“You’re right. George, do you remember the time a psychiatrist asked you, ‘Have you ever hit a woman,’ and you said, ‘Only on the ass’?”
George laughs heartily. “I do, I do,” he says.
“What about target games?” I ask George’s team. “What about when you’re playing carnival games on a boardwalk, shooting a straw of pellets at Mr. Magoo, only you turn your rifle away from Mr. Magoo and aim right at your brother?”
“Out of context, it’s hard to evaluate,” Rosenblatt says.
“Did he tell you about how he ran me down with the car?”
“There you go, dragging out that old chestnut, your favorite of them all. And I didn’t run you down, I bumped you.”
“On purpose.”
George shrugs. “I won’t deny it.”
“His nickname in high school was Vanquisher.”
“Enough,” Gerwin says. “The point of this dinner was to talk about mindless things, and simply get along.”
“Yeah,” George says. “Put a cork in it.”
I dig into my seitan piccata, which tastes like breaded cardboard with a kind of gummy lemon-caper-cornstarch gravy. During the meal, I ask Rosenblatt about when I might have a few minutes with George alone to go over some private family business, house repairs, the children, pets, financials.
“It’s not on the schedule?” he asks, perplexed.
I shake my head. “It’s why I’m here; I need to speak with him. How about tonight, after dinner?” I suggest.
Rosenblatt looks at me like the thought never occurred to him. “Could do,” he says, taking out a pen and scribbling it in on the schedule.
And so, after Tofutti with fake hot fudge and pots of green tea that taste like fish water, Gerwin, the coach, and Rosenblatt stand. “We bid you adieu,” Gerwin says, “for tonight.”
The coach slaps George on the back. “Proud of you,” he says. “You’re really working hard.”
They are so fucking encouraging that it’s nauseating. “Are all the patients treated like this?”
“Yes,” Gerwin says. “We’re about creating a safe environment — much difficulty comes from fear.”
“I’ll be over there”—Rosenblatt points to a table near the door—“if you need me.”
“Fuckin’ freak show,” George says when they’re all gone.
“And you’re the star,” I say.
“How’s my dog and kitty?”
“Fine,” I say. “It would have been nice to know about the invisible fence, but we figured it out.”
“Are you giving Tessie the vitamins and the anti-inflammatory?”
“Which ones are hers?”
“In the kitchen cabinet, the big jar.”
“I thought they were yours,” I say. “I’ve been taking them daily.”
“You’re a moron,” George declares.
I pull the accordion file out from under my ass. “There are some things I have to ask you. I’ll start with the small stuff: How does the outdoor light for the front yard work? Also, I met Hiram P. Moody, he came to the funeral — does he pay all the bills? Is there anything I need to know or keep an eye on, about the accounts or how Moody gets paid? What’s your PIN number? Also, I tried to use one credit card but it was password-protected; they asked for your mother’s maiden name, I typed in Greenberg, but it didn’t work.”
“Dandridge,” George says.
“Whose name is that?”
“It’s Martha Washington’s maiden name,” he says, like I should know.
“Funny enough, that had never occurred to me; I thought they meant your mother’s maiden name, not like the mother of America.”
“Sometimes I forget the actual family, but I never forget Martha,” George says. “I’m surprised you didn’t know, you call yourself a historian.”
“Speaking of history, I tried to enter your place of birth as New York, but again I was wrong.”
“I use Washington, D. C.,” George says. “It’s really a question of what I can keep in mind.”
“Exactly,” I say. “And before I forget,” I say, triggered because the word “mind” rhymes with the word “online,” “I met a friend of yours.”
“Oh,” he says, surprised.
“She says your dick tastes like cookie dough and says you know her better from the back than the front.”
The face George makes is priceless. “I’m not sure what this is all about,” he says, flustered. “You said you wanted to ask me about some things in the house, and now this bombshell. Are you sure you’re not working for the enemy?”
“How would I know? Who is the enemy, and do they identify themselves? And while we’re sailing down the slippery slope, does your lawyer visit you? Are they preparing any kind of a defense? Do you receive any calls or letters?”
“Nothing,” George says. “I have been forsaken, like Christ on the cross.”
I am amused by the grandiosity of George’s comparison of his situation to Christ on the cross. “Are you making friends here?”
“No,” he says, getting up from the table, “they’re all wack jobs.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to take a leak,” he says.
“Are you allowed to go by yourself?” I ask, genuinely concerned.
“I may be insane, but I’m not an infant, you asshole,” he says, and exits the dining room.
Rosenblatt, sitting up front writing in his charts, shoots me a look — all okay?
I give him the thumbs-up.
The dining room is empty except for one guy setting tables for tomorrow and another working the carpet sweeper.
When George comes back, it’s as though we start fresh. He smells like rubbing alcohol. “I Purelled,” he says. “I did my hands and face; it felt so good, I took my shirt off and did my pits too. I love the smell, very refreshing. Gerwin’s got me hooked on the stuff. All day long I see him washing himself — can’t help but wonder what’s going on there, what makes him feel so dirty.” George winks at me.
I ignore the wink and tell him about the trip to school for Field Day. “I stayed in a B& B for a hundred eighty a night — everything was sold out, the woman rented me her kid’s room. I had a Hello Kitty mobile spinning over my head all fucking night.”
“I have a room at the Sheraton; it’s booked and paid in full for the next five years.”
“How would I know?” I ask.
“You wouldn’t,” he says.
“So that’s why I’m here: there are things I need to know. Do you think the children should see you, should they come for a weekend?”
“I don’t think children are popular here,” he says. “I’ve never seen any.” George looks wistful, lost in time. “Do you remember the day — a long time ago, we might have been eight or nine — when I punched a random stranger, some guy who was walking down the street?”
I nod: who could forget?
“It was fantastic,” George says, clearly still getting pleasure, if that’s the word for it, from the incident. “I saw him double down and wonder what the hell, and I felt fantastic — high.” He shakes his head, as if clearing the memory and coming back into the present time. “We were lucky little shits who got what we needed.”
I shrug. “Speaking of oddities,” I say, “there’s a particular memory that keeps coming back to me.” I pause. “Did we screw Mrs. Johannson?”
“What do you mean, we?” George asks.
“I have a memory of the two of us screwing the neighbor lady: you giving it to her on the king-sized bed, me cheering you on, bursting with pride — go, go, go. Then, when you were done, she still wanted more, and I gave it to her.”
“I screwed her and maybe I told you about it,” George says. “I used to mow their lawn, and then sometimes she’d invite me in for lemonade, and then she started inviting me upstairs.”
Is that what happened, did George screw her, tell me about it, and I came up with a fantasy that put me right there in the room? My mental footage is so vivid, I can see George’s purple prick, sliding in and out of her, her dress hiked up, her dark mother-cave gaping open, like a raw wound.