Murder, Poetry and the Life and Death of Abel Garcia

Four days. Eleven homicides in LA County. No one seems sure why the sudden spike in murders has occurred. Maybe it is simply that Joan Didion was right: the devil winds bring out deadly urges in Californians. Or maybe there is no reason at all.

As it happens, I know a little about one of the deaths. I know that on Saturday night, just before midnight, a tall, lanky, 19-year old by the name of Abel Garcia was standing outside his friend’s garage on St. Louis Street in Boyle Heights. The friend, George Ramirez, 20, was standing with him. One of the boys was about to open the garage door, evidently having arrived back from somewhere or other.

Perhaps Abel and his friend had just been to see Abel’s girlfriend, Janae. Or perhaps he and the George were out carousing. But before the two could pull the garage door open and disappear inside, a black car cruised down New Jersey. A gun barrel glinted dully in a car window. Shots were fired. Abel was hit in the chest.

Seconds later, according to an LAPD spokesperson, an officer named Karen Smith, there was another car, a white one, and another gun. More shots. The friend, a 19-year-old, was hit in the head. He died on the pavement. An ambulance took Abel to the hospital.

The police believe the shooting was gang-related. . Someone told me it was a case of mistaken identity. But then again, maybe not. Abel was not a gang member. But he was a tagger, or had been anyway. There were times he had written on walls for the thrill of it. I know that much. There is a lot I don’t know.

I mostly know that Abel died.

I also know that Abel was smart. I know that he was fascinated by politics and that he really, really didn’t like George Bush. I know that he got a kick out of writing poetry about his political views, which tended at times toward the slightly conspiratorial. I know that Abel was fierce in his passions. I know that he loved a very pretty, smart, deep-hearted girl, and she loved him back. I know that he was beginning to develop skill as a poet. I know that, although shy, he discovered he was good at performing his poetry.

I remember the first time I saw him read in front of an audience. It was at an event held at Self Help Graphics a year and a half ago. He got up on the stage, his face almost entirely obscured by his oversized hoody sweatshirt, which he had yanked down over his forehead as a toddler might. It seemed for a moment, that Abel wouldn’t read at all. But then he began, and it turned out he was a natural, loaded with rhythm and charisma. Abel brought down the house.

I have mentioned before that, together with novelist Leslie Schwartz, I was the director of a program called the Homeboy Stories Project. (I wrote about it here and here.) The general idea of the program (that began in the Fall of 2006 and finished up in the summer of 2007) was to work with a group of young inner city men and women whose voices were rarely heard, and to help them bring their words, thoughts and stories into the light in the form of creative writing (mainly poetry) and oral histories. Most of those who participated in the program were at one time involved with gangs or, in the case of some of the younger writers, they were skirting the edge of the gang world. Leslie taught the poetry part of the program. I organized the oral histories, which were compiled by the poets interviewing one another.

Abel was one of our poets.

It was Leslie who called to tell me that he’d been killed. “I’ve been crying all day,” she said.

I still haven’t cried. I got violently ill instead.

Maybe it’s the same thing.

Late last night, Leslie emailed me the poem of Abel’s that she likes the best. You can read it below.

Imagine This

I am whatever I imagine.
I desire, I admire
but i am trapped in a circle of fire
trapped in my own world, these wires
just deciding to be what i am.
What is my name?
I struggle and still trouble comes
I could be whatever I want

in my own thoughts.
an astronaut, a fire fighter, a cop
or this – a criminal getting caught

It’s my own mind leading me to
my own short timeline
I could be blind and next morning
see the sun shine.

It’s a new day to be.
Again, who I am.
Abel, in vain, to entertain, i could do it
and even more in my brain.
I could be insane, or in pain.
I could heal my sins like the saints

So I am.
A new day to be
Abel G.

Abel Garcia, 6/19/07

Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job is the motto of Homeboy Industries, Father Greg Boyle’s big gang intervention program that, along with PEN USA was one of the project’s sponsors. After the Homeboy Stories project was finished we liked to think that it was also valid to say that sometimes Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Poem.

More often than not, both statements have proved true. Honest work brings self worth. Discovering the existence and value of one’s voice produces hope. And hope heals.

Yet on certain dark days it seems that nothing stops a bullet, period.

Today is one of those dark days.

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Natalie: What do you think your purpose is here on Earth?
Abel: Trying to survive and trying to save as many people as I can.

* from the Homeboy Stories Project