Free Projection by Keith Ablow Page A

walked inside.
    The main hallway of the until was barren, save for an occasional art poster under Plexiglas bolted to the wall.  Nurses ferried medications here and there.  I saw just three patients in the Day Room, each with a staff member within arm's length.  "Low census?" I asked.
    "Actually we're full.  Nine men.  Nine women," Hollander said.  "Every patient here is on a fifty/ten program.  Fifty minutes in your room, ten minutes out, other than scheduled therapy sessions.  We rotate the schedules so a maximum of three patients are in common areas at any one time."
    "Very efficient," I said.
    "It's simple arithmetic," he said, winking at me.  "If you get no structure as a kid — and you know as well as I that there isn't a single person in here who's known anything but chaos and cruelty — the world ends up jamming all the structure you missed, plus interest, down your throat in a single dose.  Locked doors, room programs, jail cells."
    "I guess it's necessary."
    "Of course it's necessary.  These are dangerous people.  But it's also a tragedy.  That's what the criminal justice system doesn't understand.  You can't punish the evil out of anyone."
    I thought of Trevor Lucas, but said nothing.
    "You know what Gerry Spence said."
    "No."
    "The desire to be a judge should disqualify one from serving."
    Hollander escorted me to interview C, a room about ten by twelve feet, with faint pink walls, a small, natural wood coffee table and two upholstered armchairs facing one another.  Another chicken-wire window looked onto the ward's main corridor.  "I hope you get what you came for," he said.  He walked out.
    I sat down in one of the armchairs.  I tried to move it for a better view out the window, but it wouldn't budge.  I looked down and saw that the legs were bracketed to the floor.  I checked out the coffee table and fond the same thing.
    A few minutes later the random footsteps I heard in the hallway distilled into two sets headed my way.  I stood up.  My heart began to race.  The emotional momentum that had carried me back to Austin Grate evaporated.  What had I really hoped to get out of seeing her, after all?  What did it meant that I wanted to see her?  I thought of turning her away and hitting the road.
    The door opened.  Kathy stood there in jeans and a white T-shirt, Hollander by her side.  Her blonde hair, perfect build and green eyes were no different than when I'd left her with him six months before, no different than when we'd lived together in Marblehead.  On the face of it, we'd made a pretty picture:  a psychiatrist and an obstetrician in a Victorian by the beach.  No one would have guessed it the backdrop for murderous jealousy.
    Kathy had been sleeping with Trevor Lucas and me at the same time, brimming over with rage toward our other sexual partners.  There had been four.  Staring at her, I felt the same strange mixture of hatred, pity and grief I had felt the night I carried her into Hollander's house, knowing she had killed three of Lucas’ lovers (one of them male) and my only real love, Rachel.
    "Will you be seeing Ms. Matheson alone?" Hollander asked.
    Kathy glanced at him, then at me.
    I hesitated.  I could still call the whole thing off.  But I knew that would leave me in more turmoil, not less.
    "You'd like me to stay with you?" Hollander asked.
    "No," I blurted out.  I tried to collect myself, remembering how important it was that my interaction with Kathy appear professional.  "Let me know when our fifteen minutes have passed."
    Hollander led Kathy to the armchair opposite mine.  "Find me at the house when you're through," he told me, then left the room.
    My mind was frozen with anxiety.  I slowly took my seat.  Neither of us said a word.  A ticking sound filled the room.  I looked up and noticed a clock mounted behind an iron grid over the chicken-wire window.
    "Why are you here?" Kathy said finally, her voice emotionless.
    "I can't say exactly why."  I