Eyes Wide Open

“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

C harlie 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.”

T wo 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.