DONE GONE WRONG

by Cathy Pickens

  Jake let silence soak in a moment before changing tack. “Dr. Gretel, can you explain to us how Uplift works, or how you as a clinician would use it?”

  “I wouldn’t use it, except in extreme cases. Uplift is the epitome of the type of drag I find most troublesome. It’s designed to take the edge off life, to address anxiety and depression, but it’s marketed to the worst instincts within us all.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well,” Gretel sounded exasperated. “The message is ‘Pop a pill and you’re better.’ It doesn’t encourage—or even allow—you to explore the reasons why you’re depressed, so you have some hope of correcting those problems. It’s perceived as a ‘get happy’ pill, protecting patients from reality.”

  “How does it—can you explain how it works? In simple terms. I know you’ve tried to explain it to me, but I’m not sure I really get it.”

  Gretel chuckled and leaned back in his chair, the professor chatting with an erstwhile student.

  “Frankly, it’s a concept that even scientists, neurobiol-ogists, can’t claim to fully understand. Researchers have identified chemicals in the brain that affect mood. Serotonin was a major breakthrough, though there were others. The chemical messengers carry neurotransmissions, or messages, between the neurons in our brains. For some reason, in patients who are depressed, it seems the tissues reabsorb or take up these chemical messengers, rather than let them continue to circulate, carrying messages. That’s the best way I know to describe it.”

  “So these drags add more of the messengers back into the brain, kind of like pouring gasoline in a car tank, so the car can run?” Jake drawled out his questions, strolling around in front of the witness stand.

  “No, not exactly. These antidepressants don’t add more chemical messengers to the brain. Instead, they keep the brain from reabsorbing what’s already there. That’s why they’re called reuptake inhibitors.”

  “Reuptake inhibitors. That’s a mouthful.”

  Gretel smiled.

  “So when the doctor prescribed Uplift to Ray Vincent Wilma, he thought it would keep enough stuff sloshing around in his head to keep him from getting depressed?”

  “Ye-es. More or less, that’s the idea.”

  “Was Ray Vincent Wilma depressed, from what you see in his record?”

  “Yes. There’s every indication that he was. He had trouble sleeping, he didn’t eat regularly, he had trouble maintaining relationships.”

  “But lots of people are depressed. They don’t go around shooting people. What happened here?”

  “In my opinion, Mr. Wilma was one of the unfortunate patients susceptible to Uplift’s most dangerous side effect. He became agitated. He felt more and more hopeless, more and more trapped by his situation. The agitation caused by the drag fed on itself and on his weakness. Simply put, he snapped.”

  “And shot ten people before he killed himself.”

  “Yes. He primarily wanted to kill himself, but he didn’t want it all to be a waste—”

  “I object.” Vendue finally got to his feet, having let the questioning wander too far down a speculative path. “Your Honor, Dr. Gretel did not treat this patient. He can’t know what was in his head. This is purest speculation.”

  “Sustained. Though that horse was pretty much out of the bam, counselor.”

  Jake changed directions quickly. “Doctor, are you familiar with the Journal of Psychotropy?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Is that considered a reputable, reliable medical journal, one to which folks in your field turn for information?”

  “Yes. It’s one of the premier journals.”

  “Are you familiar with an article entitled ‘A Report on Clinical Use of Reuptake Inhibitors in a Small Population-?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Now, reuptake inhibitors, that’s Uplift and drags like it”

  “Yes.”

  “Small population here means the physician studied a few people, not that he studied some short, skinny people.”

  Gretel chuckled, though no one on the jury did. They were intent on the testimony.

  “So this writer—he’s a doctor—studied Uplift in a few of his patients, and he found what?”

  “In reviewing the literature and in his own practice, the author found a small percentage of patients on Uplift became agitated, severely agitated within one to four weeks of beginning the drag. Added to their underlying depression, this agitation increased their risk of suicide.”

  “So he found that some patients are more likely to commit suicide if they start taking Uplift?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means they’re likely to kill themselves, not that they’re likely to kill other people, doesn’t it?”

  Jake had a real talent for making his questions sound like a conversation, one in which he himself needed to be convinced.

  “Few suicidal patients kill others. Most often, the harm is directed at themselves alone. But in some, those with underlying, unaddressed rage issues, with a feeling of being cheated or wronged by life or by others, they may choose to take someone else with them when they go.”

  Jake started to pose his next question, but Gretel continued. “Frankly, this is why I’m so opposed to the use of psychotropic drags. You can’t pop a pill and solve complex issues that have taken a lifetime to develop. It doesn’t work, and we end up with a tragedy like this. Uplift is dangerous because it lets people become dangerous.”

  Gretel obviously believed what he said, and that was scoring points with the jury. Jake decided to cut to the finish.

  “Dr. Gretel, in your professional opinion, given Ray Vincent Wilma’s history and the circumstances surrounding the tragedy at Bradt Industries, what was the most likely cause of Mr. Wilma’s actions?”

  “The drag Uplift. Mr. Wilma had been depressed, had had problems at work, with his coworkers, and with his family. Ongoing problems. He had developed coping mechanisms. But, within a few weeks of filling his prescription for Uplift, he goes on a shooting spree. Quite simply, Uplift pushed him over the edge.”

  “Thank you, doctor. Please answer any questions Mr. Vendue has for you.”

  No one, especially Jake, could say “Vendue” without drawling it out. Everything about Arthur Vendue himself was a cultured, slow drawl. Arthur Vendue had a Charleston pedigree at least as long as Jake’s. But, where Jake came across as a thick-bodied, combative copperhead, Vendue reminded me more of a salt marsh egret. Vendue moved toward Ivan Gretel with deliberate grace. I wondered if egrets eat snakes.

  22

  MONDAY AFTERNOON

  “Dr. Gretel.” The way Arthur Vendue said it, the name flowed as thick and warm as molasses out of a cook pot. “We appreciate you bein’ here today, down from New York. I hope you’ve had a nice visit.”

  Gretel just smiled and shifted in his seat, ready to face cross-examination.

  “Dr. Gretel, you’ve said you’re not a big fan of psychiatric drags.”

  “No, and for the reasons I stated earlier.”

  “You’ve gone on record, in your writings and especially in your book—I believe it’s called Stop Doping Your Kids—?”

  “Yes.”

  “—that you don’t think people’s mental problems can be alleviated with drags.”

  Gretel waited, making sure Vendue meant for him to reply. “Boiled down to its essence, that is correct.”

  Ivan Gretel and Arthur Vendue had met before, in a deposition, so they’d had an opportunity to take measure of one another. But in a courtroom, with multiple sets of eyes and ears fixed expectantly on every word, the stakes are raised; any surprise or miscalculation is magnified. They circled one another cautiously.

  “Then it’s fair to say you don’t support the idea that we humans are merely a mass of chemical reactions?”

  “No, I don’t believe that. I believe we’re much more complex.”

  “More fearfully and wonderfully made.”

  Judging from Gretel’s
confused blink, Vendue’s reference to the Book of Psalms was lost on him, but one of the jurors, a middle-aged woman on the front row, gave a nod of recognition.

  “You’ve moved around a good bit in your jobs, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Better opportunities come along, you know.”

  “You are a rather prolific writer, aren’t you?”

  Whether the cue came from something in Vendue’s deliberate drawl or from some imperceptible response by Gretel, I couldn’t say, but Vendue had stopped circling. He was closing in.

  “Yes, I suppose I am. One of the curses of an academic career: publish or perish.”

  “You’ve written many, many articles, in medical journals as well as in magazines and newspapers the rest of us might read, urging people to avoid drags like Uplift, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So this has consumed most of your interest and energy for several years now, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Gretel knew the value of just answering the question, no more. He had pulled the microphone near his mouth so he wouldn’t have to bob back and forth to give his short answers.

  “And the summation of all your articles and books on the subject is really that people shouldn’t numb themselves, shouldn’t try to avoid psychological pain. Have I paraphrased that accurately?”

  “Yes. They should work through their issues, with drags as a last resort.”

  “I believe you said earlier today that people should open themselves to exploring the full range of their emotions. Is that accurate?”

  “Yes.”

  “I made a note here. I believe you said, ‘Drugging children rather than letting them explore the full range of their energies and ideas is a travesty.’ Does that sound correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Arthur Vendue wasn’t a man who wasted time or wandered aimlessly, unprepared. He was carefully laying a path, dropping stone by stone into place. Ivan Gretel knew enough to be wary, but so far he could only agree, stepping on each stone in turn, following Arthur Vendue’s line of reasoning like a trail of bread crumbs.

  “That’s been a constant, long-held belief of yours?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “But, like anything we know or believe, our ideas have to grow and develop. In our professional lives especially, we test our ideas, learn. We don’t leap full-blown into the world, knowing everything we know today.”

  “Certainly. But this idea, that we should fully explore our energies and ideas, our emotions, that’s been a common theme in your writing, hasn’t it? Certainly for the last twenty years, since you finished your Ph.D.”

  “Mm-hm. Yes, I would say so.”

  Vendue had been asking questions without notes in hand, but now he strolled to the defense table and picked up a small stapled sheaf of papers.

  “You expressed that view in an article you wrote for the Psychiatric Explorations Journal twenty years ago, didn’t you?”

  Gretel shifted in his seat, looking almost like he was rocking onto the balls of his feet, ready to parry an attack. Vendue didn’t let him speak.

  “In this article,” he held a photocopy aloft, “you argued that children—particularly boys—should be allowed to give free rein to their emotions and feelings. Didn’t you state that boys—young boys—should be allowed to ‘explore their sexual feelings with older boys and young men’? Didn’t you write that was healthy?” Vendue’s voice grew louder with each phrase.

  Gretel had taken hold of the microphone, ready to reply. He didn’t appear surprised by the question. Unfortunately, Jake was surprised. He was doing a good job of hiding it from the jury, his face frozen, looking only mildly interested in what was happening on the stand. But the way his jaw muscles worked told another story.

  “We all have ideas we—explore. The purpose of academic writing is to propose and test ideas. That’s not something I still advocate.”

  “So you’re saying that, today, you’re not telling young boys they need to have sex with each other?”

  “No—”

  “You are familiar with an international organization that, today, actively advocates that boys should have sex with men, to ‘explore’ their sexuality, as part of maturing sexually?”

  “Yes—”

  “You in fact have written articles for their Web site. Recent articles.”

  “Not so recent, no—”

  “One reason this group is based outside the United States is that the activities they promote are illegal in this country. Isn’t that true?”

  Gretel could only shrug.

  “So your advocacy of ‘exploring the full range of energies and ideas’ extends far beyond whether we should use drags for psychiatric problems, doesn’t it? It extends all the way to child molestation, doesn’t it?”

  Vendue had lost his gentleman-planter air and had become a street-comer preacher. Jake’s jaw muscles bunched so hard, I expected to hear a tooth crack.

  “Certainly not.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.” Arthur Vendue took one last disgusted look at Ivan Gretel and turned on his heel.

  The judge, implacable, asked Jake, “Any questions on redirect?”

  “Your Honor...” Jake rose slowly to a weary half-crouch.

  “Counselor, the hour is late. With your permission? I’d like to adjourn until tomorrow.”

  Jake sank back into his chair. I’m sure he would’ve preferred not to send the jurors home with the words “child molestation” ringing in their ears, but he apparently didn’t have a handy way to redeem Gretel’s credibility. Jake hadn’t had time to read everything Gretel had ever written, and Gretel hadn’t had the good sense to warn him. Unfortunately, the only thing the jury would remember about Gretel—Jake’s star witness—was “pervert.” Jake might as well wait until tomorrow, when some of the shock had worn off both him and the jurors.

  23

  TUESDAY MORNING

  The next morning before the jury was called in, Jake informed the judge he had no redirect for Ivan Gretel. The judge informed Dr. Gretel he was excused, a routine pronouncement meaning his services were no longer required and he was free to leave if he wished. Jake didn’t want the jurors even laying eyes on Gretel again.

  After court had adjourned the day before, Jake hadn’t wanted to hang around rehashing the day’s events. He’d sullenly stuffed a few papers in his briefcase, mumbled a few words in my direction, and left the courtroom, leaving Lila to pack up. I didn’t know what he’d done after a tall tumbler of bourbon, though he’d likely called Ivan Gretel at his hotel room and told him not to get within rifle range of him or he’d put a hole in him. That’s what I would’ve wanted to do.

  This morning, Jake swung back into the courtroom, swapping jokes with the bailiff and clerk and generally looking like his old self. Water under the bridge. A new day.

  “The plaintiff calls Dr. Lee Standers.”

  Lee Standers wore a brown sports jacket, his hair standing at attention in close-shorn bristles, his brogans ran over at the heel. Standers had spent years peering into a microscope—at least twenty of those working on the compound that became Uplift. He looked the quintessential lab scientist, out of place in anything but a white lab coat and unused to dealing with organisms that didn’t reside on glass slides or fit into mice cages. Standers’s single-minded pursuit of a cure for depression had won him numerous awards and accolades.

  Calling employees of the company you are suing is an unusual tactic, one I’d never seen used before. But this was an unusual case, and Jake figured this was the best way to introduce some important evidence.

  Jake walked Standers through a recitation of his credentials. Impressive—and lengthy, which meant the jury probably didn’t follow much of it.

  After the jury had a chance to learn just who Standers was, Jake asked, “Doctor, what prompted your work on chemical factors in the brain? Why are you interest
ed in this area?”

  “Well, um, it’s a puzzle. I thought we could solve it.”

  “Why this particular puzzle? Why were you interested in studying the causes of depression?”

  “Depression is a devastating disease.”

  Jake waited him out, trying to keep a pleasant expression so the jury wouldn’t suspect he wanted to choke more informative answers out of Standers. “And ...?”

  “My mother had—was depressed. For much of her life.”

  So much for communicating a personal, passionate interest in the drag you developed.

  Jake led the scientist, sometimes with painful exactness, through the development and approval of Uplift. At times, Standers’s commitment to his subject peeked through. But he remained linear and ascetic, not one of the most compelling witnesses I’d ever seen. Jake pushed the testimony quickly, not wanting the groundwork he laid with Standers swallowed up in tedium.

  Arthur Vendue stood to cross-examine. “Eh*. Standers, you’re familiar with the various theories about how the brain operates, how we respond to chemical levels in our brains?”

  Standers nodded. The judge said, “Please answer into the microphone.” Everyone in the courtroom was ready to scream at Standers in unison. The judge had had to remind him to answer into the microphone after almost every question.

  “Doctor, could you please share with us your personal view of how our brains work and what theory you think best explains it?”

  “Well. I like to paraphrase a mentor of mine who always told us that, behind every crooked thought, there lies a crooked molecule.” He stated it almost as a proclamation, as if that explained everything, with succinctness and clarity. Succinctness, yes. Vendue pushed for clarity.

  “What does that mean to you?”

  “Well—um...” He raised his eyebrows, straining for the words.

  “Does it mean that we are made up of chemical reactions? That even our mental responses and processes can be reduced to chemicals?”

  Dr. Standers nodded, then caught himself, much to the collective relief of everyone in the courtroom. “Yes, sir. That’s why drags like Uplift work.”