A Suicide in the Neighborhood

Two days ago, one of my neighbors jumped 11 stories from an apartment building three blocks from own apartment. He died, breaking a stone picnic table in the deal. The building houses well over 100 mentally-ill people, many of them disabled military veterans and the residents I spoke with yesterday were badly shaken. Apparently, the man had been released from a psych hospital a week ago. I'll defend anyone's right to kill themselves—we are masters of our own bodies and fates, after all—but it is a sad, and unncessary, dynamic that has a spillover effect on other people.

What's even sadder to me is that my neighborhood has lost one of its great characters. The man, who was tall, used to walk the streets wearing black leather pants and often led his lover, another man who wore a dress and a bell around his waist, by a leash. I always used to take this gay couple as proof that there truly is someone for everyone. Not anymore.