Breakdown

Chapter 5

During the time I’d spent in Lou’s office, San Fernando Valley dust had coated my old Seville. I headed east on Ventura Boulevard, hoping for a breeze to blow it away but got none. At an Italian place just past Sepulveda, I ate some pasta, drank some iced tea, and read Lou’s notes.

Like me, he kept his charting spare and there was little to learn beyond what he’d told me other than the bare details of Zelda Chase’s arrest. Charges dropped when the complainants, unnamed, agreed not to press, provided the offender received “counseling.”

From the justice system’s perspective, a happy ending. But “counseling” is meaningless, vulgarized by talk-show hucksters and encompassing everything from intense psychiatric treatment to the murmurings of nonlicensed “life coaches.”

What “counseling” meant in this case was the system was happy to shift responsibility for Zelda Chase’s disruptive behavior to Lou Sherman, M.D.

Lou had taken the job but he was smart enough and experienced enough to know a panacea was unlikely. Because psychosis, even clearly diagnosed, is a challenge to treat due to the fact that no one really understands what it is. Or why anti-psychotic drugs work, beyond a hazy notion of manipulating neurotransmitters — brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that keep the mental highway buzzing along smoothly.

Compounding the puzzle, many seriously disturbed people don’t fit into diagnostic cubbyholes as neatly as big pharma and their science-writer flunkies would have you believe.

If the brain’s Mount Everest, the plane hasn’t even landed in Nepal.

So good luck to Lou... meanwhile, there was a five-year-old child to meet.

I worked on my fusilli and downed a glass and a half of iced tea before phoning Karen Gallardo. No answer, no voicemail. Finishing my meal, I got back in the Seville, took Van Nuys to the merger with Beverly Glen, climbed up to Mulholland, and began the quick drop to my house in the foothills on the Glen’s western edge.

I was home by three, found the house sunlit and silent. Robin had left a note on my desk, plying her calligraphic artist’s hand on a scrap of my stationery.

“Darling, out with Julie for lunch, back by 2:30 or so. B’s with me.”

Julie was Juliette Charmley, a high school friend, attending a dental hygienist seminar near LAX, and B was Blanche, our little blond French bulldog. That meant an animal-friendly lunch spot, my guess a café on Old Topanga overlooking a sparkling creek. The last time Robin and I had been there, a mama coyote had been teaching two pups how to swim and the smaller sib had flashed us a death-stare.

Blanche is a mellow little thing, at first glance more monkey than wolf. But she’s still a dog and she’s grown territorial about critters in our garden and her presence could prove interesting if the coyotes showed up again.

If I was right, Robin had risked an eventful lunch. Interesting.

I cleared some mail, checked for messages, gave Karen Gallardo another try. Ten rings with no voicemail and I was about to click off when a young voice came on, breathless.

“Chase residence.”

“Ms. Gallardo?”

“Who’s this?”

I explained

She said, “Okay, yeah, they warned me you’d be calling.”

“Warned?”

“Sorry. I meant I was expecting you. Sir.”

“I promise I won’t bite,” I said.

“Pardon — oh, sure. So you’re going to want an appointment with Ovie? He’s in preschool until three-thirty, I’ll be picking him up soon, he can be pretty tired when he gets home.”

“How about tomorrow, say four p.m.?”

“Sure. But he could get more tired if it’s a long drive to your office. Where are you?”

“Let’s do it at four-thirty, to give Ovid a chance to unwind. And I’ll come to you.”

“You’ll analyze him here?” she said.

“That seems like the easiest way.”

“Um... okay, sure. What do I tell Ovie?”

“Today, don’t tell him anything. Tomorrow, after he gets home — does he usually have a snack?”

“Healthy snack,” said Karen Gallardo. “Organic crunch bar and grapes if he wants them, sometimes orange slices.”

“Give him his snack first, let him settle down, then tell him a doctor who doesn’t give shots and is a friend of his mother will be dropping by to talk to him. I’ll take it from there.”

“What if he gets upset?”

“Is he a high-strung boy?”

“No, not really.”

“If you’re relaxed, he should be fine.”

“All right...”

“How’s he doing without his mom?”

“Actually,” said Karen Gallardo, “he seems okay. Today he did say he was a little worried about her, but he didn’t cry or anything and I told him she’d be all better soon. Was that wrong? I mean saying that? This really isn’t my thing, I studied film, not psychology.”

“Sounds like you’re doing fine, Karen.”

“I hope... do I need to be here when you analyze him?”

“In the house, yes. In the room, no.”

“What room do you want to use?”

“How about we figure that out when I get there?”

“So I don’t need to set up anything.”

“Nothing, Karen. Just be there with Ovid.”

“Do you need directions?”

I’d already mapped it: Hollywood Hills, above Sunset, east of Laurel Canyon. “Got it, Karen. See you tomorrow at four-thirty.”

“He’s a nice boy — any idea when Zelda will be coming home? Ovie did ask about that.”

“Not sure yet, I’ll do my best to explain things to him.”

“Okay... will you be needing a room with a couch?”

“No, Karen.”

“And your name again, sir?”

I was in my office, thinking about what approach to take with Ovid Chase, when I heard the front door open and the voice I love proclaim, “We’re here!”

I walked to the living room where Robin, small and sleek and curvy in black jeans and charcoal T-shirt, waved and came over and kissed me. Blanche waited patiently, panting, front paws on my shins. Behind both of them, Julie Charmley, a tall freckled redhead, stood motionless and silent.

Every time I’d seen Julie, she’d been diffident, but this seemed beyond that. Distracted. Not wanting to be here.

“Good to see you, Julie.”

“Likewise. Guess I’d better be going.”

Robin walked her out and when she returned we went out to the garden and sat on the teak bench facing the koi pond. Within seconds, Blanche was enjoying the slumber of the just.

Robin said, “They’re getting divorced. Five kids and Bryce wants full custody.”

“What happened?”

“She cheated, he found out. Will that make a difference?”

Julie’s husband was a periodontist I’d always found icy and remote. Neither of them would win Parent of the Year but both seemed competent.

I said, “Depends on who’s judging. Long affair or one-night stand?”

“Two years long, another dentist in Bryce’s practice. Even if Bryce was the forgiving type, Julie doesn’t think she deserves forgiveness. I tried to buck her up but it just got her more upset so I kept my mouth shut.”

“Fun lunch,” I said. “Café Solar?”

“How’d you know?”

“Animal tolerance. Any coyotes show up?”

“I wish,” she said. “Anything to distract. That’s why I took Blanche, when Julie came in looking the way she did, I figured I needed someone who knows how to smile. What do psychologists call that?”

“Being smart.”

The following afternoon I pulled up to the house rented by Zelda Chase, a dirt-brown stucco box perched half a mile above the Chateau Marmont.

The hotel’s known to cater to celebrity excess. In return, it gets away with aesthetic touches like selected rooms carpeted in AstroTurf. Or maybe that’s just practicality: When the man/woman of the hour is reacting to last night’s partying, pull out a garden hose.

From the Marmont bar to Zelda’s front door was a brief stroll and I wondered if Zelda had taken advantage. The door in question was a plywood slab in need of refinishing. No lawn out front, just cracked cement. Address numerals hung askew. A VW Bug took up the narrow driveway.

Not the kind of digs that gets readers of People and Us fantasizing, but that’s the thing about Hollywood: It doesn’t really exist. Sure, A-list stars smart enough to bank their earnings can live like potentates until they die, but most of the pretty faces who “make it” enjoy careers as brief as a mayfly’s ecstasy.

The brown box was what Zelda Chase had achieved at her apex. What would happen to a seriously troubled woman when her agent stopped taking her calls?

How would her son fare?

Lou Sherman had said Ovid was five years old but the DOB in his chart put him a month from six. Would a birthday party with Mom be in the cards?

The child who answered my knock looked barely five, until you saw the clarity in his eyes. In one hand was a glass of milk.

He said, “You’re the doctor who doesn’t give shots.” Nasal voice, clear enunciation. Close your eyes and you’d guess seven or eight.

My mind camera-clicked details.

Small for his age, thin, short legs, low center of gravity. Long, dark hair draping most of his forehead and fringing skinny shoulders. Possible Latino cast to his features.

He wore a black T-shirt with the logo of a band I’d never heard of, olive-drab cargo pants, high-top Keds loosely laced. Owlish, black-framed eyeglasses were moored to his head by an orange elastic band. The eyes behind the lenses were darker than Zelda’s, almost black, wide with curiosity.

I said, “You’re Ovid.”

He laughed. “I’m Ovid.” Aping my words and my inflection with the same uncanny accuracy his mother had displayed. What else had he picked up from her?

“Alex Delaware.” I extended my hand. Fine-boned fingers grabbed it, squeezed once, let go. Five-year-old version of a corporate power shake.

He said, “No shots, really?”

“Really.”

“Cooool.” His posture was relaxed but he made no move to let me in.

“Anyway, Ovid—”

“I said what kind of doctor and she said psych — lotrist?”

“Psychologist.”

He mouthed the word but didn’t speak it. “She said she didn’t know what that means.”

“She being...”

“Karen. She works with my mom. Do you know my mom?”

“I just met her.”

“Where?”

“At her doctor’s office.”

“She was in the hospital. She’ll get better.”

I said, “Can I come in?”

He moved aside. “She’s having a sad time. Not from me. Her own sad.”

That’s the kind of thing kids are taught by sensitive adults. This kid sounded as if he meant it.

I was about to respond when shouting from the rear of the house raised my head.

“Omigod — Ovie, you can’t answer the door, I told you not to answer!”

“He’s the psy-kol-gist, Karen.”

The woman who skidded to a halt behind him was late twenties to early thirties, heavyset with a full pallid face that would’ve gotten her cast as an Irish scullery maid in one of those period PBS shows. The rest of her was twenty-first century: barely enough flat-black hair to pull back in a bristly pony, seven pierces in two ears, a tiny rhinestone above one nostril, the requisite tattoos.

“I was in the bathroom,” she gasped. “I told him just wait until I get out — Ovie!”

The boy shrugged.

I said, “Karen, Alex Delaware.”

Ovid said, “Doctor Alex Delaware.”

Karen Gallardo said, “I promise, sir. He’s never done this before — Ovid, when I’m in charge, I need you to listen to me.”

The boy chugged milk, got some on his chin, wiped it with a bare arm.

“Now you need a napkin.”

Ovid used his arm again. “I don’t. He’s here to talk to me.”

Karen Gallardo looked at me. I nodded and she left and Ovid said, “Over here.”

He led me past a tiny entry hall into a living room that elevated the house from dump to dump with a view. Of sorts.

In places like Tuscany and Santa Fe, where architectural restraint is linked to good judgment born of tradition, houses blend smoothly into hillsides. In L.A., it’s all about asserting your individuality. The panorama outside Zelda Chase’s floor-to-ceiling western window was a haze-capped jumble of swimming pools, drought-challenged gardens, and way too much structure on far too little soil.

Still, the eyeful probably trebled the rent, despite cheap brown carpeting, goosebump ceilings, and by-the-month furniture.

Neat and clean, though, with the sparse furnishings arranged as cleverly as possible and vacuum tracks striping the carpet. A bowl of apples and pears sat at the center of a small dining table, the fruit freshly washed, condensation bubbles freckling the skin.

The handiwork of a maid? Or perhaps Karen Gallardo had been ordered by the studio to make a good impression.

If so, Ovid Chase answering the door during her bathroom break had blown that, if I was inclined to condemnation. So far I wasn’t, just wanted to learn as much as I could about the boy.

He said, “I did this,” and settled on the floor behind an elaborate construction of multicolored translucent tiles. What looked to be a postmodern version of a medieval compound, with a multi-spired castle, smaller outbuildings, proportional doorways and windows, and a horizontal stretch of tiles extending from the front that was probably intended as a bridge over an unseen moat.

The project took up the bulk of the room’s central space. Child-oriented environment? If so, this child had made good use of it.

“Nice,” I said.

Without comment, he reached for a box of unused tiles, grabbed a handful, and began adding and subtracting, pausing only to regard his work.

I said, “This really is impressive, Ovid.”

“Magna-tiles,” he said. “It’s easy-peasy, you just stick them and unstick them.” Plucking off a pointed roof, he demonstrated, transforming a double-spired area to something that resembled a Gothic arch.

“Easy for you,” I said.

Another shrug as he fought not to smile, finally allowed himself the merest upturn of lips.

“You spend a lot of time building, Ovid?”

“It’s all I like,” he said. “Except for food.” Laughter, sudden and burp-like, as if inner heat needed to be released. Then he clipped it off and turned serious.

A restrained boy... As I watched him create, I took in more details: spotless clothing, clean nails. Even the loose laces of his high-tops had been knotted carefully. Identically.

Maybe Karen Gallardo had sorted him out carefully for the last couple of days, but my gut told me he was used to taking care of himself. Had an instinct for it.

He began humming as he worked, nothing hurried, everything thought out.

Mentally disorganized mom, buttoned-down kid?

I said, “What kind of food do you like?”

“Tacos, burritos, pho.”

“Mexican and Vietnamese, huh?”

He looked up. “Pardon?”

“Pho’s a soup from Vietnam.”

“I don’t know where it’s from. We get takeout. It’s my favorite.”

“Pho?”

“Takeout. It’s like... it’s here and you get to eat it.” A tongue tip materialized between the lips as he reached for more tiles.

“Barn,” he muttered. “For the animals.” Frowning. “Pretend there’s animals.”

I said, “What kind?”

He looked up, frowned. “What do you like?”

“I like dogs.”

“Uh-uh. Dogs don’t live in barns.”

“Good point,” I said. “How about horses?”

“Maybe a camel,” he said. “They spit and they’re mean.” Slowly spreading smile. “If they spit, they need to be kept in a barn.”

For the next half hour, I sat and he built. Terrific attention span, increasing need for order and detail. And complexity.

He removed all the unused tiles from the box and created three piles, organized by shape. When he’d used them up, he said, “Should I knock it down or just stop?”

“Up to you, Ovid.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Karen?”

“Mom. She lets me do what I want as long as I listen to her.”

“Listen about what?”

He began ticking small fingers. “Brush the teeth, use mouthwash, take a bath, go to school, and don’t make problems.”

“You like school?”

“It’s okay. Mostly I know everything.”

“Ready to move on to first grade.”

“I guess.”

“Not sure about first grade?”

“I could also know everything there.”

“You find school boring.”

“It’s okay — when’s Mom coming home?”

“I don’t know yet, Ovid.”

“You will?”

“I’ll make sure her doctor tells me as soon as she’s ready and I’ll tell you.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dr. Sherman.”

“Does he give shots?”

I said, “Not usually.”

“But sometimes?”

“Rarely. I don’t think your mom’s going to be getting shots.”

“Then what?”

“Pills, maybe.”

“To make her happy.”

“To make her feel better, in general.”

“She takes good care of me.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“When I met her I could tell she loves you and cares about you.”

Turning back toward his construction, he sliced at a roof, demolished a tower. Swiped again and razed the heart of the castle.

“Now,” he said, “I have to start again.”

On each of the five days Zelda Chase lived at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I spent time with her son.

On the fourth day, Ovid looked weary. It took an hour and a half of Magna-tile work for him to say that he missed his mother and was “really, really ready for her to come back.” I went outside and phoned Lou Sherman and told him that was okay with me if Zelda was capable.

He said, “Matter of fact, I was thinking tomorrow, possibly the next day, good results from Haldol. I still don’t have a firm diagnosis but a moderate dose smooths her out. Do you have time to discuss discharge planning — even tomorrow, for dinner, maybe nine, maybe the Valley if you can make it over? My wife’s out, one of her meetings, the studio’s still picking up the tab so I’ll find us somewhere expensive.”

“Sounds good, Lou. So I can tell Ovid she’s coming home in a day or two?”

“Unless something changes radically — yeah, sure, tell him, anything happens I’ll ease up the dose or find something else. No sense keeping her away from him if you think it’s okay, she’s clearly over the moon about the kid. How’s he coping?”

“Optimally,” I said. “Smart, well-put-together boy, good internal resources.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. What kind of resources?”

“Artistic, not a lot of anxiety, good attention span — I’ll fill you in if dinner costs enough.”

He laughed. “Resources. He’ll need them.”

—

The fifth day, I told Ovid the good news.

He said, “Okay,” and continued building.

Then he smiled and began working faster. A few minutes later, he stood and circled his newest masterpiece — something Frank Gehry might’ve designed in grad school.

Rolling toward me, he shook my hand. “Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“You were here when I did my best building.”

The arrangement was finalized over dinner at the Bistro Garden. I’d be available as needed and Lou would continue to treat Zelda, monitoring her anti-psychotic medication, eventually trying to ease in some psychotherapy.

“Maybe talking will add something; frankly, I’ve learned nothing about her, Alex. Not even her basic family structure — she won’t talk about it other than to say her mother went missing and is probably dead. Then she clams up or changes the subject. Is it relevant? Who knows? The main thing is she doesn’t go bonkers and blow everything.”

The plans for Ovid’s caretaking were clear, as well: Karen Gallardo, always frazzled when I saw her, would return to her production job and through an agency I recommended, Lou would arrange a babysitter with childcare experience to be at the house when Zelda was at work.

I suggested a night-shifter sleeping in, if there was money to pay for it.

“In case she goes trespassing again? Makes sense, I’ll make sure there’s money for it. Plenty of incentive, season three will start taping soon. You ever catch the show?”

“Not yet.”

“Smart, you’re better off listening to Bach or the Doors or whoever. And here’s your check.”

He handed me an envelope. “Take a look, make sure it’s okay.”

Twice what I’d expected. I said, “It’s more than okay, Lou.”

“Well, keep that to yourself, Dalai Lama, the studio thinks they’re getting a bargain. Besides, you earned it. We both did. And I’ll make sure to get in touch, like you said.”

What I’d said was I’d be available if the situation changed but that right now Ovid didn’t need treatment because he was bright, creative, and adaptable. His preschool teacher termed him “Sharp as a tack, kind of brilliant, really, especially with building stuff. He tends to play by himself but I see that in artistic kids.”

Most important, near the end of the fifth session, hours before his mother’s return, I’d asked him if he wanted me to come back and he’d shuffled tiles and tilted his body away from me and said, “You didn’t give me any shots and you let me do what I want.”

“That was the deal.”

“Now I believe you.” He looked down. “Please let me build. I’m okay.”

As gracious a dismissal as any I’d received.

I said, “It’s a deal, Ovid. But if you do ever need me, Ovid, I can be here.”

“Nah, I won’t,” he said. “Maybe you can come for Mom. If she needs you.”

“You think she might?”

Shrug. “She sometimes needs people.”

Starting work on a tower, higher than any he’d ever built, he said, “People are okay but I don’t need them.”

Lou never called me again. Not about Ovid or Zelda or any other patient and I wondered if something about the case had altered our relationship. Or maybe he simply hadn’t needed a child psychologist. Or had retired.

A few weeks later, still curious about Zelda’s condition, I googled her, learned SubUrban had been canceled early in its third season. The cast had been quoted, some of them lapsing into profanity.

Zelda’s comment: “It happened.”

I kept searching and found no sign she’d ever gotten another acting job, but no evidence she’d fallen apart.

Off the radar: a performer’s nightmare. How could someone as fragile as Zelda cope?

I imagined all sorts of worst-case scenarios, worked hard at sweeping them from my head. She was Lou’s patient, not mine, hopefully his treatment had evened her out.

In the best of worlds, he’d managed to do some psychotherapy and had built her up sufficiently to cope with disappointment.

If there had been a problem with Ovid, he’d have called. Put it to rest.

Shortly after that, the Charmleys went to family court and began tearing each other apart. Julie and Bryce each called me asking me to be their custody witness. I refused as tactfully as I could. The result was cold silence from both of them and Robin never heard from Julie again and that necessitated a bit of discussion in our house.

The joys of inhuman relations.

Two and a half years after evaluating Ovid Chase, I was skimming the med school faculty newsletter and saw Lou Sherman’s obituary. Seventy-three years old, long illness — which could explain the end of our professional relationship — a widow named Maureen, no kids, no funeral, donations to the cancer society in lieu of flowers.

I phoned his home number to offer condolences, hoping a woman I’d never met wouldn’t find that intrusive.

Out of service. I took that as an omen and tried to forget about Lou, though I did think about Ovid from time to time.

Smart, little buttoned-down boy, a self-made expert in constructing his own world. Maybe because his mother had been on the verge of falling apart.

Or that was psychobabble bullshit and the kid just liked playing with Magna-tiles.

Eventually, he slipped from my memory, five years of no news being good news.

Now all that had changed.