A Californian mourns a childhood friend lost in a changing community

On a recent trip to Inglewood Park Cemetery to visit my best friend Mike, I noticed that his headstone was dirty.

I hadn’t been in for a while and apparently no one else had either. As I cleaned, I surveyed the area around me. At 17, Mike was the youngest person buried there. Most people buried nearby were at least in their 40s when they died. Many, I realized as I looked at the dates, were dead now more than they were alive, their stories traced back to various points in Inglewood’s past.

Beyond the cemetery, I faced the rapidly ennobling present of this place that raised Mike and me. Just across the street from where the old Daniel Freeman Hospital once stood, developers have built luxury apartments too expensive for the average Inglewood resident to afford. Now the horizon is filled with new landmarks: SoFi Stadium, opening in 2020; the forum, renamed in 2022 and now painted red rather than the blue of my childhood; The Intuit Dome, the newest addition, opened in 2024.

The Inglewood that Mike and I knew was built on it. But the cemetery preserves the neighborhood’s full narrative. I made sure to wipe the remaining dirt off Mike’s headstone before I left because I wanted to make sure his life would be remembered in my narrative.

From enemy to friend

How I Met Mike sounds like a crappy Netflix comedy. We both attended Beulah Payne Elementary School at 215 W. 94th Street. I was in first grade and he was in second grade. I can’t remember the specifics of the meeting, but I know it ended in one of those little school fights.

Flash forward three years to when my parents decided to send me to a private school to keep me out of trouble. St. John Chrysostom was less than two miles from Beulah Payne, but it felt like another universe, one I was sure I wouldn’t fit into. Except on my first day I recognized a familiar face. There was Mike with his tawny skin and little widow’s peak.

It turns out that Mike was sent to St. John’s in hopes that it would keep him out of trouble. This time, instead of fighting, we bonded over being two inner-city Mexican kids, different from our mostly black and Filipino private school classmates, who we didn’t think knew a day of “struggle.”

If I was more reserved and internalized, Mike wore his heart on his sleeve and was always ready to take on anyone in the schoolyard. Yin and Yang, we balanced each other out. Mike quickly became more like a brother than a friend. It’s funny to say that our inner children came out when we saw each other since we were both so young then. But none of us had enjoyed many opportunities to be just a kid. I always said my childhood ended at 9 when my brother was diagnosed with leukemia. Mike had to grow up even faster. His mother, who had health problems, died when he was about 7. As long as I knew him, his father was in prison. Since Mike’s parents were out of the picture, we hung out at my place, played video games, and just be.

In different ways

Looking back, it’s easy to see why our lives diverged. Because my father was involved in a life of gangsterism when he was young, he and my mother, both born and raised in Inglewood, were careful to encourage me and my siblings to take a different path. Mike had no such role models in his life.

In the summer of seventh grade, Mike left St. John’s and joined a gang—and I made the painful decision to distance myself from him. Ever since my brother got sick, I had stopped causing trouble. I wanted to show up for my family. I also knew that if I wanted to make something of myself, I had to stay out of this life. Mike understood my reasons and took them in stride. One thing about Mike: He always had my back.

The last time I saw Mike was at the St. John’s Fall Carnival in 2019. We didn’t talk about the fact that we didn’t see each other that much anymore; we already knew why it had to be that way. Underneath it all, we knew there was always only love.

More than statistics

Mike died this spring after being shot near Century Boulevard and South Freeman Avenue.

I now teach high school kids and I know what happened to Mike is an unfortunate reality for many young men like him who grew up in similar circumstances in Inglewood or elsewhere. These children matter, but rarely receive the attention that children from more affluent backgrounds receive. If you search online, the only coverage of Mike’s death is one sentence c Los Angeles Times‘ Homicide report.

Mike was more than a statistic, more than the victim of an urban murder. He was my friend and my brother. When I go to visit him at Inglewood Park Cemetery, I remember the good times we had together. And I find comfort in knowing that in this place inhabited by the dead, but filled with memories, with pain, with the essence of life in this town, Mike remains a permanent part of Inglewood’s history.

This commentary is adapted from an essay created for Plinth Public Square.