Eyes Wide Open Read online

  Over the years, I’ve seen my share of indifference when it came to caregivers. Nurses just going through the motions, care facilities doing the minimum, bilking the insurance companies. But Anna Aquino wasn’t like that at all.

  “Ms. Erlich,” she said, “I know how you must feel, but look around . . . This is an open facility. We don’t keep people here against their will. We’re not set up for that sort of thing here. We can’t even force our patients to keep on their medications. It’s strictly voluntary.

  “That first day, your son was like a zombie here. He was totally snowed on so much Seroquel he could barely talk. He wouldn’t even eat. But by the afternoon of the next day, he seemed so much better. I know he called you—”

  “Yes,” Gabriella said, “he said he wanted to make the best of it here, but . . .”

  “That afternoon, he came up to me and told me he was going to go for a walk. I was actually excited to hear it. I thought he was coming back to life. He said he was just going to walk around the town. When he didn’t come back, of course, we were worried, and that’s when we called . . .”

  “I think what my brother and sister-in-law would like to know,” I asked plainly, “is just how a violent, bipolar kid on suicide watch just a couple of days before could simply be allowed to walk out the door.”

  Anna looked into my eyes and shook her head. “Because no one ever informed us of that, Dr. Erlich.”

  I squinted, not sure I’d heard her properly. “What?”

  “No one told us your nephew had been suicidal. Or about any of his behavioral history. I had no record on him at all, other than he was bipolar and had spent time at County and was placed on a high dosage of Seroquel. Believe me, if I thought he was a danger to anyone—or to himself—there’s no way I would have ever admitted him here. You can see for yourself we’re not equipped for that sort of thing.”

  “You’re telling me you received no patient history?”

  “No.” Anna shook her head. “Zero. They just drop them here. Like baggage. With a two-line diagnosis and a medication chart. When they saw I had an open bed, they brought him here. I’m a state-funded facility, Mr. and Mrs. Erlich, so I can’t simply refuse. This is my biggest frustration. They never give me any history. You see my patients here . . . We specialize in dementia and Alzheimer’s care. Believe me, if I knew your son was schizophrenic—not to mention suicidal!—I would never have let him stay here even for a night. Poor kid, I’m heartbroken over this . . .”

  My anger was increasing. No history. Not even a medical report from the hospital. They might as well have pushed him off that ledge themselves. What was the hospital hiding? “Do you mind if I see his charts?”

  “Not at all,” Anna Aquino said. “I have them right here.” She went around the back of her desk and came back with Evan’s file.

  A two-page transfer form from the Central Coast Medical Center read, “History of bipolar behavior.” It listed his medication, Seroquel, and the dosage, two hundred milligrams. A hundred milligrams was normally the prescribed dose. A drop-dead maniac would be turned into a zombie on that! The form said the patient had been released from care and was being transferred to the Harbor View Recuperation Center on a strictly voluntary basis.

  It was signed Brian Smith, Social Worker. And cosigned Mitchell Derosa, MD.

  My blood stiffened. I saw that Evan had signed it too.

  I had to restrain myself from crumpling it into a ball and hurling it against the wall.

  There was no history of his previous psychological behavior. Not a single word about the nature of his treatment in the hospital. Nothing on the violent actions he had manifested when the cops took him away. Or his attempt to purchase a firearm.

  Not even a mention of his urge to kill himself.

  They had basically just thrown him here! As soon as a bed opened up. Like Anna Aquino said—baggage.

  What had happened to the restrictive facility they had promised Charlie and Gabriella? Where their son would receive monitoring and attention? They were right—everything just fell between the cracks because no one felt they mattered.

  “Can I have a copy of this?” I asked, handing Anna back the forms.

  She shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know how we’re going to handle this . . . But would you go on the record on any of this? What you just told us. To the head of the hospital, or even to an attorney? It would be helpful if we could count on your support.”

  “I’ve been on record on this for years,” Anna Aquino replied. “Just look at the people who are here. They’re not threats to anyone . . . Look at our staff. We couldn’t even restrain someone like your son. It’s almost criminal . . .”

  Yes, it was. It was almost criminal!

  She turned to Gabriella and, almost with tears in her eyes, said, “I’m so sorry . . . I thought I was doing the right thing . . .”

  Charlie looked at me as if to be saying, Now you see, you see what it’s like to be poor. You see what it’s like to be in a place where no one cares . . .

  I checked my watch. It was four now. No one from the hospital had called me.

  But at this point, I was no longer giving a shit about procedures.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlie and Gabriella had mentioned a local television station where they had first seen the story of the Morro Bay jumper, then a John Doe, three days before.

  “You’ve got to be careful, Jay,” Charlie said, cautioning me. For twenty years they had lived under the radar, afraid that the state would cut them back. “You can’t just stir up trouble for us here. It’s not like with you. We live off the state. We can’t make waves.”

  “Sometimes you have to make waves!” Gabby said. “This about our son, Charlie. We need to do this.”

  I looked up the number for KSLN and asked for the news department. For the reporter who had handled the segment on the Morro Bay jumper. I gave my name, identifying myself as an uncle of the dead boy.

  It took a couple of minutes, but finally a woman came back on. “This is Katie Kershaw. I’m an assistant producer in the newsroom.”

  “Katie, hi. My name is Jay Erlich. I’m a doctor from back in New York, and I’m the uncle of Evan Erlich. Your station did a story on him.”

  “Yes, of course. That was terrible.” She knew who he was immediately. “We would have followed up, but it’s a policy here, for family reasons, we generally don’t report on suicides.”

  “I guess I can understand that,” I said. “But listen, Ms. Kershaw . . . I think your station is missing the real story behind what happened with Evan.”

  Two hours later a reporter named Rosalyn Rodriguez and a colleague with a handheld camera knocked on Charlie and Gabby’s door.

  Gabby seemed lifted. She had changed, washed her face, and applied a little makeup for the first time since I’d been there. Finally someone was going to take their side.

  Charlie seemed a bit edgy. “Are you sure this is the right thing?”

  “You always want to do nothing,” she said to him. “You’re always afraid the state will find us. They’ll discover your brother is helping us with the rent. Our disability will be cut. Yes, I want to do this. It’s for our son, Charlie!”

  When the reporter arrived, we all sat in the small living room. Her questions closely followed the narrative I had given their producer on the phone.

  How did you first find out what happened to your son? What do you feel about what happened? Do you think the doctors at the hospital bore any responsibility? Do you think your son belonged in a more restrictive facility?

  “That’s what they promised us.” Gabby nodded. “Yes.”

  Charlie just sat there, not saying much.

  Gabby started with Evan’s being released from the county psychiatric ward after just three days. Three days after having attempted to acquire a gun. How they were being stonewalled from getting even the simplest answers to their queries. How the Harbor
View facility didn’t even have a clue what kind of patient they were dealing with.

  I jumped in and said, “The police . . . they just seem to have washed their hands of all this. They want to get rid of the case as quickly as they can. Maybe it’s because my brother and sister-in-law aren’t important here. They live on welfare. To be frank, they’re concerned that because they draw their income from the state, everyone’s just stonewalling them in the hope it will all just go away. They’re convinced they have no right to look into their son’s death.”

  The reporter glanced at her cameraman, basically asking, You getting this?

  “Look, I’m a doctor, for God’s sake,” I said. “Wouldn’t you want to know how a twenty-one-year-old kid goes from twenty-four-hour suicide watch in a locked cell to an unprotected halfway facility in just a matter of days—and then ends up at the bottom of a six-hundred-foot cliff?”

  At this point, I no longer cared whose feet I was stepping on.

  “All they’re getting from everyone is just, We’re so sorry. That’s tragic. Well, sorry simply isn’t enough. They want someone to take responsibility. They want some answers. You’d want that if it was your family, wouldn’t you, Ms. Rodriguez?”

  “Yes, I would want that.” The reporter nodded, the cameraman shifting to get her reaction. I could see it was affecting her too.

  She asked us for names. And we gave them to her.

  The doctor, Derosa, who was clearly ducking my calls. And Anna Aquino, who ran the care facility Evan had been dumped in.

  And Detective Sherwood.

  She promised she would contact the hospital and speak with officials there.

  “God bless you.” Gabby wrapped her arms around her and thanked her. “For whatever you can do.”

  “I want them to know they can’t just shit on us,” Gabby said after they left, coming up and giving me a grateful hug. “We may be poor, but our son deserves some answers too.”

  Charlie sat there, distracted, unconvinced. He picked up his guitar and strummed a few chords. “You’re going to go home, Jay, but we’re still here. These people own us. Maybe we just should have let it lie.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  That night, Gabby asked me over for dinner.

  I came up with maybe a dozen reasons why she shouldn’t go to the trouble, but she insisted.

  “You are here, Jay, and I’m allowed to invite you to our house. Maybe it’ll take my mind off everything.”

  Sherwood had called earlier, saying we could come and look at Evan’s body tomorrow, which didn’t exactly elevate the mood.

  In spite of it all, she threw together a pretty good meal.

  A paella of chicken, sausage, and shrimp on a bed of yellow rice. I bought a local sauvignon blanc from a store called Scolari’s Market.

  “What the hell,” Gabriella chortled, pouring a glass for herself as well. “I think tonight God will forgive me if I drink a little too.”

  We ate and polished off the wine, and despite all that was going on, the mood managed to stay upbeat and light. We talked about Kathy and my kids. How adult they had become. I always tried not to build them up too much. Sophie and Max, who took AP courses, played on the lacrosse and field hockey teams, volunteered at food banks, went to the Bahamas on spring break. Even in their most ordinary moments, they had more to show than Evan had accomplished in his life.

  Sooner or later, as it always did, the conversation came around to our dad.

  Leonard the Good and Lenny the Louse, as he always referred to himself.

  You never quite knew which one you would get.

  No one could charm a room like my father. No one could be warmer or more captivating.

  And no one could cast you out as quickly when he suddenly felt betrayed.

  He always surrounded himself with a constantly shifting circle of wealthy, influential people: models, Wall Streeters, retail executives, movie producers, not to mention his inner circle of rakes and hangers-on, who eventually sucked him dry.

  Dad’s charisma was boundless, but his temper was even larger. And it always seemed to rear up after a couple of scotches. He would elevate brand-new acquaintances as his closest friends in the world—true geniuses, movers and shakers, even those who it was clear only wanted something from him.

  The same people down the line who when the tide eventually turned—and it always did—were banished from his sight.

  His biggest customers—not just lowly buyers but upper management, even store presidents—loudly thrown out of his showroom and told to never come back. His panicked salesmen scurrying after them, feverishly apologizing. They even came up with a brand that poked fun at his legendary outbursts: Lenny Didn’t Mean It, it was called.

  He would introduce me to his pals as the “Remarkable Dr. Jay,” even as a kid. And I had to admit it always made me feel like the most important person in the world. Growing up, he would take me out for dinners with his drop-dead girlfriends at Gino’s or to sit at the bar with his Irish bookies at PJ Clarke’s.

  Then he wouldn’t call for weeks, completely forget important events. Disappoint me terribly.

  I never understood what was behind my father’s rage. The truth was, if he were diagnosed today, maybe we would know. He ran away from Brooklyn in the forties and headed out to Hollywood, where he took up with starlets and ingenues and managed to become the right-hand man of Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM. His homes were always filled with bikinied beauties in the pool and glamorous people dropping by. Opera blasted over the beach on the stereo.

  He made millions over the years—and gave back every penny.

  At the end, his business partners grew shadier and shadier, as the glamour crowd wanted nothing to do with him. The Wall Street honchos became shiftier and the retail bigwigs turned into low-priced discounters.

  There was the suspicious fire in his warehouse in Brooklyn. The SEC was on his back over cash that had disappeared from the firm, as well as the IRS over back taxes.

  He became sort of a sad figure, driving around in his ten-year-old Mercedes, scrounging around the city’s flea markets, arriving unexpectedly at the house with some bizarre new “find”: paintings no one wanted or retro board games for the kids missing the key pieces. “Lenny Presents!” they grew to call him.

  We managed to become close in those years.

  Ten years ago, he downed his usual two Rob Roys at a local watering hole in the Hamptons, where he still had a small house near the beach. The bartender remembered him going on about some new idea. A couple of women were at the bar, but they didn’t want to be bothered by him. He threw a twenty on the table and waved good-bye.

  The next morning they found his car at the bottom of Shinnecock Bay.

  After dinner, we sat around the living room, Charlie strumming on the guitar. “Evan was getting pretty good himself,” he said with pride. “Even better than me!” He picked through versions of “Get Back” by the Beatles, the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “White Room” by Cream, Rod Stewart’s “Maggie Mae.”

  “Jay . . .” His eyes lit up. “You remember this?” He sang, “Just when you say your last good-bye / Just when you calm my worried fears . . .”

  I did recognize it. It was the song he had recorded back in L.A. More than thirty years ago. “One Last Thing.”

  “Just when the dawn is breaking / There’s always one last thing . . .”

  He always played the same two verses. Only them. To this day, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard the whole thing through.

  Charlie cooed, happily. “Ooooh, girl, it’s always one last thing . . .”

  He put down his guitar. “You know it got to number twenty-nine on the charts,” he said with his ground-down grin. “In 1973. Of course I was crazy as a loon back then. Not to mention I was popping LSD like vitamins. I got to thinking my record company was trying to screw me. Hell, I thought everybody was trying to screw me then . . .” He cackled, a glimmer in his eye.

  “Hey, check this out, J
ay!” He went over to the chest against the wall and came back with a bulging photo album. It was stuffed with artifacts from his past: pictures of him, of him and Dad in happier days at his beach house. Charlie growing up in Miami in the sixties, before his crazy hair and wild eyes.

  He laughed, “I was so deluded on acid I told them I would burn down their fucking building if they didn’t send me out on tour. And you know what they did? They pulled the record! Right off the airwaves.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that! And you know what? I could hardly blame them. Who would put a nut job like me out on the road?

  “But you know what, Jay? Maybe if I hadn’t been off my rocker back then, you might be sitting here with Rod Stewart. You wear it well . . . In a mansion in Brentwood, not this shit hole here, right? Look . . .”

  He opened the album and pushed it over to me, a soft smile lighting his eyes.

  It was a clipping from an old Billboard magazine. Yellowed, dog-eared, protected in a plastic liner. Top Singles for the week.

  I noticed the date: October 1973.

  At number one was “Angie” by the Rolling Stones. Midway down, I saw a red, drawn-in arrow marking number twenty-nine:

  “One Last Thing.” Charlie Earl.

  “Hey!” I grinned. I’d never seen this before. I never even knew if I truly believed him, all the times he talked about it.

  Charlie winked. “Not bad from your loony older brother, huh?” Then his grin seemed to wane. “Hell, who’s kidding who, right? Biggest moment of my life, and I fucked up the whole damn thing. Guess that’s where all our similarities end, right, Jay?”

  He picked up his guitar again.

  “Charlie, what do you want me to do?” I asked him. I came over and sat across from him. “About Evan. You want me to find you a lawyer? You want to try and make a case against the hospital? You know I’m going to have to go back in a couple of days.”