the town where everyone dies young or goes quietly crazy.

i. died because she had a hole in her heart (the size of her heart)

b.b. died and b.g. had to have his face reattached when their car slammed into oncoming traffic. b's body was found halfway down the cliff, still smiling.

c.'s girlfriend from the bakery suddenly stopped breathing one night.

j. died in a car on a side street in berkeley. there's a song about him on the first rancid record.

l. died a month after her second baby was born. the cancer spread from her stomach to her brain and i didn't recognize her with all her hair chopped off. she is buried next to isidro "sid vicious" yanez.

m. died in prison.

b. can't be found.

e. came back home to live with his mother.

j. walked down union street dressed in a sheet holding a candlabra convinced he was king tut. he gave me all his this mortal coil records before he went away.

j. and i joke we are going to write a book about this. we laugh but underneath, we are counting months and years and wondering how we got away with merely living.