Eyes Wide Open Read Free Page B

seemed on the right track; then it all changed. Scrapes at school became brushes with the law. He started taking drugs—speed, ecstasy, OxyContin. He and my brother began to clash—just as Charlie and our father used to clash—furniture tossed, punches thrown, the police called. Evan’s behavior grew increasingly erratic and withdrawn. He started hearing voices. He was placed on a daily diet of the same pills his father took—lithium, Klonopin, Thorazine—but he always seemed to be more off them than on. Finally he dropped out of school, got himself fired from a series of menial jobs. I tried my best to get him private counseling, to lure him away from their house. Once, I even begged him to come live with us and go to a junior college back east. But Charlie and Gabby never seemed prepared to let him go.
    Only months ago, they’d told us that Evan had turned around. They’d said he was back on his meds, being helpful around the house. Even thinking of going back to college. Then only last week they’d left a message: He’d been taken away. He was in a state hospital. They were talking about finding him some kind of a halfway facility where they could place him under supervision. Force him to stay on his meds. We thought this was good. For the first time in years, we thought maybe there was a reason to hope.
    Now this . . .
    “Your brother needs you, Jay,” Gabriella said. She choked back a sob. “I’m afraid for what he might do. You know we don’t have anywhere else to turn.”
    They had no money. No jobs to focus on. No friends to help soften the pain. All they ever had was this kid. And now he was gone.
    I gave her over to Kathy, who tried to comfort her, but what was there to say? In a couple of minutes she put down the phone.
    “I have to go out there,” I said.
    She nodded.
    I scrolled through my commitments for the following week—mostly things I could pass off on my partners, other than a procedure I had to perform on Friday on the teenage daughter of a friend.
    “I’ll go Monday. I’ll only stay a couple of days.”
    Kathy shook her head. “You can’t wait until Monday, Jay. These people need you. You’re all they have.” She took my hand in hers. “You have to go tomorrow, Jay.”
    My gaze drifted to the meal spread out on the blanket, now cold. The glasses of champagne. Our little celebration. It all seemed pointless now.
    I realized I hadn’t seen my brother in more than five years.
    “I’ll go with you, you know,” Kathy said, moving next to me. “I will.”
    “Thanks.” I smiled and drew her next to me. “But this is something I ought to do alone.”
    “You’re a good brother, Jay.”
    She handed me my glass. Then she took hers and we touched them lightly together. “Here’s to Evan,” Kathy said.
    “To Evan.”
    We took a sip and sat, knees up, watching the waves against the shore. Then she leaned over and re-pressed the play button on the iPod.
    “Like the man says . . .” She put down her drink. “We’ve still got tonight.”

Chapter Four
    T he three-hour drive up the California coast on 101 to Charlie’s the following day gave my mind time to wander to some old things.
    It went to my brother as a long-haired eighteen-year-old who had just dropped out of college, his conversation rocketing back and forth between complex string theory, Timothy Leary, and how the Beatles’ Abbey Road was the new gospel, in what I knew now, but not back then, was one of his uncontrolled, manic rants.
    It went to how he had once visited me at Cornell—after he was released from the psychiatric home in Hartford—and how we took a weekend trip to Montreal. I recalled how we had trolled for girls along Sherbrooke Street, near McGill, and how Charlie had ended up screwing our waitress back in the hotel room after he’d convinced her he had taught Eric Clapton all he knew, and air-played her the opening riff from Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” while I pounded the pillow over