All language subtitles for The.Bridge.2006.10p.WEB

It was sort of a weird day.
The wind was lightish.

I was just kiting there.

I cut over to the south tower
and some stuff fell,

so I cut back the other way...

and I just saw a mass
falling toward my kite.

I thought it was the same thing.

And so I turned the kite back.

Then I looked over,
and before they hit...

I realized it was a person
that had jumped.

So then I cut over
just to see...

or maybe, possibly help.

The current
just sucked them under.

I stayed in the tide
because I knew
the coast guard would come.

That's when it became more
of a surreal experience to me...

because I've seen
that coast guard boat
a million times.

They've helped us out
and rescued us
when we had problems,

but they were all wearing
the white hazmat suits,

and that's when I realized
that there was definitely
a person in.

I never knew the real scale
of the problem.

I don't know.
The whole thing
is crazy to me.

I just don't even
understand it, really.

When I was riding back
after that time,

I was thinking about how...

that person was at
the lowest of the low
of their life, obviously,

and the whole day
all I could think about--

"It's gonna be a good day
to go out and kite,"

and my passions for it,

and here at
the same time, you know,

I'm reaching, you know,
for what I love to do,

and this person's
ending their life.

So that was unreal.

Yeah, exactly. Kiting is, to me,
a real celebration of life.

It's exhilarating.
It's thrilling.

It's just awesome.

So it's a real juxtaposition
of celebration of life...

and the ending of life.

Whoo-hoo!

It was one of those epic days
in San Francisco,

driving across
the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was crystal clear.
The bay was calm.

There were tourists
walking across the bridge.

And usually
on those types of days...

I always soak in
the beauty of the bay...

and look over to Alcatraz.

And on that particular day
I looked over--

I was probably
a little bit more
than mid-span...

when I saw...

this gentleman
on the railings.

And at first glance I thought,

"Wow, this guy looks like
he's gonna bungee jump."

Because of the way that he
was standing on the railing.

And then common sense kicked in
and said, "You can't"--

My thoughts were,
you couldn't jump
off the bridge--

bungee jump off the bridge.

And then he just kind of
held his arms out...

and disappeared.

And I wasn't sure
if I was imagining this,

and so I drove
for a few seconds, then looked
in my rearview mirror.

My heart rate went up...

and I almost felt like
I wanted to start crying,

because I thought to myself,

"Wow, I might be one of
the last people that have
ever seen this person alive."

When I went into the tower
and I talked to
the highway patrolman,

I asked him blatantly,

"Is this a rare occurrence,
or does this happen often?"

And he looked at me
and kinda smiled and just said,

"It happens all the time."

It's hard to define Gene
as a person.

He was...

um, just not of this world,
I think,

is really the truth of it.

Not of this world...

as we know it.

Um--

His mother was a woman who said,
"Oh, I never want children."

And then, uh,
a few years later...

she found herself pregnant...

and decided, um,

to have the child...

rather than
leave the country
for an alternative,

and she was
looking forward to it.

And so came my--
my friend Gene,

who was always referred to
as my little brother, Thump.

He was born an old man.

Um, and all their lives...

it was just the two of them,
pretty much.

Uh, people came and went
in their lives...

in relationships
of various sorts,

but it was mostly
just always...

the two of them,

dependent on each other for...

that stability that, um,

one thinks of as
tomorrow is coming,

and we will do this,

and we will do that.

Growing up with Lisa in Marin,

she was just like completely
normal until she was, like, 14.

Fourteen. Mm-hmm.

I'm four years older.
I moved away.

I lived in Alaska,
and my mom would
write me and say,

"Hey, Lisa's, um,
acting strange and
doing these things."

And I kept telling her
it was...

typical teenage stuff.

I came back
10 months later...

and there was
a big change.

Our upbringing, uh, was--

w-w-was fabulous, uh,
I would say,

until my father suddenly died
when I was 14.

That was a shock.
Um--

That threw
all three of us.

But it didn't make
Jeff and I mentally ill.

But Lisa had
a different personality.

She wasn't as outgoing
as my brother or I,
and she was just--

She was more angelic.

We went through
all the counselors...

and finally got her
to go to a psychiatrist,

and he said that Lisa
is a paranoid schizophrenic...

and she will never recover.

That was a terrible thing
to tell a mother.

He says, "You have to take her
right now to the crisis center
at Marin General."

She immediately,
when we got there,
got on the pay phone...

and started calling her friends
and telling them
how terrible I was...

to bring her
to this place.

Well, they brought her
into the crisis unit,
and do you know,

for all the bad things
she did when she was home,

she straightened up,

acted as if she was
perfectly normal,

and they discharged her.

We went through that
several times.

She had her own style.

She liked to wear headbands.
She liked to wear black.

Black leather headbands
with rhinestones.

And matching gloves
with no fingers.

And she always wore
bicycle gloves.

No.
Harley rider gloves.

You know? Leather.
Leather.
Leather.

Leather gloves, yes.
She was
the leather queen.

I met Gene at a comic book
convention in Oakland.

We just hit it off
immediately.

By looking at us,
you wouldn't think we would
become such tight friends,

but we did, you know.

He looked like
the cool rocker type,
you know.

Long hair, you know.

Everything about him
is, you know, just cool,
and the ladies like it.

And I was Mr. Hip-hop,
you know--

other side of the spectrum
and stuff.

Everything was black.

His clothes were black.
His hair was black.

Uh, the curtains
were black.

The walls were black.

The sheets were black.

Um, he just wanted--

It's as though
he wanted no--

no contrasts.

He mostly just wanted
to be in his room
with his computer.

Me and Gene had long talks
about love...

and where he's trying
to find it.

And I told him,
he's not gonna find it
on the Internet.

A lot of times
he didn't want to hear it.
He just wanted what he saw.

He would send me pictures
of these girls, and I'm like,

"Dude, what are you doing?"
You know?

That's not--
That ain't it, you know?

I'm like, take time,
get to know this person.
You know?

You don't know this person
from nothin'.

Just because you read
a bio about this person...

and this person
wants to turn around
and have sex with you,

that's not love,
you know.

I noticed early on...

that Lisa was very interested
in-- in romance.

Um, and I saw her go through
some very painful rejections.

She met a guy--
This was just before Christmas.

She took off with him
on a bus.

She was gone for a week.
We had no idea where she was.

She was off her medication.

And I was wrapping gifts.

All of the sudden, I looked up
and there was Lisa outside,

just really in a bad state.

She thought our dogs
were devils.

She broke a clock
because she thought
it was a time bomb.

I had to have
the police come out.

But before they would admit her,
she had to have
a court order to get in...

because she'd been in and out
of the crisis so many times.

Being a schizophrenic
is like watching TV...

and having 44 channels on
at the same time.

And that's her environment,
24/7. You know?

There's just, like,
little noises here,
or something there.

I'm trying to talk here,

but that's distracting me,
that's distracting me,
and it's all equal.

That would
freak anybody out.

She graduated
from house to house...

to a home where
there was constant care,

and finally
to independent living...

for about 15 years.

That place
was great.
She had her own room.

She had a very nice
situation there.
She liked it there.

But one of her
roommates there-- Right?
Jumped off the bridge too.

No, this was a friend.
A friend of hers.
A friend.

Two years ago?
Oh, no,
it's longer than that.

Longer than that?
Much longer.

As far as pills
and other forms of suicide,

I haven't personally
experienced that
in my houses.

It's like the last three people,
I think, who I was
kind of close to in Buckelew...

were all bridge jumpers.

After she settled in in Marin,
she was pretty stable.

Then all of the sudden
this past year...

she just felt she needed
more support for some reason.

Do you think that was
the medication change?

Um, no, I think it was
because she was ill.

Oh, 'cause
she wasn't feeling good.

Her teeth were just
so rotted.

We felt it was from medication
and from drinking a lot of Coke.

So she had to have
all her teeth removed.

So she looked kinda
funny walking around
with no teeth.

That was--
That was a problem too.

Just from then on,
downhill.

Let's stay together.

The Golden Gate Bridge
was designed by Joseph Strauss.

It opened in 1937.

Each year,
about nine million tourists--

Well, we went
for Easter vacation...

to take all the kids
to San Francisco.

Before going to
the Alcatraz--

Before going to
the Golden Bridge,
we went to Alcatraz...

and we went to, um,

the Pier 39.

And from there we took a walk
to the Golden Gate.

We had a big dinner on--

The week before Easter.
The week before. Palm Sunday.

So I said, "Lisa, I'm not
going to fix a big dinner
on Easter Sunday."

The kids weren't
going to be around.

Mm-hmm.
So--

Except that was
a tradition in our family,
to get together.

But-- Well,
she didn't seem to mind.
She never objected.

So I called her
about 1:00 on--

She didn't feel good that week.
She still didn't go to work.

So I said, "I guess I could
come down, but I don't know
what I can do."

Lisa was so quiet...

and oftentimes had this--

I don't know how you'd say--
A poker face, or--

She kept her feelings
to herself.

She wasn't one to, you know,
get all emotional,
which surprised me.

'Cause I look back now
at Muir Woods.

We were walking down
the little trail...

and there was
this huge redwood tree...

lying in the middle
of the path,

and she looked at it
and she goes,
"Wow! Look at that!"

Sounds like no big deal,
but for Lisa that was like--

that was different.

And then she came home--

I guess she was hungry,
and she asked a girl there,
"Did you fix dinner?"

And they said, "No."

So then they said
she was very quiet.

She got in the freezer,
took something out
and fixed it herself.

And after she had eaten--

they said she was very quiet
when she was eating--

she got up
and took her purse
and her jacket...

and off she went.

And that's the last
they saw her.

We were taking pictures
of each other.

I was taking pictures
to them,

and Paolo was
taking pictures to us.

And they were playing.

Uh--
And I got scared.

He was holding the baby,
and we were walking, and, uh--

Then we saw
that lady.

The lady just put the--
The bag
on the ground.

And she jumped off.

And I said,
"She jumped! She jumped!"

And I was like--
And she told my brother
to go call the cops.

Paolo went running down
to get some help...

because I wanted
somebody to help her...

because for us, it was
the first time to see somebody
jump off the bridge.

And before she jump,
she look at me and Vidal
and he was laughing.

She laughed, like a smile,
like, "You don't know
what I'm gonna do, but"--

She smile and jump
and, uh--

Like, she-- she--
sh-she was acting like--

like a gorilla
or something.

¡Ay, Sebastián!

No, that's not--

He likes to
make things up.

I'm not 100% convinced
that she did commit suicide.

Um, I don't know
if someone had accompanied her
to the Golden Gate Bridge...

and had encouraged her
to jump.

I don't know if someone
had been pressuring her to go to
the Golden Gate Bridge and jump.

And certainly
it is a highly risky,

rather glorious, uh, way...

to draw attention to oneself.

My brother's very religious.

He doesn't believe
she committed suicide.

He thinks
it's something else.

I don't know
what he thinks.
I didn't know that.

Well, he won't
call it that because...

it's a sin
to commit suicide
in his mind,

and that's not
what she did.

She fell or something.
I don't know what he--

He's coming up
with different
justifications, so--

He doesn't talk to me
like that, so--

Thing is, if you go
stand on that bridge
and look down,

the amount of guts
that you have to have to stick
anything over that rail--

It must have been incredible,
the pressure on her.

It had to be worse than
the thought of doing that.

And I've always thought
of myself as a stronger
person than her,

and there's no way
I would have the guts
to do that,

even with a parachute
or something.

And for her to just do it
and just like that,
it was like--

We still can't--
I still can't believe it.

My family, my husband,
my kids, we're like,

"How did she even
think about doing that?"

It was a relief.
A relief for her.

Because she knew that
she probably never would be
physically well again,

and she knew she had
the mental illness.

And she was just at
the end of her rope.

There were
too many things. So--

Yeah, I agree with that--
She's in a better place.
That's all I can say.

You have to look at it
that way. You know?

I'd try and relive,
you know, when doing something--

say, "This is something
Philip likes,"

or "My son would like this."

He's still there with me,
you know,

if I go somewhere,
a ball game or somethin'.

He's there.

And, um,

I think
I'm getting more
of an understanding...

of what
he went through
toward the end.

'Cause you feel
the same way.

It's just, you know,
what makes any of us
go over that line?

It's just--

Some days you--
you think like that yourself.

It's just,
he thought about it
every day.

Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

What makes a person...

be able to do that?

I don't know.
I don't have
the answer to that.

Well, it's--
It's like any pain.

When it becomes unbearable,
you'll do anything.

It's like physical cancer.
Yeah, I can't-- Yeah.

If you have cancer
of the-- of the mind,

you know, nobody knows
what you're going through.

I mean, it was like
our hands being tied.

No matter how much
we talked to him--

I mean,
he was in and out
of the hospital.

The doctors
talked to him and...

it was like nothing
would change his mind.

In fact,
I think the medicines
made him worse.

We thought,
you know, if we can get him
through his episodes--

But that's the crazy thing.

As soon as you get
somebody strong enough,

that's when they
have the courage.

So, do you make 'em well
or do you keep 'em sick?

Uh--

He tried it a few times,

but his second attempt,
he said,

"My third attempt
is not gonna fail.
I'll make sure of it."

He researched it and found
the Golden Gate Bridge
on the Internet.

He said to him
it was the best way.

It was planned out
for months,

and then the final two weeks
he was making
his last preparations.

He said whether some people
believe suicide is a sin
or not--

He asked that a lot.

I said, "It's something
man made up."

Um, at least he thanked me
for telling him the truth.

Just-- You know,
I don't know.

You know, I don't think God's
gonna hold you responsible...

for something
you can't handle.

And he said,
"Well, whether I come back
or not, you know,

if I do,
I'll see you again, Dad.

If not, just know
that I'm at peace."

What I'm trying to say is,
I didn't want him to feel...

like he was in a cage
inside of himself.

Some people say
their body's a temple.

He thought his body
was a prison.

In his mind
he knew he was loved.

He knew he had everything,
could do anything,

and yet...
he felt trapped.

That was the only way
he could get free.

Gene was very
overly dramatic.

Even the simplest things...

were very long and drawn out
and very hard.

He would always say things
like, "Kill me now."

You would be talking
about something...

and ask him, "What do you
want for breakfast?"

"Oh, I don't care.
Just kill me."

"Okay, well, where do you want
to go look for a job today?"

"I don't care.
It's not gonna matter.
Just kill me."

"Might be easier
if you'd just kill me."

You didn't take him serious
if he said certain things,

because he would almost say it
in a joking manner.

He wouldn't say it
with this intensity of,

you know, like,
"I'm gonna do it this time!"

He wasn't that person.
He would make light of it.

"Man, I'm gonna commit suicide.
I'm gonna just shoot myself.

I'm gonna do it
with a bow and arrow."

And when he would
say this stuff, we were
just like, "Yeah, whatever."

And years and years
and years would go by--
He's crying wolf.

But he was still fun
to be around.

It sounds--
When I hear myself
saying it,

it sounds like
he wasn't fun.

He was fun to be around,
fun to go out with,
go to clubs with and stuff.

He would just get
in those little funks,

and pretty soon
it was... just like
I didn't even--

I didn't even pay it
any attention.

It was just something
he said all the time,
in every conversation.

We ask everyone on board
to take your seats...

as we go under the bridge.

The swells and tides
are very unpredictable.

The Golden Gate Bridge
is 1.7 miles long.

The towers
are 746 feet tall.

The roadway is suspended
220 feet above the water
at center span.

The Golden Gate Bridge--
Thanks so much.

is the most photographed
man-made structure
in North America...

and it is considered
one of the seven wonders
of the modern world.

We had gone to
Montana, Glacier National Park,
the year before.

Philip had a blast there.

We told him if he got out
of the army in time,
which he did,

that we were
going back there.

They had those forest fires,
and so we couldn't get in.

I had been to San Francisco
before, and I said,
"You'll love it there."

And the bridge fascinated him.

For some reason, yeah,
while we were driving
across the bridge,

he just kept
looking around.

I just thought
it was kind of odd,
you know, that he would be--

And he wanted
to get out.

He says,
"Can we walk
along the bridge?"

I says, "I guess
there are people who can
walk along the bridge."

We were on a tour bus.
Yeah.

I says,
"But we can't get out now."

Um, he just, like, kept
looking out the window...

like he wanted to get out
and just look around.

He thought it was
just so beautiful.

Well, we did get
out of the bus,

and he wanted his picture taken
a few times...

with the bridge
in the background.

He'd ask
questions.

How deep do you think it is?
How high do you think it is?

I mean, I liked
the bridge too, but--

I mean, he just seemed
so fascinated by it,
and I just--

just thought
that was kinda odd...

to have
such a fascination
with it.

I don't know. It was
like almost calling him,
you know, type thing.

It was...
like magnetic to him.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We thought he might go
and live out there.

Even if he's homeless,
at least he has a city he loves.

'Cause he was homeless in Texas.
Lived out of his car.

Met two girls online.

Went down twice.
Those didn't work.

He always fell in love
with the wrong person.

I think everything
just disillusioned him.

He had this idealistic
view of things...

and this perception
of how everything
should be,

and then when
it didn't meet up
to his expectations--

After a while it was like,
"What's the point then?"

But he still had to
make a choice.

Gene's choice, his preference,
had been made years before.

He became
increasingly alienated...

and he had told his mother
that he wanted
to kill himself,

and she, in essence,
had told him,

I didn't invest
a lifetime in you...

to have you die on me,

kill yourself
and walk away.

You don't have
a right to do that
while I'm alive.

And I think it was
very hard for him...

to watch his mother's...

nonparticipation
in a battle with cancer...

that she might have won.

Uh, it was a choice
on her part.

When I talked to him,

he was acting as if,
"life goes on," you know,
type situation.

And, you know, and...

I would always tell him,
I'm here for you.

You still got family,
no matter what, you know.

I'm a brother
from another mother.

He said to me,
after she was gone--

and there was a lot
of stuff to clean up--

and he said,
"Well, now I can finally--

um, now I can finally
end it all."

And I looked at him and I said,
"Well, you will promise me...

that you will not go
without saying good-bye."

I remember coming home--

'Cause Thursday night's
garbage day...

and Friday's recycling day.

And Philip even did that
before he left--

he took the recycling things
out to the curb.

I came home that Friday
and they were empty,

and I said,
"It's unusual for him not to
bring the buckets back in."

And when I
came in the house...

as soon as she said,
"Where's Philip?
Isn't he with you?"

And I was like,
"He did it."

I knew.

And here's
th-th-the hard part for me.

I had a feeling
it was going to be
in San Francisco,

but I said,
If he's in San Francisco...

and I call the police
to stop him,
if I have time yet,

that he's just gonna
hang himself...

or have the policemen
shoot him.

And I said,
if he's that determined,
I have to let him go.

But when she asked me I said,
"No, he's not coming home."

And, uh,
from the death certificate...

he was already done.

It was just waiting
for the policemen
to show up at the door.

We just came around the corner
after snapping the shot...

with San Francisco
in the backdrop,
and he was right there.

Yeah, sort of surprised him.
Yeah, we startled him.

Came upon him--

He was taking off
his backpack...

In hindsight,
he was probably
getting ready to jump.

Then he put back his backpack on
really quickly...

and acted nervous.

We interrupted him
from jumping.

You spoke with him,

'cause you noticed
something odd.

Yeah, just
his whole body language,

his whole energy was--
was just a bit off.

He was definitely nervous
and he was shuffling
his shoulder.

I initially picked up
on that and said,

"Are you okay?
Wh-What's going on?"

And, uh, at that point,
he, uh-- he made
brief eye contact.

Well-dressed guy.
Yeah.

Brief eye contact too.
He was very nervous.

He wouldn't look you
in the eye for very long.

He just kept darting away,
looking away.

And his biggest concern,
when you asked him,
"Are you all right?"

Uh, he said,
"It's a long way down
to the water."

Yeah, he said,
"It's a long way down."
"Long way down." Right.

I, uh-- I didn't know
how to quite take that
when I heard him say that.

And I didn't know
if I'd heard him
correctly.

I thought maybe he meant
it's a long way back to
the other side of the bridge,

and here I am thinking,
"You're three-quarters of
the way. You're close."

And of course
that wasn't the case.

And we didn't see him jump.
Did not see him jump.

To me he said he was just
gonna go down so deep...

that even if he changed his mind
he couldn't swim to the top,

but the coroner said
it was over instantly.

Boy, imagine what this
looks like to people.

They probably look at us
and say, what kind of
mother and father were they?

Yeah.

I wasn't perfect,

but, I mean,
I don't think I was
such a terrible mother.

And then I remember
Sharon said to me,

"You know,
it's not all about you.

It has nothing
to do with you."

Yeah, I mean,
I was raised in a family
that's "dysfunctional"--

I mean, yeah.
So was I.

My father was alcoholic.
Hers was alcoholic.

They fought like cats and dogs,
you know, and... the abuse and--

Yeah, I should be an alcoholic.
I should be a serial killer.

You think you're raising
your family to be, you know,
religious or whatever,

and you try
and do the best,

but you wind up doing
more things that are harmful.

And then
when you try and fix them,
it might be too late.

And it's like,
well, no matter what you do,
good or bad,

it's, you know--
things are gonna happen.

And he said,
"If you and Mom, who I love,
you know, are having problems,

what hope is there for me?

I think you loved me the most
and tried your best,

and if you're
having problems,

you know, there's no way
I can make it."

Yeah.

Took a lot of pictures
while he was on the bridge.
Yeah.

He wanted to show
what he was seeing,

what he was feeling.

I was taking pictures
of Alcatraz at the time.

While I was taking a picture
I saw, out of the corner
of my eye, a girl walking by.

She climbed over the rail,

and she did it so smoothly
it was almost like
she was going to a little--

like she had
her own little clubhouse,

I don't know, like she was
going to sit on the ledge
to eat lunch.

So I got a couple pictures
of her climbing over,

and then I started
taking pictures of her
standing on the ledge...

and I realized that
this girl was about to jump.

But when I was
behind the camera...

it was almost like
it wasn't real...

'cause I was
looking through the lens.

I was actually, like--

I guess I was waiting for her
to jump, 'cause I thought
there was nothing I could do.

It was too late.

Earlier I was actually
staring down at the ledge...

at a couple different points
on the bridge,

and I was just trying
to think to myself what goes
through peoples' minds...

whenever they're standing
on that ledge and they're
about to jump off.

What's the last thing
that they're thinking of?

Or are they thinking
anything at all?

They just-- They just had enough
and they just go and...

that's it, they're gone.

I started yelling out
to the girl, you know,
asking her what was wrong.

She seemed to be speaking
in a different language...

and basically,
like, tuning me out,

like, thoroughly not thinking
about what I was saying.

So I got up on the rail...

and I reached out--

I really didn't know
I was gonna be able to grab
the back of her jacket,

but once I grabbed it
I just lifted her
over the rail...

and got her
down on the ground.

She started to fight me
a little bit,

so I just sat on her chest
and just called 911.

They were probably there
within a couple minutes.

As crazy as it sounds,

I think of myself like
a National Geographic
photographer must feel.

He's behind the camera filming,

and there's like a big tiger
running at him,

and he's, like,
this footage is so great
he forgets that, you know,

in a couple seconds
that tiger's gonna be
on top of him.

But it's like
you're in that camera,
you're just behind,

and you don't really think
about what's going on.

That's where
I had to separate,

or I actually
had to get out of
that mode of thinking...

and actually act on it
and do something to help her.

After I left
the bridge patrol,

I was going back
to my vehicle...

and I happened to look over,
and it kinda looked like
she'd turned back...

and she looked right at me.

And it freaked me out
for a second.

I just didn't expect her
to, like, look back.

I don't know
if she actually saw me...

and was thinking, like,
"You son of a bitch,
I wanted to jump,"

or whatever it was that, uh--
that she was thinking.

I'm sure that in some way
she did want to be rescued...

because if she really
wanted to commit suicide...

and just take that,
basically, ultimate shortcut
to the next level,

that she would have
just climbed over
and just jumped right off.

So I-I think that she was
sort of crying out for help
there a little bit.

The police did tell me...

that she was involved
in another incident
on the bridge...

and they talked her
out of it.

And I just hope
that she's doing okay.

Gene had a lot riding
on this relationship.

He wanted to get out
of California,

and he felt that
it was gonna be like
a new beginning.

I think he had--

he had it planned out
in his head
how it was gonna happen,

and then when he got there
the reality wasn't quite
what was in his head.

Yeah, he-he--
I think he was chasing...

a certain magical wonderland
that would make
all his problems go away...

and making excuses
as to why he couldn't
find it here,

expecting to find it
somewhere else.

He just wanted to
make it happen so bad,

and that's why he went
to St. Louis.

Only love-- really love--

feeling like he was loved
and in love...

was gonna save him.

And who's to say that
this is not a genetic thing?

Who's to say that wasn't
the reason his mother
chose to have this child?

Because she too
was depressed...

and knew that
she could keep herself
here and functional...

if she had a commitment.

And how do we know
that it wasn't,

at some... inner level,

that he perceived this,
very young,

and that it colored
his needs...

to have someone...

depend on him?

I don't know.

The ideas of suicide,

if I'm completely honest
with myself,

have been there
for a long, long time.

Years.
Way before I was diagnosed.

But I was just touching
on it, like, you know,

"Oh, I'd just kill myself."

But the real
thought process...

of actually going to do it
and commit the act...

started, I'd say,
about '99,

and that's
when I cut my wrist.

At the end of his junior year
in high school
he had huge mood swings,

and during his senior year,

they-- they were just, uh,
compelling.

I mean, he was constantly
either very high or very low.

That was really a fight.

That's when Kevin
was at his worst.

There were times
where he couldn't even speak,

and there were times
where he wouldn't stop speaking.

I was hallucinating,

and I had made
the assumption that, uh,

there were bugs in my bed
and stuff,

and they were,
like, giving me AIDS
and stuff like that.

And I was just
completely off the wall.

I hadn't been
sexually active for years,

yet I thought I had AIDS.

And it was like, uh--
It was all in my head.

And I sprayed my bedsheets
with a disinfectant,

like a deodorizer,
something like that,
but I sprayed my bedsheets.

You know, I sleep in that
and I inhaled it
all night long,

which caused the hallucinations
to become greater and greater.

And so I got up out of bed,

sat at my desk,

and I wrote about--

I must have written
five versions
of my suicide letter...

until I realized,
"These are mean.
I can't write 'em like this."

So I wrote a real nice one,
or something I thought was nice.

I mean, it's a suicide letter,
you know? So--

And I guess
it said something like...

"Mom, you're not always right.
Don't think you are.
But I love you.

Dad, stop being so mean.
You're hurting people."

He had a terrible episode,

and there was no comment
with regard to suicide.

It was a commentary
with regard to hearing voices...

and difficulty remaining,
uh, under control.

And I called his psychiatrist
the Sunday night prior...

and had a conversation with him,
and the psychiatrist told me,
"No, don't worry about it.

Everything is gonna be fine."

Then Kevin and I stayed up
and we chatted about it,

and he seemed to be fine,
almost completely calmed.

Our conversations go like this
when he's mad at me.

He tells me to sit down
in my chair,

and he basically
yells at me.

So I, uh--

I told him
that I don't wanna--

What'd I say?
I said, uh--

"I don't want
to hurt anybody anymore.

I have to go away."
Or something like that.

And he said,
"You have an obligation
to stay here for your family.

You have an obligation to me,
who's raised you,

given you
everything you want.

You have an obligation
to live for your brother,
your sister"--

But he was, you know,
mad the whole time.

So I said,
"I'm not gonna do it, Dad.
Don't worry. Don't worry."

He was like,
"Do I have to take you
to the hospital?"

Stuff like that.
I was like, "No, no.
It's all right."

I said, "Let me just sleep on it
and we'll talk about it
in the morning, okay?

I'm really tired, Dad.
I'm really tired."

So he woke me up
the next morning about 7:00,

'cause I'd gotten maybe,
like, two hours' sleep.

And he woke me up and he said,
"Hey, you're coming
to work with me."

I said no.
He said, "No, come on.

I'm worried about you.
I'm really worried about you."

I said, "Dad, I'm fine."

The entire time,
lying through my teeth,

'cause I knew I was gonna go
to the bridge and jump.

Said, "Listen,
why don't I take the day off
and we'll go do something."

And he said, "Nope.
I'd rather go to school."

I kissed him good-bye
on the cheek...

and I was like,
that's the last time I'm ever
gonna kiss my dad good-bye.

You know?
I'll never see him again.

And he'll never see me.

And I went to my English class,
dropped all my other classes.

I took the "K" out to the 28.
Took the 29 out to the bridge.

And the whole time
I was just bawlin'
my eyes out.

Just crying.

Talking
to myself on the bus.
You know, just--

I had stopped
before I got on the 28.

I had stopped at Walgreens,
and I bought my last meal--

Starburst and, uh, Skittles.

And, uh, when I got
to the bridge,

found a place and I thought,
all right, not too close
to the pillar.

I won't hit the pillar.
I'll just hit the water.

I'll either drown
or I'll die on impact
or I'll have a heart attack.

So, I got there.

Stood there for, like,
40 minutes at that spot,

just crying my eyes out.

Joggers, bikers, runners,
tourists-- whatever--

running by or walking by,
looking at me.

Didn't say anything.

It's not their problem,
but anyway.

And this woman came up to me.
She said, in a German accent--
I think it was a German accent.

She said,
"Will you take my picture?"

I was like, "Your picture?"

Woman,
I'm gonna kill myself.
What is wrong with you?

Can't you see the tears
pouring down my face?

But she couldn't.
She was on her own hype.

So I took the camera.
I took her picture.

Said,
"Miss, have a nice day."

Turned back to the traffic.
Turned to the bay.

Said, fuck it. Nobody cares.
Pardon my French.

And I hurtled
over the bridge.

See, what most people do,
apparently,

is they get on the ledge
outside of the bridge,
and they stand there.

People can talk 'em
out of it, you know?
Or pull 'em up. Whatever.

I didn't want anybody
to talk me out of it.
I just wanted to die.

So I hurtled over the railing
with my hands...

and I was falling headfirst,

and the second
my hands left the bar
at the railing,

I said, I don't want to die.
What am I gonna do?

This is like--
This is it. I'm dead.

So I said, well,
maybe if I get feetfirst.

Maybe. Maybe I'll live.

So I thought,

All right.
It's worth a shot.

So my head was falling
like this, and I pushed
myself back somehow,

and I landed, literally,
like I was sitting down,
kind of like--

maybe a little more elevated
with the legs.

And I hit with my feet...

and I guess the water
treaded through my boots
a little bit,

so maybe helped the impact.

And the boots
are pretty tough, so--

And I went down about,
I'd say 50, 40--
40, 50 feet.

Didn't know which way
was up or down.

I-- I was thinking,
Am I still alive?

'Cause it's like
a four-to-seven second fall.

It's like
120 miles per hour.

It's like, uh--
I think that's like...

seven seconds below
terminal velocity,

or like the velocity
that downslope skiers get.

So, uh--

I was awake.
I was alive.

I was swimming my butt off
to get somewhere
where there was air.

So I reached the surface,
I guess,

because I saw
some sort of light.

I was screaming for help,
and I couldn't really scream.
My voice was gone.

I couldn't yell.
I was like--
Help.

Help me.

And...

I felt something
brush by my leg.

I was like, Oh, great.
I didn't die jumping
off the Golden Gate Bridge.

A shark is going to eat me.

I was like,
This is ridiculous.

Uh, years later I found out--
Matter of fact, last year
I found out it wasn't a shark.

It was a seal circling me,
and apparently it was...

the only thing
keeping me afloat.

And you cannot tell me
that wasn't God.

'Cause that's what I believe,
and that's what I'll believe
till the day I die.

So--

I was sitting in my office,

and, uh, my secretary said
that, uh,

there's someone
on the line for you
from Marin General Hospital.

I picked up the phone
and a woman said,

uh, "Is this Pat Hines?"

And I said, "Yes."

She said,
"Your son has just jumped
from the Golden Gate Bridge."

I've lived here all my life.

I know what that means.

And I said, "Is he alive?"

And she said, "Oh, he is."

And I thought...

that they probably told me that
just to keep me calm...

so that I wouldn't
wreck my car...

driving over to see
his mangled body.

I shattered my T12 and my L1,

which is my lower
lumbar region,

into very,
very tiny little pieces,

and the pieces
went into my organs,

uh, but they
missed my heart.

At this point in time
I still thought
he would be dead,

so I went up this gurney
and I looked down,
and he was wide awake.

And he looked up at me
and he said, "I'm sorry."

And then he just closed his eyes
and, uh--

I just stood there
staring at him.

And he was,
by that point in time,
in a coma.

It was just super scary,
you know?

I mean, I can't--
I can't explain it.

I mean--

To feel it would be like--

like feeling an alien
jumping out of your body
or something, you know?

Like your soul or whatever.

'Cause it was ridiculous.
Scary.

Just really... wild.

2004 was a tough year
for Kevin.

It hasn't been a cakewalk.

Kevin's been visited
by extreme mental illness...

three times subsequent
to his jump off the bridge.

The most recent,
he was confined
for almost three months...

while he struggled
and his doctors struggled...

to get his bipolar
bracketed in.

And it's a matter of diet,
it's a matter of consistency...

and it's a matter
of proper drug therapy.

Uh, Kevin will begin
to make headway,

his life will gain traction...

and then he begins
to get outside
of the brackets...

into which he can function.

And, unfortunately,
it has taken three times now...

outside--
in those outside areas--

to convince him--
prove to him, more importantly,

that he can't go there.

And, unfortunately for Kevin,

it's get up at 8:00
in the morning,

take your pills at 8:00,
have lunch at noon,
if you will,

uh, dinner at 6:00,

pills at 9:00, bed at 10:00.

And that's a very,
very difficult existence
for a 24-year-old male...

in this society.

But I've told him,
it's a wonderful disease
to have, Kev,

because you can control it.

If you had cancer,
you wouldn't have
the same opportunity.

Unlike cancer, Kevin,
as long as you stay
within these bands,

you've got it,
it doesn't have you.

Funny my family members
still think I haven't
learned my lesson,

but the lesson was learned
a long time ago.

And, you know,

it's hard when
you keep messing up...

and nobody in your family
believes in you anymore...

or trusts you.

Or they're scared
you're gonna go
attempt again...

and they're always worried,
walking on eggshells
when they talk to you.

It sucks.

'Cause I'm tired of that.
I just want them to say,
Hey, Kev, what's crackin', man?

Just be real about it.

Don't-- Don't walk
on eggshells around me.

I'm the same--
I'm the same guy.

Just a... different soul.
You know?

Different ideals.

I just wanna...
be normal again.

But I never will be.

We started using crystal meth...

and, you know,

using crystal, everything
started going down the toilet.

She lost her job.
I lost my job.

Um, we ended up
becoming homeless.

She has a little easier time
letting go of drugs than I do.

I have
a very addictive personality.

And, uh,

just found out last week
that she's been cheating
on me again.

So I picked up my son,
I gave him a hug and a kiss
and said good-bye,

and told her to eff off.

And then I found myself
just walking toward
the Golden Gate Bridge.

I was crying the whole way.
You know?

Although, only thing
I kept saying...

was, you know,
As I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death...

I shall not fear a thing
'cause God's with me.

So when I got
to the halfway point
of the bridge,

I set my book down
and I jumped over
onto the railing.

And I just sat there,
you know, crying and thinking
for a little bit.

And the cops showed up.

I made the mistake
of letting them
get to know me too well.

'Cause they completely
used my son against me.

Actually, I came to the bridge
last year at this time...

to do the same thing,

and so it's not a new idea,

but kind of one that became
a little obsessive,
I suppose.

I literally got here--

Today I was on an airplane--

from Houston, Texas.

What drew me to it
in spite of having to do
so much preparation...

is that
it is so accessible.

Um, you just kind of hop over.

But yeah, letting go,
that's the tough part.

I don't know if people
think about that a lot--

like the process
that a person goes through...

in trying to decide
how to end their life.

It's like a search.
It's like looking for a college
to attend or something.

You know, your pros and cons.

And it's a destructive act,
but there's a lot
of rational thought...

that goes into an act
that a lot of people
just consider irrational.

In my bag I had my parents'
phone number,

and I wanted them
to know what happened...

and not just maybe agonizing...

over what happened
to their daughter
for a week or two.

So I wanted people
to see me actually do it,

and I think I really did
want somebody to say,
no, don't do it.

When Gene called me
from St. Louis in despair...

and was gonna jump
off the bridge there,

he said, I'm just calling
to say good-bye.

It's time.

What could I say to him?

You know, I had tried
on occasion to find...

something that would
encourage him to live.

Something.

And I asked him again
for a favor.

I said, put my name
and phone number...

in a plastic bag
in your pocket...

so that when you are found,
I can be told.

I need to know.

He had called me
from a bridge back there.

But he called me first
from the train tracks...

saying he was gonna
lay his neck across
the train tracks,

and because
he said things like that
all the time,

I didn't call him back--
No.

because I just
didn't want to hear it.

You know, you can only
hear the same thing
so many times...

and give the same answer
so many times--

you know, stop being stupid,
don't be ridiculous.

It gets tiring
after a while.

You want to hear
something different.

So I guess when
I didn't call him back,
he went to the bridge.

Yeah. He had made
his way to a bridge.
He called me on my cell phone.

He told me this relationship
that he was pursuing
was all falling apart.

So I kept him on the phone.
I was talking to him.

At one point
in our conversation,

he said,
"Oh, a cop's driving by."

And I actually heard
the cop stop and ask him,

"Hey, you're not
gonna jump, are you?"

Or they asked him,
"Is everything okay?
Are you having problems?"

And he was like,
"No, not really."

And, uh, they decided
to leave him alone.

And that's when I said,
Look, I'm gonna get a ticket
for you for the bus,

and you're gonna come
back to California.

And I convinced him
to do that.

David is very dramatic,

boisterous,
a life-of-the-party type.

Playing the piano, singing.

You know, really Mr. Party.

Which is very interesting,
because I'm not that way at all,

and I think part of the reason
he liked me...

was that I didn't ask him
to do that,

or he didn't feel
he had to do that around me.

He was a handsome guy.

He was a good dresser.

And he just exuded this,

which was another reason
why I guess it's so...

shocking to me, is that he just
exuded this joy
for life.

Ruby was someone that I was
always proud to pull in,

so when there was
somebody new in my life...

or I was dating
somebody for a while,
I'd want to bring him over.

You know?

One of Jim's favorite things
was when he'd see me...

he'd say,
Oh, I met a new friend.

You've got to meet this person.
You've just got
to meet this person.

He had great delight
in bringing people together.

He really loved people
in a, um--

Just a very warm personality.

At least, that's how he was
in the beginning.

Before six months ago,
I would never have said...

that I thought Ruby
had a significant
depression problem.

I know that he was alone,
without a source of income.

I know his sister
had killed herself.

I know he had
all those variables.

Nothing before
this last few months
of his life...

indicated to me that he was
out of the range...

of the normal ups and downs
that we just don't share
all the time.

David came over to Charlie's
to have dinner with us,

and that's when he told us
for the first time
he was seriously on medication.

But up until that point,
apparently he had been
self-medicating with alcohol.

And although I knew him
for nine years,

I could count on maybe--

Maybe two times
did I see him really drunk.

David would, every so often,

determine that he had to
get his life back together,

or he would be confronted
by me or other friends,
and start treatment.

He took antidepressants
for a month and a half or so
and made a big show of it,

but then, in the end,
I arranged the labels...

so that I could see
if he'd been picking
the bottles up,

and he hadn't touched them.

Didn't touch them for weeks.

So a couple of months
before he died,

Ruby started talking about
he couldn't get over
his feelings of losses...

and he thought
that he might be depressed,

but he didn't have
any health insurance.

So he said, I want some meds.

Got any ideas
about how I can get some?

And I had tried
some antidepressant meds.

They didn't seem to help
and I couldn't sleep on them.

So I said, okay, listen.

Here.

You can have mine,

but you've gotta call
a physician for information
on how to take them.

I can't pre--
I cannot be responsible
for how you take them,

but you can have them.

So--

I was gonna give him
the whole bottle of them
in the original bottle,

and I thought,

what if one day somebody
goes into his apartment--

and is looking
through his stuff...

and, you know,
finds my name
on a bottle of meds?

So I took them out
and I put them
in an envelope.

Just a plain envelope.

It was around November--
or the fall--

when Jim lost
an enormous amount of money...

and he actually
made the statement,

"Well, if I don't
sell these pots--"

Which were these
Japanese ceramics--

"I'm just gonna have
to commit hara-kiri."

When I called him,
I said, "David,
I know you're in trouble.

I know you've lost your job,
and I want to help you."

He stopped
because I'd never really
said that before--

because I didn't view him
as really in trouble.

And he said,
"I can't talk
about this right now...

because I don't want to cry
in the middle of the street."

And I thought, oh, my God.
You know? This is serious.

He's really emotionally
on the verge of tears.

Five months before he jumped,
he had written a note,
an e-mail,

to a couple dozen
of his friends...

saying that he had been
contemplating suicide,

and a lot of them
wrote back to him
and called him.

However, he never
mentioned suicide to me, ever.

And I just can't fathom
the idea of committing suicide,

and I just think I thought
that he was one
of those people who,

for him,
it just wasn't an option,

but apparently it was.

My daughter was leaving
for camp...

and I said, "You know what?
Let's go to the movies."

We went into the theater--

And he just--

He just put his hands--

his head in his hands,
and he just... wept.

He just wept in the movie.

And I was tearing up
a little too,

but he was just crying
and crying and crying.

And--

And he put his hand
on my leg,

and I said,

"Ruby, I don't need
to be comforted."

And he looked at me.

I thought, oh, my God.

Oh, no.

And I just-- I just--

You know, it was then
that I remembered...

that I put the meds
in a plain white envelope...

a couple months earlier.

So--

We got out
of the movie theater...

and we were walking
to his car,

and, uh, I thought,

he's not just depressed,
he wants to kill himself.

And he said, the meds--

"I-I think I can't sleep
'cause of the meds."

And I said, "I know.

I wish I hadn't
given them to you...

because I feel like I--
I made it worse.

They had the same effect
on me."

He said,
"That's it, actually.

I can't sleep,
and I'm just up.

I can't stop worrying.

I just can't turn it off.

Not sleeping is what
is making me crazy.

I'm thinking
about killing myself."

And I said, "I know."

You know, I felt it
when we were walking
to the car.

I just--
Something was gone.

And he said,
"I'm so ashamed to tell you that
I'm thinking about doing this.

What would you think of me
if I did?"

And I said,
"Ruby, I have understood...

that there are people
who have incessant pain,

but--

I don't think
you're one of them.

Do you have a plan?"

And he said,
"Well, I'm thinking
about different things.

I'd overdose except
I'm not sure how much to take...

and I might wake up in an ER,
and that would be horrible.

And...
I thought about the bridge."

And I said,
"You can't do the bridge.
Too dramatic."

He said, "What about people
who shoot themselves?"

And I said, "It's too messy
and it's not fair
to your landlord,

and anyway, you know,

you are not in the category
of people who get
to kill themselves."

And then he wanted to come over
and spend some time...

and just didn't want
to go home yet,

but I actually just--
I wanted to be by myself.

So I said, "No. Can't.

But if you feel
really desperate,
you call me.

I'll drop anything."

I did say that.

So then I got out of my car
and went home.

And I didn't hear from him,

actually, ever again.

We all know how much--

all of us who've been
close to Jim--

how his passing
has affected us,

whether it's...
fear that, you know,

you might get to that same place
and do the same thing,

or, um, you know,

just guilt because
you felt you weren't
a good enough friend,

or what-whatever it is,
there--

There is a lot
of different reactions.

Talking to everybody, there's
a lot of different reactions.

And I think everyone
is trying to make sense of it,
and-and as one--

Jim's particular passing which,
as a friend of mine said,

he was warning you,
but he was not
asking for help.

I thought that
he was probably feeling
so ashamed--

Because the theme
of that night was,

I'm so ashamed
I'm telling you this--

that I,

um, made the mistake
of giving him some space
to recover.

And that was a bad call,
I think.

You know,
I could have
5150'd him.

But also,
I didn't want to
humiliate him...

and have him be
in a psych facility...

'cause I wasn't sure
they were really
gonna help him...

and I didn't want
to cross my boundaries.

But I will never again
not intrude.

I won't
respect their privacy
and their--

And I will not ever again
not do something...

'cause I'm afraid that
they might be embarrassed.

There's obviously
a fuzzy line...

between doing nothing
and doing what would
have prevented it.

And who knows
where that line is?

He was a grown-up.
I couldn't tell him
what to do with his life,

and I suppose if we had
had him locked up or something,

then, um,

he might still be alive,
but, uh--

I don't blame myself
like that.

Um, initially, several
of his other friends...

went out there as a group,

because they knew
the light pole number...

where he had jumped.

I couldn't go,

but a couple of months later
I did go,

and it was very difficult.

And I'll never be able
to sort of drive
across the bridge again...

without some kind of, uh,

emotional reaction.

Something else
I'm pissed off at him about.

Such a great bridge.

I think the bridge
has a romance,

a false-- you know,
a false promise of--

a false
romantic promise to it.

Because he's dead.

And...

he doesn't get to benefit
from the romantic--

from the romanticism of it.

He doesn't have
any benefit from it.

It romanticizes him,
a bit, in the legend,

but, um--

but he doesn't--
he doesn't benefit from it.

So what if his story
has that at the end?

He's gone.

And so I think
there's an empty promise.

It's almost like,
you know, when alcoholics...

talk about the romance
of the bottle.

You know?

Like, maybe the first sip
is really good,

and everything else is hell.

So maybe walking out there
he had a romantic moment
or two, or an hour,

but hitting the water
can't be fun.

I think he felt
like a failure, and this
was some sort of redemption.

I think that
it just drew him
with this idea...

of, you know, sort of...

being famous.

The last time I saw him,
I was leaving for work,

and, uh,
I gave him five bucks...

so he could
get a pack of smokes,
go grab a paper,

and, you know, go out
and maybe hit a couple places...

to put in some applications,

and that's when he disappeared.

I was the last one
to actually talk to him.

And I remember
when I was walking
out the door, I--

The last thing I said to him--
I said, "Cheer up, Gene."

You know, I said,
"Everything will work out."

You know. And, uh,
just jokingly I said,

"See you when I get home.
Love you."

And that was it.
That was the last thing
I ever said to him.

The last thing I ever
said to him was a fight.
Yeah.

Because he wasn't--

I didn't think he was
trying to find a job
as hard as he could,

and it was
making me angry...

because I knew
that he was very smart
and he was very capable,

and the only thing
holding him back
was him just not caring.

And he had found
one of the kids'
sidewalk chalk,

and he was sitting
behind Matt's truck,

and he wrote "End me"
on the ground.

Like he scratched it in
over and over and over.

And my son came in
and got me,

and said,
"Why would Gene
write that?"

Knowing Gene and the way
his personality works and stuff,

the Golden Gate Bridge
was perfect for him...

because it's just
one easy step,
and there's no turning back.

In hindsight,
I almost feel like
it was meant to happen.

Maybe he's happy now.

You know, who knows?
I don't.

But, uh,

I know he was--

He couldn't have
lasted much longer.

Not the way he was going.

But if
he would have waited,

there was a message
on our answering machine...

from one of the places
in Oakland--
Yeah.

that had offered him
a management position,
which was what he wanted.

They were opening
a new... GameStop,
I think it was.

Whatever.
One of the game places.
One of the game stores.

They were gonna
put him straight
into management.

He had an interview
the day that he jumped
at 10:00 in the morning.

And I don't know
if he got the message
or if he missed it,

'cause I don't know
what time he left.

He was gone
before I got home.

So, if he would have
either just checked
the message or waited--

I couldn't fully cry
and I couldn't fully whatever,

but the overwhelming emotion
was anger.

You know?

I was extremely pissed.

I wanted to drive out
to the Bay Area...

and go to the coroner and,

you know-- Clear!
Wake up.

Why did you do that?

I don't see any reason
for people to do that.

Gene had people
in this world
that loved him,

and he hurt 'em.

If I see him again,
that's what I want to tell him.

He hurt me,
and I didn't think
he would ever do that.

"Disturbed"
is an interesting word
'cause it--

That's all I can
define it as,
is I was disturbed.

Now I miss him.
Now I'm sad.

But at the moment,
there was almost--

That I got the news,
there was almost
a sense of relief,

um,

that he wasn't going
to be... disappointed...

or unhappy anymore.

Um--

Now I miss him,

but... I don't have
any-- any answers.

Um, just a bunch
of observations...

and a bunch of experience...

of feeling disturbed...

about that situation.

I don't know why
people kill themselves,

and yet, it's a small step
to empathize,

to say--

Because I think we all
experience moments
of despair, that--

It would
just be so much easier
not to do this anymore.

But for most of us,
the sun comes out,

and then, oh, well.

Tomorrow is another day.

Why he chose the bridge,
I don't know.

Maybe there's
a certain amount
of release...

from pain, by pain.

Maybe he just wanted
to fly one time.