The contest has begun. I become fixated on a woman in a boiled-wool jacket, her hair band pulling dyed blond locks out of her face, her lips rolled back, teeth clenched, pulling on the rope like her life depends on it.
“I notice you keep staring at my wife. Do you know her?” the man sidelined with an amputated half-leg asks.
“She looks familiar,” I say, not because it’s true but because I have nothing else to say.
“She’s a Middlebranch,” he says. “The family goes back a very long way — one of them was Ben Franklin’s roommate in France in 1753—kept one hell of a journal.”
“How did you meet?” I ask.
“I was a student here, and she and two gals from Emma Willard came over to visit her brother. Odd that you marry someone that you meet at fourteen, don’t ya think?” he says.
“Might be the best thing, there’s great clarity in youth,” I say.
“Why aren’t you pulling?” he asks.
“Stroke,” I say. “You?”
“Goddamned colostomy,” he says, patting his stomach through his coat. “Had cancer the size of a grapefruit and they rerouted everything. They swear they’re going to reconnect the pipes, but I’m not so sure how.”
A groaning sound from the line distracts us. Someone splits his pants, a woman grinding down breaks a tooth. The adults pull and pull and pull, digging in as intractably as toddlers. Each side is so determined, so sure not only that they will win, but that in winning, in defeating the other, there is some greater gain.
“Pull,” the man on the parent side calls.
“Pull,” the boy on the student side calls.
“Pant,” one of the women calls, “remember your Lamaze.”
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.