May We Be Forgiven

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.

    G erwin 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 …”

    I am trying as best I can to guard my face, my ribs, and my balls. From wherever she’s been kept, Tessie is let loose; she runs down to where we are, barking heavily, trying to stop the mayhem, she’s barking at George’s face and therefore