When he was a student at Bartlett High School, Kipp Rusty Walker may have been the best teenage skateboarder in Anchorage, Alaska. Had he lived in a city like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, or Tampa, his skills might have led to opportunities, but Anchorage, the isolated gateway to the magnificent wilderness, with its long dark winters and heavy snows, wasn’t exactly the launching pad for skateboarding stars. In another city, somewhere in the Lower 48—that’s what locals call the area between Canada and Mexico—he might have been seen as more than just another withdrawn rebel in a place that was a magnet for them.
His classmates at Bartlett High remembered Kipp as a very cool character, handsome in an Ashton Kutcher kind of way, but also very shy. Kipp wasn’t much for conversation, but thanks in part to his skateboard, he did have friends. Once you got him to open up, they said, he had interesting ideas on interesting subjects. They also told the Anchorage Daily News that Kipp had “emotional issues.” His parents did what they could to get him help, but when he made his break to the “outside”—what locals call the world beyond Alaska—he took those issues with him.
In the summer of 2010, after graduation from Bartlett High, Kipp and some of his skateboarding buddies made their way twenty-five hundred miles southeast to Bend, Oregon. For a kid who grew up in a city on the rugged terrain in the shadow of majestic mountains, the city nicknamed “the Aspen of Oregon” was a polished, sophisticated version of Anchorage, full of interesting people with interesting ideas. The resort city 162 miles southeast of Portland was also a gateway to outdoor activities—only these were year-round, including whitewater rafting and fishing on the Deschutes River and skiing on Mt. Bachelor in the Cascade Mountain Range overlooking the city.
Bend also had its Portlandia side, with many cultural activities and a downtown arts district. With their flannel shirts, wool caps, and skateboards as means of transportation, young drifters like Kipp and his friends fit right in.
In the winter of 2011, the issues that had worried Kipp’s parents and school counselors began to spring up more openly. Among the interesting ideas Kipp began speaking of was the inevitability of death and, with it, the futility of life. He talked about making his mark on the world by ending his own life, and doing it in a public place.
“It was almost like he wanted to prove a point, like there’s no point in being scared of death because it’s going to happen to us anyway,” one friend told a reporter for Oregon’s NewsChannel 21. When Kipp told him of his plans on March 20, the first day of spring, that friend got in touch with Kipp’s parents back in Anchorage. They got their son admitted to the psychiatric unit at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. When Kipp was released a few days later, he still had a public exit on his mind. There was nothing his parents could do. There was nothing his friend could do.
“I actually told him,” the friend said, “I was like, ‘Dude, this is going to mess a lot of people up.’”
This is going to mess a lot of people up. Those words may have resonated; for a couple of weeks after his release from St. Charles, Kipp found new interests. He began teaching himself piano. He got a particular tune stuck in his head and kept working on it until he managed to play it.
The second week of April, he told his friends he was going to perform the song in public. There was a place downtown, on Bond Street at the corner of Arizona Avenue, where he could make it happen. The Strictly Organic Coffee Company was a coffeehouse, known for roasting its own fair-trade beans and for its breakfast burritos, lunch wraps, and salads. Strictly Organic also offered entertainment in the evenings, featuring local and traveling-through folk and blues singers, and every Thursday from 6:00 to 8:00 PM held Open Mic Night. Singer-songwriters, musicians, poets, comedians—anyone could get up on the small stage and show off their talents.
In the late afternoon of April 11, 2011, Kipp and his Anchorage pal A. J. Pryzbyla arrived at Strictly Organic, and Kipp signed up for a spot on the open mic stage. The folks who worked at the place didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t a regular customer, and this was his first time at Open Mic Night.
This is going to mess a lot of people up.
Kipp got his chance around 6:30 PM. He walked onto the small stage, sat at the electric piano and announced the name of the song he was about to play: “Sorry for All the Mess.”
Staff included, about fifteen people witnessed Kipp’s show. The coffeehouse workers went about their work, and others paid polite attention as Kipp leaned over the keyboard and concentrated. He played for a good five minutes or more before coming to the end of “Sorry for All the Mess.”
There was a bit of applause as Kipp hesitated. It looked as if he was thinking about what to do next, whether to do something next. This is going to mess a lot of people up.
Kipp Rusty Walker stood and faced the audience. He revealed a knife with a six-inch double-edged blade and plunged it into his chest. He pulled it out and did it again—and again, punching the knife at heart level.
The audience applauded. Some cheered. Obviously, they were being treated to some sort of theatrical piece or performance art. Only when Kipp dropped to the stage, in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood, did the cheers turn to gasps and screams. People rushed forward to try to save him. They administered first aid until the paramedics from the Bend Fire Department showed up to take Kipp back to St. Charles Medical Center, this time to the emergency room. It was too late. He was a week away from turning twenty.