These are people who died, died

Author's note: I originally posted this on my old website in the fall of 2006. Friday night, I hung out with my friend Andy (mentioned below), so it felt apropos to re-post it here as I'm beefing up the new site. 

My first-generation iPod bit the dust a few weeks back, but I’ve held off buying a replacement until after the MacWorld Expo, where Apple will probably introduce something cool that I really can’t afford, but lower prices on iPods that I simply can’t afford. In the meantime, I’ve gone without, though I occasionally borrow Sally’s iPod when I go to the gym.

Last week, Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” came up as I chugged away on the elliptical. That song could definitely use some editing, but it’s still catchy, like a more rockin’ version of Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” (or Marky Mark’s early-’90s update of that song). It made me think of my circle of friends at Hoffman Middle School.

I didn’t grow up in the ’hood—just next to it—but three of my friends were dead by the end of sophomore year. A few others dropped out of school altogether later on. One ran away. A few ended up incarcerated. Yet, when my parents insisted I attend a hoity-toity private school instead of the nearby public one with my friends, I couldn’t understand why. Duh.

As I listened to that song, I grew suspicious of my memories. Could my friends have really died? If so, was it how I remembered? I started searching for information online last weekend. Along the way, I found e-mail addresses for two of my friends from middle school, Andy and Chris. I wrote them to see if they remembered things the same way. Sadly, they did.

I didn’t need Andy or Chris’ verification to remember how Darren died. It happened first semester of our freshman year of high school, when I was still close to my Hoffman friends. Darren always ran with a few cliques, seemingly trying on identities to find one that suited him. Through that, he became a friend to everyone, from the smartass skater punks (like me) to the metal kids to the snotty preppies. We shared a similar sense of humor—we’d walk to school singing The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” at top volume—and enjoyed egging each other on. The story of his death went like this: On a Friday in autumn, he took all of his schoolbooks home, stacked them neatly, stood atop them with a noose around his neck, then kicked his feet out. He was still alive when someone found him, though the lack of oxygen had caused significant brain damage. By Sunday night, his parents had taken him off life support—but only after a priest came to absolve him for what the church considered a sin.

I’m not sure how the church would respond to Brandon’s death. He died in an accident our sophomore year when he flipped his car into a bayou near his house. I seem to remember alcohol being a factor, but that may not be the case. Every now and then, our skater crew would head to his house, which had a poorly constructed halfpipe in the backyard. Although I always had a good time joking around with Brandon, he was more of an acquaintance than anything else.

Todd got into a fight at Brandon’s funeral, but he had his own only a couple weeks later. We became good friends in eighth grade, after I persuaded him to take home ec—ahem, “life management skills”—with me. (I’d heard there’d be a lot of girls in the class, the same reason I took French in a city only hours away from Mexico.) In that class, Todd and I made the same skateboard-shaped pillow, and we often skated together after school and on weekends. We’d take the bus to the Skatepark of Houston, we’d skate our neighborhoods, and we’d skate downtown, where security guards constantly hassled us. He made a good partner in crime. After eighth grade, though, I lost touch with Todd, and I heard he had, as Chris put it to me last week, gone “off the deep end.” His death supports that assertion: He was shot breaking into someone’s house. Although no one lived there at the time, Todd and others had vandalized the place before, and this time, the homeowner was waiting. I don’t think he survived long enough to reach the hospital.

Andy told me about people from our extended circle of friends who ended up in jail, at least one of whom supposedly got sent up for homicide. That was news to me, though I didn’t remember those guys too well. But as I dug around online, I discovered yet another deceased friend.

Not only was Beth the first girl I ever kissed, but also my girlfriend for most of eighth grade. She and I were cut from the same sarcastic cloth, though we ran with completely different circles and had no classes together. I broke up with her on the last day of class (nice) and eventually lost touch, though we briefly reconnected sophomore year of high school.

The Eisenhower High School alumni page mentioned only that Beth had left a husband and two children—one 2, the other 7 months. It didn’t say when exactly she died, but gave an address for scholarship donations to be made in her name. I had to know what happened, so I searched the web extensively, eventually uncovering a link to a site called Justice For Juveniles. Someone had posted a blurb mentioning Beth’s married name:

“Please everyone go to Andy Vickery's website www.justiceseekers.com and read the 3/31/05 motion for Bethany Cartwright and that the fact that two courts have rejected Phizer's motions. This woman committed sucide on high doses of Zoloft.”

Another search found these court documents for Cartwright v. Pfizer:

I stared at my monitor in shock, my hand covering my mouth. We hadn’t spoken in 14 years, but that paragraph—particularly the detail about the towel—is so haunting. Each time I think about it—which has been a lot this past week—it just hurts. Besides the inherent tragedy of it all, I’m not sure why it upsets me so much. Maybe it’s because Beth and I battled/battle similar anxiety problems. Maybe it’s because, when my symptoms were at their worst, I considered the same route. It’s probably a combination of factors, including the disconnect I feel with the place I where I grew up.

I couldn’t find much information about Beth online, but Cartwright v. Pfizer is all over the ’net as a landmark case. Because of it, the courts ruled states have the right to put more stringent warning labels on prescription anti-depressants. Like a warning label would have prevented it.

Considering Hoffman drew its students partly from a high-crime, low-income area, I’m sure the death toll from the class of ’90 is higher than my four. But it’s just so bizarre, in the worst way, to have lost four friends, most of them before we graduated high school. Part of me wants to keep investigating, but I don’t think I’d find anything that could explain all of this.