My story follows Ariel, a genderqueer academic, who has discovered that their sister, Mariana, has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Mariana is a paranoid schizophrenic who disappears after a night shift at a local restaurant where she worked in the kitchen. Ariel initially suspects the staff at the restaurant but traces Mariana’s employment there to the halfway house, Charter House, she frequented. Here, Ariel discovers the abuse of the residents. This abuse most often takes the form of over-medication in order to manufacture docile servants/victims who will not be able to report other forms of abuse precisely because of their mental illness. Ariel realizes that the team of doctors and the workers at Charter House “sell” these drugged patients to the rich benefactors of the halfway house and the medical program that oversees the residents. What he cannot yet figure out is why his sister was targeted – until he finds out that his mother, a poor and emotionally struggling woman, granted the facility permission to “disappear” her daughter in exchange for a cut of the money the benefactor pays for access to the patient. Eventually, Ariel is able to track his sister down at the beach house of Dr. Richard Dieb, one of these wealthy benefactors but, unable to provide adequate care for Mariana, is forced to return her to their mother, Sylvia.
Places: South Central, Venice Beach, Westwood/ UCLA
Ariel (protagonist): 26, born and raised in South Central LA, BA in Psychology, MA in Chemistry, currently working in a lab that runs human trials on various drugs as they work on their PhD in Chemistry at UCLA, financially supports both themselves and their family, genderqueer character but is conflicted as they find themselves more and more drawn to being “read” as male, lover of femmes but currently and intentionally celibate, generally apathetic and emotionally uninvolved in most things until their sister’s disappearance, has always had difficult and strained relationship with mother
Mariana (victim): 23, born and raised in South Central LA, paranoid schizophrenic with occasionally violent outbursts, has often disappeared or run away from home for brief periods of time (1-2 days), heavily medicated as a result but does have substantial periods of lucidity/ high functionality that allows her to work as a dishwasher/cleaner in Taqueria Jalisco, a small but popular Mexican restaurant near her home, angry and harsh on “bad” days but otherwise, has a fairly mild disposition
Dr. Richard Dieb: 58, an elderly and wealthy man who once worked as a psychiatrist in conjunction with Charter House and knows the “ins and outs” of program and their scheming very well, currently resides in a beach side home on Venice Beach, motivated purely by power and his ability to enact violence simply because he can, became involved in psychiatry because his father was mentally ill but eventually came to resent all of his patients and became interested solely in increasing his profitability
Places: South Central, Venice Beach, Westwood/ UCLA
Ariel (protagonist): 26, born and raised in South Central LA, BA in Psychology, MA in Chemistry, currently working in a lab that runs human trials on various drugs as they work on their PhD in Chemistry at UCLA, financially supports both themselves and their family, genderqueer character but is conflicted as they find themselves more and more drawn to being “read” as male, lover of femmes but currently and intentionally celibate, generally apathetic and emotionally uninvolved in most things until their sister’s disappearance, has always had difficult and strained relationship with mother
Mariana (victim): 23, born and raised in South Central LA, paranoid schizophrenic with occasionally violent outbursts, has often disappeared or run away from home for brief periods of time (1-2 days), heavily medicated as a result but does have substantial periods of lucidity/ high functionality that allows her to work as a dishwasher/cleaner in Taqueria Jalisco, a small but popular Mexican restaurant near her home, angry and harsh on “bad” days but otherwise, has a fairly mild disposition
Dr. Richard Dieb: 58, an elderly and wealthy man who once worked as a psychiatrist in conjunction with Charter House and knows the “ins and outs” of program and their scheming very well, currently resides in a beach side home on Venice Beach, motivated purely by power and his ability to enact violence simply because he can, became involved in psychiatry because his father was mentally ill but eventually came to resent all of his patients and became interested solely in increasing his profitability