George and I start to say something, but Gerwin interrupts: “Silence! We are going outside now.” We stuff our prizes in our pockets, leave the puppets behind, and follow Gerwin, who carries the treasure chest, mumbling to himself that now we can’t play the blindfold trust walk, and why can’t it be easier.

We get out onto the rolling hills behind the main building, and I have a moment of supreme understanding of how the Founding Fathers could have fought for this land. It is spectacular, majestic. Gerwin throws me a football; I catch it. We are all tossing the ball around. It’s idyllic, the blue sky, and the smell of fresh-cut grass, stains on our knees. The ball goes around and around, there is talk of teams, of us against them, but Gerwin keeps saying, Keep it going, keep it going. And at some point he pulls a camera out of his pocket and starts shooting pictures. George camps it up for the camera, acting heroic, fierce. I’m not sure why Gerwin is taking pictures, but it seems impossible to break the reverie and ask.

Rosenblatt throws the ball to me; I catch it, look up, and see George bearing down on me, hurtling forward like a human bowling ball, a torpedo. He slams me to the ground and is pummeling me. We are rolling down the hill, spinning on a spit of brotherly rage. I see Gerwin and Rosenblatt in the distance, and then Rosenblatt runs off. I am struggling to get out from under. At the bottom of the hill, we stop rolling. George is pounding me, whaling away, fists pumping. Gerwin comes closer, but does nothing to stop him. “You fucker, you stinking little fucker, this is only half of what you deserve, you useless piece of shit, you motherfucking …”