Eyes Wide Open Part 3

"Two weeks ago"-Gabby took a breath to steady herself-"we found something . . ."

I took a sip of my coffee. "What?"

"This is so hard for me to tell you, Jay. It really is . . . I went through his things. Because I was scared. I was scared at some of the things he was saying to us. He called me a stupid, uneducated wh.o.r.e . . . a wetback sc.u.m. He called your brother a miserable kike who could never get a job. His own father . . . I wanted to see where he was learning this from. What was influencing his crazy mind? And we found something. An application . . ."

"For a job?"

Gabby laughed. "For a job? If only for a job! It was an application to buy a gun! A twenty-gauge shotgun. From a gun store in the next town. And for what? To kill someone, Jay. Maybe kill us. You see these stories on the news, about what people like our son can do. We said, this kid can't have a gun . . . He's mentally unstable. He's been diagnosed by the state. He has a record with the police. These people cannot sell him a gun . . ."

I screwed up my eyes in disbelief. "How?"

"He lied, Jay. He lied about everything on his application. That he wasn't sick; that he had no record. Maybe they would have caught it, or maybe not-but we went there. To stop them. We told the man at the shop, 'Are you out of your mind? You can't sell my son a weapon! Do you know what he might do with it?' We threw the application back in his face. We were scared . . ."

I said, "I don't blame you for being scared." I thought of my troubled nephew with a gun, with the image of Columbine or Virginia Tech vivid in my mind, with all the anger and sociopathic behavior he had shown. "You did the right thing, Gabby."

"I know we did the right thing. But then we found something else . . ." She looked at me, eyes downcast. "I can hardly even say it, Jay . . ."

"We found a kind of diary Evan was keeping," Charlie interjected. "These ramblings, crazy things . . ."

"I have to cross myself to even tell you these things," Gabriella said. "Things like, 'Better to suck the d.i.c.k of the devil than to live here with these two dead people one more day . . .' That's us, Jay. Our son was talking about us-your brother and me!" She dabbed at her eyes, shame and grief etched deeply there. "But we didn't know what to do . . . We knew he's acting truly crazy now. Off the charts. We can no longer control him. It's clear he hates us . . . That he wants to kill us. And then himself. And who knows, maybe take other people with him . . ."

"So what did you do?"

"We showed it to him." Gabriella looked at me as if seeking dispensation. "Everything. You know what he did? He takes me by the hair, and twists me, like he wants to kill me right there, and throws me against the wall. Look!" She opened the top of her robe and showed me purplish marks covering her shoulder and onto her neck. "He's too big for us to fight now. Look at your brother. He's weak, old. He is no longer able to protect me. We didn't know what to do . . ."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"What did we do? We called the police," Gabriella said.

Truth was, I had always pushed them to do exactly that. To put their son in custody when he a.s.saulted them. But they never would. They never once pressed charges. How could we? they would say. On our own son. And then the excuses would start. He's just a boy. He's ashamed of what he's done. He promises to stay on his medication. I guess I understood. Who wanted to make that kind of choice? But by not getting Evan help, by always protecting him and shielding him from treatment, I saw the events build that could lead nowhere but to catastrophe.

"When the police came"-Gabby rubbed her forehead, shaking her head-"Evan went out of control. He looked at me. 'You do this to me, Mommy? You called the cops-on your own son!' I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before. Like an animal. I told him, 'You're sick, my son. You need some help.' He grabbed me by the hair again and tried to beat the s.h.i.t out of me. Your brother, he tried to help. But Evan threw him against the wall. He almost broke a rib. The cops saw it all. They finally got Evan in a choke hold. They came and took him away. To the hospital, in San Luis Obispo. To the mental ward. That's when I called you, Jay."

"They placed him under a suicide watch," Charlie said. "They took away his belt. And laces. Put him under twenty-four-hour observation. I've been there before. I know the drill. Apparently he told the doctor who first examined him that he wanted to kill himself. That the gun he was trying to buy was intended not for us, but for him."

He shook his head. "We failed him, Jay. They said they were going to take care of him. Help him." A mixture of grief and anger hung in his eyes. "We thought maybe we finally did the right thing. That maybe this was the best way. The social worker there told us they were going to keep him safe. That they'd watch him, for as long as they possibly could. Three weeks, they said. Then they'd find somewhere for him. I said, 'Whatever you do, you can't put this kid back on the street. You see how angry he is? He'll blow people away . . .' "

"You know the name of the doctor?" I asked, something starting to tighten in me. They had trusted the authorities to take care of Evan, and they had let them down.

"Derosa. Mitch.e.l.l Derosa. But we never even spoke to him. No one would speak to us. Only the social worker there. His name was Brian something. We have it written down. And a nurse. They said for us not to worry, they were going to have several doctors observe him, and they would get him into some kind of facility."

Gabriella chortled cynically. "You know what we were thinking? We're thinking, Maybe this is a good thing after all. That's when I called you, Jay. You probably thought it was just for more money, but it was to tell you, maybe Evan is in a good place at last. We felt relieved."

I nodded.

"But then they call and tell us they're going to release him! This social worker. Brian. After around four days. He says Evan is stable now and they had found a place for him. Four days? They said three weeks! I'm telling you this kid was psycho, Jay. I said, 'Are you sure, so soon . . . ?' But they said, 'Your son is an adult, Ms. Erlich,' and that they couldn't hold him indefinitely against his will, now that he had calmed down and was no longer a threat to himself. What kind of a crazy thing is this? I said, 'You can't do that. Maybe he's an adult, but I am his mental guardian. You see the shape he was in.' But they say Evan agreed, and they're gonna put him in a good place."

"What kind of place?" I asked.

"They didn't tell us s.h.i.t!" Charlie snorted. "They wouldn't even talk to us. That's what happens when you're poor and on disability in this town."

"But now they're scared," Gabby said in a haughty tone. "Now they all see what happened. It was on the TV. On the news. They know they screwed up. They're all running to cover their own a.s.ses now."

Something brushed against my leg. I looked down. A gray and white cat was nuzzling against me.

"That's Juliet," Gabby said. "Poor baby-she misses Evan too." She reached down and lifted the cat up, took her to the back door, and put her gently outside. "Get back outside. You can't be bothering us now."

The cat slinked back to the yard and jumped onto the fence.

"So where did Evan finally end up?" I asked.

"You want to know where they put him?" Gabby replied, her tone hardening. "You want to know where they threw my son, like some sack of garbage? In this unsupervised home in Morro Bay. Completely unrestricted. With a bunch of f.u.c.king old people. Alzheimer's patients. Walking around like the living dead. Evan called me. He said, 'Why did they put me in here? Why did they put me with all these old people, Mommy?'

"The woman who's in charge there said he went to take a walk. She just let him go. Waved him out the door. They don't give a s.h.i.t. They get their money. Evan was just a voucher to her. A check from the state. That's all! They had him on so much medication. Seroquel. Two hundred milligrams. Two hundred milligrams is enough to drop an elephant, Jay. You know this stuff. You know what it does. It makes you act like a zombie. It takes away your will. She didn't care, as long as she got paid. My son went to take a walk and never came back. This woman, Anna, she called us late that night. Two days ago. Evan was missing. Where is he, she asks. She said she thought maybe he came home to us. But you know where he was, my son . . . ? You know where Evan was? He had climbed the f.u.c.king rock there, that's where he was. He was probably already dead."

Anger flared up inside me. This just didn't wash. Every patient had a medical history. Treatment charts. Diagnoses and evaluations. They don't just dump people at will. In a place where they won't be watched.

"She just let him leave?"

"Yes. Walk out. I told you, she don't give a s.h.i.t, Jay. That's the way it is here. But, believe me-she was scared when she called us. She knew she screwed up. And the next morning, my son, he turns up dead. He was up there on the rock, Jay. The whole stinking night. In the cold. Alone. Without anyone to watch over him." She started to sob again. "My boy was on the rock. I want to sue that b.i.t.c.h."

"You want to know what really hurts?" Charlie took her face and brought it against his shoulder. "We were watching the news that morning. Friday, I think. Or Sat.u.r.day . . . I don't keep track of time so well anymore. They said some kid had jumped off Morro Bay Rock. A John Doe. No ID on him. We go, 'Thank G.o.d that's not Evan. Thank G.o.d he is in a safe place.' And it's our own son, Jay! They were talking about Evan. We're listening to a report about our own son . . ."

He started to sob, loud choking tremors. Gabriella held his head in her arms. "We just failed you, Evan . . . We let you die."

It was horrible. I didn't know what to do or feel, other than my hands balling into tight fists. Rich or poor, it didn't matter. There was a complete breakdown. Not only of treatment, but also of responsibility. And Evan was the victim of it. I knew in my world, this could never happen. Not without some kind of response, accountability.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"At the coroner's," Charlie said. "They're doing their autopsy and tests. We can't even see him."

Gabriella wiped her eyes. "He called me, you know. The day before. I asked, 'Are you all right, Evan? You know I love you, don't you, my son?' And you know what he told me? He said, 'I'm gonna make the best of it, Mommy.' Make the best . . . Does that sound like some kid who wanted to kill himself the next day? They say it's a suicide, but it doesn't sound like that to me. You know what I think? I don't think my son would kill himself. It sounds like murder, Jay. By the state. They took my son and screwed his head up on drugs, then dropped him in a place that wasn't right for him. They murdered him."

As a doctor, I was always quick to a.s.sume that the system handled things correctly. Sure, mistakes were made, but generally it did things right. But as an uncle, I couldn't disagree.

It was like murder.

We sat around in silence for a while. Charlie and Gabriella just hugged each other, helpless and crying. Then Gabriella got up. She cleared the table, put the coffee mugs in the sink, and ran the water over them. Then she turned and faced me, her palms back against the counter. "At the end, it was very, very bad, Jay. You have no idea. Our son never left the house. He would just sit there, on that couch all day, never even talk, just smile at me. You know that little smile he had, like he had the whole world figured out. Like he knew the truth and no one else did."

"I know it." I wasn't sure whether to smile or shake my head in sorrow. I smiled.

"He said to me, just last week, before he did this . . . He said, 'I think maybe I'd like to be a cop. Or an FBI agent.' He said he was talking to the police and they wanted him." She cleared her throat derisively. "A cop? My son barely left the house. He didn't talk to anyone, Jay. No friends. No girls. Not even us. Only to the f.u.c.king furnace! He was dreaming. Like he always did, Jay-dreaming." She looked at me. "He might never have gotten better-I understand that. But he didn't deserve to die."

She came back to the table and sat down next to me. "We took care of our boy for twenty-one years. Then we give him to the state-for four lousy days . . . And he's dead! Maybe we don't deserve medals, Jay. But we d.a.m.n well deserve to know why, don't we? We deserve to know why my son had to die!"

I looked back at her, my gut tightening.

Years of the differences between us peeled away.

I said, "Yes you do. You d.a.m.n well do deserve that, Gabby."

Chapter Seven.

My life had been easy, to this point.

I mean, we've all faced hardships and disappointments. I was no genius, but I always did well in school. I could whip a mean underhanded crank shot that got me a ride to Cornell; I married the girl of my dreams. We raised kids who seemed to be equally achieving, who were polite and self-a.s.sured and didn't seem to mind being around us.

I'd worked my b.u.t.t off to get where I was: I'd put in the eighty-hour weeks and still remained on call twice a week. We had friends; we went on bike trips to Spain and Italy. For my fortieth birthday I got myself flying lessons and now had my own Cessna. Two years ago, when it came time for the hospital to name a new head for our department, the chief of staff didn't hesitate and turned to me.

Still, I felt like I'd barely broken a sweat in life. The world always seemed to open up just enough for me to slip through. But for Charlie, the world always seemed to close at every chance and shut him down.

I don't know if I was a good brother. I don't know if I ever lived up to that vow I made regarding Evan. I knew I'd always done just enough to keep them from sinking.

Enough, but no more.

Maybe it was too late to put myself on the line for Evan.

But I could d.a.m.n well start doing it for Charlie and Gabby now.

I checked myself into the Cliffside Suites, the nicest of the motels perched along a high bluff overlooking the Pacific. My room was at the end of a long outside corridor above the parking lot. Inside, it was clean and large and I stepped out through the sliding gla.s.s doors to the terrace with a panoramic view of the ocean and the steep cliffs below.

I threw myself on the bed and thought about Evan and his last visit to our house. How everyone thought he was so weird, no matter how much I tried to defend him: He was smart. The odds were stacked against him. He was my brother's son.

"He doesn't even know how to order food, Dad," Sophie had said. "He always seems a bit stoned out."

"He does spend a lot of time off in s.p.a.ce," Kathy said. "You have to admit he's a bit weird."

I told them, "He's on medication, guys. Cut the kid some slack."

"I'm sorry, but he gives me the creeps," said Maxie. "How much longer is he going to stay?"

I spent the next couple of hours watching a baseball game and picking at a burger from room service. Around four my phone rang. I was happy to see it was Kathy.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey . . ." I exhaled wearily.

"You sound exhausted. How are they doing? I called a little while ago, but neither really wanted to talk."

"Devastated. How else could they be? You're not going to believe how it happened, Kathy."

I told her everything I'd learned. How Evan had been looking to buy a gun. How he was taken in and put in isolation after trying to beat up Gabby, and then released after only a couple of days. To the care of a halfway house that let him walk out the door.

"That's just so awful, Jay."

"Someone has to get to the bottom of this for them. They're not capable. It's tearing them apart."

She hesitated just a bit. "Get to the bottom of what, Jay?"

We hadn't always seen eye to eye about things with my brother and Evan. Usually, it was how we were always coming to their rescue. First, for a nicer place for them to live. Then tutoring for Evan. Then when he smashed up the car. And finally bailing them out from under all that credit card debt. "When do they try, just a little?" Kathy would say. "Gabby can work. Our kids get summer jobs; why not Evan?"

But mostly, it was that incident with Max.

It was on Evan's last trip east. He and Maxie were playing a little one-on-one in the driveway. Something set them off. Things always seemed to cross the line with Evan.

I was in the den, flipping through some medical magazines. Suddenly I heard screams. Sophie's. From outside. "Get off, Evan. Get off! Mom! Dad!"

I bolted up.

Somehow Kathy, who was in the kitchen, got there ahead of me. She jumped on Evan's back, Evan's arm wrapped around Maxie's neck; Maxie was turning blue.

"Evan, let him go! Let him go!" Kathy screamed, but at six feet, close to two hundred pounds, Evan was too big for her. "You're going to kill him, Evan!"

"First he has to take it back . . ." Evan squeezed tighter. "Right, Max?"

Max couldn't take anything back. He was gagging.

Kathy screamed, unable to pry him away. "Jay!"

I got there a second later and ripped Evan off by the collar, hurling him across the lawn.

My nephew just sat there, eyes red, panting. "He called me a frigging freak!"

Max had had bronchial issues from the time he was three. He needed a respirator back then, twice a day. His face was blue and his neck was all red and twice its normal size. He was in a spasm, wheezing convulsively.

I knew immediately he had to get to the hospital. I threw him in the car and told Kathy to get in. I called ahead to the medical center. In eight minutes we were there. They immediately placed him on oxygen and epinephrine. His airway had closed. Acute respiratory distress. Five minutes more and he might have been dead.

When we got back home, Evan tried to say he was sorry.

But it didn't matter. Kathy never quite forgave him. She wanted him out of the house.

The next day I drove him to the airport and he was gone.

"I need to get to the bottom of why he was let back on the street, Kathy," I answered.

She didn't respond right away. "Look, I know I haven't always been the most supportive when it comes to this . . . You're right, they need you, Jay. Do what you can. Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Just promise me, this time, you won't let yourself get drawn in. You know how you always get when it comes to your brother."

Drawn in . . . Meaning it always ended up costing us something. I didn't want to debate it, and the truth was, she was probably right.