My bad dream began when I saw my son, Rob, the day before he killed himself.
We were going to have lunch, and I called him when I pulled up to his apartment in Long Beach, California. “Yo,” he answered groggily, like he had just woken up.
“Yo, I’m downstairs. Thought maybe we can go to Din Tai Fung for soup dumplings,” I said. “It’s a little bit of a hike, but I don’t have to be anywhere.”
“I don’t know if I have enough time to do it today,” he said, “but I’ll be down in a minute.”
By the time Rob got into my car, he had changed his mind, so we headed to the Del Amo Mall in Torrance. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, as I was amid something called “detaching with love,” a coping strategy my ex-wife Caryn learned and passed along to me from her Families Anonymous meetings.
Rob had long been an unreliable narrator, and his latest story was a doozy about owing back rent and borrowing thousands of dollars from a loan shark who had threatened him with bodily harm if he was late with his payments. There was always a germ of truth in Rob’s stories, and this one involved even more disturbing details, but I was going through some of my own difficulties at the time, mainly looking for a new job, and I just couldn’t deal with more of his.
I started to bombard him with the usual questions—most importantly, what was going on at his jobs. He was bouncing around between a few short-order cooking gigs, and I knew he wasn’t sleeping much, which had become fairly typical for him. For the past year, he’d been working the graveyard shift as a food and beverage supervisor at a rundown casino (not the ideal gig for someone in recovery). He was pretty much always just waking up whenever I saw him for lunch.
“Dad, can we pass on the job interview today?” he asked, annoyed. “I really don’t feel like talking about it. This is my one break from all that crap; let’s just talk about something else.”
We were both quiet for the rest of the ride. He was on his phone, reading through his Reddit feed, while I was thinking of things not to say.
We slipped into a more familiar routine as soon as we sat down at the table. Rob began to fill in the menu ticket without even asking, just like we always did—three orders of pork soup dumplings, fried pork chop, chicken fried noodles, a lemon iced tea for me, and a strawberry mango slush smoothie for him. It sounds like a lot of food, but we always polished it off. Everything seemed normal. It was just another unremarkable day hanging out together.
We shot the breeze like we always did, and the only piece of pertinent information I remember is him talking about the Navy. His friend had recently enlisted, and Rob was thinking of doing the same. He went as far as taking a psych evaluation, but failed because of his 5150 hold from the previous year, when he was suicidal and admitted for a three-day psychiatric evaluation. As I sit here writing these words, it’s easy to see how desperate he was to find an escape.
When we got back to his apartment building, I said we’d talk soon and fist bumped him. Then he said the words he always said when I dropped him off, my favorite four words in the world, the last words he ever said to me: “I love you, Dad.”
The phone call came at 4:18 a.m. on Thursday, February 6, while I was fast asleep, which is unusual for me because I’m the world’s lightest sleeper—and I had been waiting for the call for more than 10 years.
I woke up at about 7:00 and saw that I had a voicemail message from a Los Angeles number. It’s funny how I don’t even listen to voicemail anymore, I just read the transcription, and as I scanned a few key words—investigator, born January 18, 1991, reference case number—I knew.
I knew this day was coming. I didn’t know when, I didn’t know that it would be the day after we had lunch together. I didn’t know it would be like this, but I knew. I had known for a very long time.
Whenever I saw Caryn’s name come up on my phone, my heart would beat out of my chest, fearing the worst. It was the same for her when she saw that I was calling. Certainly, we’d had more than our share of horrifying phone calls through the years. In recent times, I would text Caryn before calling to ease her mind that there was nothing bad going on with Rob, to let her know in advance that I just wanted to say hi.
I went downstairs to grab a cup of coffee before returning the call. I was strangely calm, and I’m still not sure exactly why. The fog of shock hadn’t yet sunk in; it was more a mixture of heartbreak and resignation.
Those first few moments felt like time had stopped.
“He’s either dead or in jail,” I said to my then-girlfriend Maura, who was immediately panic-stricken.
I listened to the message, and it began with a too-friendly “hi,” which is an immediate tip-off that you’re about to leave the worst message in the world.
“My name is Jennifer Herzog. I’m an investigator with Los Angeles County,” she began as her voice started to flatten out. “I’m looking for family for Robbie James Carlat, born January 18, 1991. If you know Robbie, can you please give me a call back?”
I know Robbie, I thought.
