May We Be Forgiven

that you want to foster …”
    “He survived the accident, and the kids want to help, and the aunt who was left in charge has been struggling, and …”
    “And what makes you think you’re qualified?”
    “Good question,” I say.
    He nods.
    “I care about the kid. I was a teacher for many years. I have the time and energy to focus on figuring out what he needs and how to get that for him. I feel very bad about what happened and would like to see him through.”
    “Would you send him to school?”
    “Every day.”
    “What if he needed to go to a special school?”
    “I’d find the best one and fight to have it covered by the state education system, which is legally obligated to educate every child regardless of disability; and, depending on the outcome, I’d see what I could do.”
    “Would you be doing this with an eye toward adoption?”
    “The children would like me to adopt him. I’m not sure that’s what his family wants. But, yes, I’m doing it with an eye towards the long term; this isn’t something I take lightly.”
    “And what is your work as a self-employed person?” He says “self-employed” slowly, like it’s a suspect notion.
    “I was a professor of Nixon studies for many years, and as a Nixon scholar I am working on a book about him and also working with the Nixon family on a special project.”
    “Interesting. What drew you to Nixon?”
    “Nixon is like someone from another time: old-fashioned to the point of being a bit backward, inescapably ugly whether he knew it or not, bitter, self-spiting, insecure and overly confident simultaneously.”
    The psychiatrist nods. “Not uncommon, to be both driven and conflicted.”
    “I find it fascinating—his sweat, his paranoia, his emotional lability. Even as President of the United States he didn’t fit in.”
    “Do you have a title for your book?”
    “While We Were Sleeping: The American Dream Turned Nightmare—Richard Nixon, Vietnam, and Watergate: The Psychogenic Melting Point.”
    “That’s a lot of title.”
    “I’ve been thinking a lot about the drug that is the American Dream as the American entitlement, which gave way to the American downfall. Without Kennedy’s assassination, we wouldn’t have had Johnson, who paved the way for Nixon. The seeds of Nixon’s ‘success’ were planted in a moment of failure—that hot, sweaty flop of a television debate and the lost election of 1960. Look at the Presidents all in a row and it makes sense: they are a psychological progression from one to another, all about the unspoken needs and desires and conflicts of the American people. I’m writing about Nixon as the container for all that was America at that moment in time and why we elected him and what we hoped he’d do. …” I’m digressing, and nearly aggressing, as I jump all over the place, hitting the highlights.
    “You seem quite passionate on the subject,” Tuttle says. “But what’s your dream, what do you want for yourself?”
    “Nothing,” I say.
    “Really?” Tuttle seems surprised.
    “Really, I can’t think of anything.”
    “Is it self-punishing to not want anything in a society that’s all about desire?” Tuttle asks.
    “Is it?” I ask.
    “You have no desire?” he suggests.
    “Limited,” I say.
    “Depression?”
    I shrug. “I don’t think so.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “Contentment? Satisfaction?” I suggest.
    “Is there such a thing?” Dr. Tuttle asks.
    “You tell me. Is contentment death? Does one need to want in order to live? Can one aspire to that which is not material?”
    “It would seem wise to aspire to objects more real and less fleeting than a feeling state which you can’t bank on,” Tuttle says. “You may feel good now, but say something happens and you don’t feel so good later. In your model there’s no backup: you can’t say, ‘Well, I feel like crap but at least I have a really nice car and a big television set.’”
    “Why not say, I may feel bad now but I felt good before and chances are I’ll feel good again?”
    “Oh, that would be asking a lot of most people, a very lot,” he says, pressing back in his chair, tapping his fingers rhythmically against each other. He glances at the clock, an early digital model with tiny number flaps that tumble forward as each minute passes. When it’s quiet, you can hear the dull click as the digit drops.
    “We’re running out of time for today,” he says. “Should we schedule another