SUICIDAL

“I’m Suicidial.”

It was a surprising thing for Jamie to be confiding to me just minutes into seeing each other for the first time in years. We’d both become legal adults since we’d last hung out. Riding in his beautiful, tricked-out, low-rider pickup truck, we were speeding at ninety-plus miles per hour down the 91 in Corona, California, my old hometown.

My buddy Dan had made the trip from Sacramento with me. There wasn’t room in the cab of the truck for him, so he was lying down in the bed, no doubt in the grip of terror.

“You’re suicidal? Dude, I’m sorry. What’s going on?” I asked, wishing he hadn’t told me this while behind the wheel of a fast-moving truck with no seat belts and one of my dear friends in the bed.

“No, homes, I’m not suicidal, I’m Suicidal. I’m a fuckin’ Suey, man.”

“You’re a suicidal person? You want to die?” I asked, still not comprehending but admittedly a little impressed. It’s wrong, I know, but as someone with suicidal impulses myself, I associate a certain depth of character with wanting to take one’s own life. When I hear of someone killing him- or herself, who I initially hadn’t thought much of, I reconsider my opinion of them. In the instances where it turns out to be accidental death by autoerotic asphyxiation, I think, “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

Jamie rolled his eyes, took one hand off the polished wood steering wheel, and pulled his shirt up to reveal “Suicidal” tattooed across his abs in Old English lettering. “I’m Suicidal.”

After a few more clueless questions I finally was able to understand that Jamie had become a member of a local gang called the Suicidals.

I’d moved up north to Sacramento with my parents when I was fourteen, leaving behind Jamie, my best friend in Corona, which is about an hour drive inland from Los Angeles. I barely recognized him now, buff, covered in tattoos, a far cry from the towheaded, blue-eyed Ricky Schroder look-alike who I used to listen to The Cure with.

I associated my friendship with Jamie with a sort of eighties take on Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, full of mischievous anecdotes like the time we’d gone to Christian summer camp together and Jamie got caught shoplifting Lemonheads from a grocery store on the way home, humiliating but not surprising my mom. Apparently, he hadn’t been as moved by the Holy Spirit as I was. Camp had affected me deeply—at one point I even tried to burn my Pink Floyd cassette tapes. Jamie was not quite so taken in.

Now it was the early nineties and his appearance suggested a darker kind of mischief.

It seems a big change had happened in Home Gardens—the neighborhood I’d spent the first decade and a half of my life in—after I’d left. The best I can figure is that the LA gang sweeps pushed the gangs into the Inland Empire, and they settled there, the same way the ocean winds pushed the LA smog onto us.

There’d always been some tension between the white kids and the Mexican kids in Corona. When I lived in Home Gardens, we only had about five black kids, so they were almost celebrities to us, able to move between cliques, welcome by most. But in the late eighties with the black gangs coming in, the original white and Mexican residents banded together, a bizarre hybrid of skateboarding, speed-metal-loving, racist cholo rockers. I guessed they’d taken their name from the band Suicidal Tendencies, but it seemed pretty square to ask.

In addition to joining a gang, my childhood pal had become a drug dealer, and a rather successful one judging by the truck we were in; the Impala and the Jet Ski parked in his mom’s driveway next to the van he’d bought her; and the impressive collection of guns at the apartment he rented for storing his drugs (so that his mom wouldn’t lose her house if he got busted, he explained) and for having sex, because, obviously.

Jamie made several stops at pay phones around town to arrange to pick up cash, which, we learned, was done separately from delivering drugs. At each stop I checked with Dan to see how he was doing, and remarkably, he seemed pretty okay with riding in the bed of an erratically driven truck on drug-dealing errands.

Dan was the half-Jewish, half-Irish son of a lawyer. He had long, curly red hair that hung in his face and made me think of the incredibly handsome lead singer of Simply Red, and thick glasses that did not make me think of the incredibly handsome lead singer of Simply Red at all. Dan was the kind of friend who turned you onto Henry Miller’s books and cool bands like Dinosaur Jr., The Pixies, and Galaxie 500. I assumed he must be losing his mind at this rather extreme introduction to my hometown, but he was being an adventure tourist and taking it all in stride.

Jamie jumped back behind the wheel. “Alright, I’m done doin’ business for now. Let’s go grab Psycho and have some beers.”

“Psycho?” I asked, not sure if we’d be grabbing a human being or some new designer drug.

“Yeah, he’s cool,” Jamie answered.

We pulled up in front of a house I knew well—the home of my childhood friend Eric. We were now on the block I grew up on. “Did Eric change his name to Psycho?”

“What? No, stupid. Psycho just stays here.” Jamie hopped out of his truck and kicked the bushes in front of Eric’s house. A muscular Mexican man climbed out of the bushes groggily, but with quick enough reflexes to catch the case of beer Jamie tossed at his head.

Dan and I were introduced to Psycho. We said hello. He stared at us, hard and without a word.

I decided to cut the tension by knocking on Eric’s door to see if he was around. Eric’s mother, with her thick German accent, recognized me immediately and was excited to see me. “Kees! How are you? Eric, come, it is Kees!” By contrast, Eric, who I hadn’t seen in over five years, since we were kids, greeted me as if we’d seen each other the day before, and every day prior to that. “Hey, what’s up, dude?” he asked, as he walked out the door and past me.

We joined the group now standing around on Eric’s driveway. Seeing Dan drinking day beers with Jamie and Psycho gave me a giggle. I cracked a beer and noticed Psycho glaring at me again.

“Hey Jamie,” he started, his eyes locked on me. “Why we hanging out with a skinhead?”

“Me?” I stammered, looking around for someone to defend me. “No. I’m not a skinhead. I’ve never been a skinhead. I just cut my hair short because it’s hot out, and it’s not even that short. Skinhead? No. No, sir, absolutely not.” As he continued staring right through me, I continued rambling desperately. “I listen to The Cure. Skinheads don’t listen to The Cure. Jamie, tell him, tell him I listen to The Cure.”

Psycho’s attitude toward me did not soften, no matter how much I joked with the group and got laughs from the other three. He kept coming back to: “Why are we hanging out with a skinhead? I’m not cool with hanging out with a skinhead.”

A few cans of beer later and I had the bright idea to just tackle this head on. I attempted to reason with Psycho. I decided to reason … with Psycho.

“Look, Psycho, I grew up here, right on this street. I’ve known these two guys since we were tots. What can I do to prove to you that I am not a skinhead?”

“You want to prove you’re down?”

“Yes! That’s it exactly. Well put. I am down. How can I prove it?”

“Fight me.”

“What?!”

“Fight me. That’ll prove you’re down.”

I was aghast to hear myself answering, “Oh … kay. Let’s fight then, because I’m down …” I think maybe I thought that just agreeing would prove my down-ness without me having to actually go through with it. As it became clear that Psycho was ready to brawl, my sense of self-preservation, which was apparently off daydreaming when the previous words were spoken, kicked in, and I added, “But no hitting in the face or in the nuts, deal?”

“Yeah, sure,” a man named Psycho who lived in a bush agreed, as I prepared to fight him.

We squared off, fists up. I jabbed and he took the hit like I imagine a cinder block might. He threw a punch and I got my shoulder in front of it to block. My shoulder screamed in pain and informed the rest of my body it was on its own from here on out. I jabbed again, and again did no damage. We circled around each other exchanging punches, feeling each other out, and probably giving me impressive bruises on both arms.

Then I got my shot. Psycho threw a punch and I managed to not only dodge it, but to catch his right arm between my chest and my left arm. I pushed up with my forearm against his elbow, locking his arm between my forearm and my armpit. With my right I started driving uppercuts into his ribs with everything I had. I punched him so many times and with such force that I was sure he was done. I can only imagine that if I’d been receiving these same punches my ribs would be cracked in several places. When I let go of his arm it was an act of mercy. I let go so that he could drop to the ground, and maybe receive help, some ice from Eric’s kitchen at least, perhaps a ride to the emergency room. I hoped he would not need an ambulance.

Psycho did not drop. He took his arm back, staying perfectly upright, and stared at me. Then to my absolute terror, he smiled. He smiled for the first time that day and said, sarcastically, “Ouch!” He punched me in the chest so hard I hit the ground. As I lay there gasping for breath he said the most beautiful three words I’d ever heard: “Yeah, he’s down.”

I was down. It was true in at least two senses of the word. Jamie was laughing hard as he helped me up and handed me a beer. Then he decided this was too much fun to miss out on.

“I want to fight you now!”

I’d beaten Jamie up many times when we were kids. I understood him wanting a chance to be on the other end, and in fact I was feeling a bit of the same after the humiliating beating I’d just taken and I idiotically agreed to fight him.

“Same rules. No hitting in the face and no hitting in the balls.”

We squared up, fists raised. I jabbed. Jamie dodged and punched me hard in the nuts. I hit the ground a second time. “There ain’t no rules in fighting, bitch.” He helped me to my feet again and again handed me a beer, laughing cheerily.

I was done fighting for the day.

Psycho now had his eye on Dan. “Hey, I don’t know you. You down?”

Dan then earned my eternal respect as he calmly responded, “Yes, Psycho,” the moniker sounding unnatural coming from his mouth. “I would of course love a chance to prove that I’m down, and I definitely am, but I can’t fight you because I’m Jewish.”

Not, “I’m Jewish and we’re not allowed to fight on Saturday” or anything like that, just “I’m Jewish.” Which, delightfully, had the effect of eliciting a bewildered stare followed by, “Yeah, this dude’s down.” Psycho put his arm around Dan. More beers were drunk.

We went by Jamie’s apartment after switching vehicles so that everyone could enjoy the relative safety of a seat belt as we sped erratically over to the “office” to grab some weed. He had refrigerators full of marijuana, more weed than I’d ever seen in one place.

Dan was doing a great job of “When in Rome,” handling Jamie’s guns and admiring his vast collection of pornography.

Jamie had some more friends he wanted to introduce us to. We made a swing through a fast-food drive-through and then drove out to the middle of a large, empty field for a small, impromptu party. Dan had a fancy new pipe with a resin catcher and various tools built into it, which he was proud to show off and pass around as we all got very high while the sun set.

I started wondering what I’d be like had I stayed in Corona. All my old friends were now thugs. Of course, even when I lived here I was the geek of the group. I was pretty good with my fists and got in more than my share of trouble, and I was a terrible student with the poor grades to match, but I ended up in different classes from my neighbors’ when I tested my way into classes with titles like Advanced and College Prep. I figured this would have moved me away from this clique that I now couldn’t imagine ever fitting in with. Then Richard and Miguel showed up. They were artists, and we had a good time talking about our favorite music and painters and doing some stoned philosophizing. These guys were smart and gentle, sensitive guys with a wonderful curiosity about the world, but as we exchanged stories it became clear that they both led violent lives as Suicidals. Being smart, being sensitive, and being creative don’t necessarily save you from being a member of your community, and if that community goes to war, you’ll most likely be taking your poetic ass off to war.

I looked at Dan laughing and joking as he smoked with these guys, a part of my new life in Sacramento seeming to fit okay with my old life in Corona.

Then Dan noticed that his fancy new pipe was no longer being passed around, was nowhere to be seen in fact. He asked if anyone had it and the “Nos” were defensively abrupt. Richard, Miguel, and I helped him look on the ground around where we were standing, but this was just for show. The other guys stood silently and watched us look. We all knew the pipe was in someone’s pocket, and everyone knew that Dan was powerless to do anything about it.

It made me sad that I also was not going to do anything other than pretend to look for it. Not that him losing his silly pipe was such a tragedy, but it hurt to see that to his new friends, who he seemed so happy to be able to hang with, he was and would remain an outsider, and weak, worthy of no respect. They blatantly stole right in front of him, and what really stung is that I let them.

I didn’t feel like hanging out anymore. I told Jamie I needed to get back to my brother’s place before he put the kids to bed. The good-byes were subdued and uncomfortable. Once back at my brother’s house, and out of earshot of Jamie, Dan asked me, “Did they steal my pipe?”

“Yeah, Dan, of course they did.”

A few months later I was back in Corona, without Dan this time. Jamie invited me to a punk show in a storage space. I invited my brothers, James and Erick, to come along. The show was great and we were all having a good time. A few guys were trying to start a pit and I jumped in to help. The next thing I knew, someone was punching me. He wasn’t great at punching. He was bad enough at it that while he was punching I was able to open up a conversation, “Woah! What’s up? Why are you hitting me?”

“YOU SLAMMED INTO ME, MAN!”

“Um, yeah. This is a slam pit … at a punk show.”

I had just made up my mind to start swinging back when I started getting hit from other directions, by people who were better at it. My brothers saw me being mobbed and jumped in. Jamie caught what was going on, and the Suicidals swarmed into the fray. One of them pulled out a gun, which he held in the air. Everyone stopped then, including the band, and someone announced that “some bitch” had called the cops. Two factions stood facing each other for a few tense seconds: the Suicidals plus three Jensen brothers on one side, and the people who I would later find out were O.C. Skins (the O.C. standing for Orange County) on the other. These skins looked Hispanic to me and they didn’t have shaved heads; in fact, half of them had long hair, which confused me as to how they were “skinheads.” But there was also an Orange County gang called The Nazi Lowriders, and I began to realize Southern California had its own logic that I was no longer in sync with. As sirens were heard and word spread that cops had arrived, everyone began moving toward their cars.

With a combination of alcohol and adrenaline coursing through me, I invited one of the officers to fellate me. My little brother, James, apologized to the cop and promised he was taking me home to sober up, and I got away with it, which surely had nothing to do with us being white guys.

Once in the car, Erick said with a laugh, “Well, congratulations Keith, you’re a Suicidal.”

“What? No I’m not.”

“They all jumped in for you. If you’re out somewhere and they show up and some shit goes down, and you don’t jump in, they’ll kill you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah man, I think you don’t need to go out when you come down to visit.”

James laughed, “Ha! You’re a Suicidal.”

I was the artsy weirdo in the family, not exactly the most likely of us five brothers to end up a gang member. Hell, I was the only one of us without any tattoos.

I took Erick’s advice and stuck close to his place when visiting Corona the next few times. I haven’t seen Jamie again since that night.

James did see him some years later. The way I heard it, through snippets of gossip, it was when Jamie moved up to dealing and using heroin—becoming increasingly unstable and paranoid—that he ended up in prison. After he got out, James ran into him at a backyard BBQ where Jamie was grilling it up. He had his shirt off and in addition to his Suicidal tats he had prison tattoos, including a large swastika, marking his affiliation with a white supremacist gang.

James said hello, made small talk. He felt like Jamie had his head on pretty straight. He felt optimistic that Jamie would stay out of prison. Then he asked about the tats. “What’s up with the white power shit?”

“That’s called surviving in prison when you’re a pretty, blue-eyed man,” Jamie explained.

“I get it. But shouldn’t you cover that up here?” James asked, looking around at the ethnically diverse crowd in the backyard waiting for burgers and dogs to be ready.

“Nah man. They know I was in. They know what’s up.”

And this seemed to be true, as a black man waiting on the burnt meat gave a laugh at their conversation.

Every now and then I get curious and try to track down my old friend. I check Facebook and search his name on Google. My brothers are the only people I’m still in touch with who knew him, and they haven’t heard word of him since the BBQ. I imagine our lifestyles continue to diverge.

Am I a Suicidal? I go out now when I visit Southern California with no problem. I’ve even been to punk shows, but I didn’t recognize anybody there, and nobody there recognized me. Maybe sometime before I die I’ll get a “Suicidal” tattoo somewhere on my body that stays hidden by clothes, and I’ll tell no one. After all, I earned that shit. I proved I was down.

I’m Suicidal.