When I saw him on campus, Jerry still retained his boyish laugh, however. And he thought Hotel Street was a fun place to work. Jerry never complained about the times he admitted he got into bad scraps, about the tense moments in the confrontations he went through. No show da pain, was his motto. It was his version of gaman, the Japanese idea of bearing with adversity. Don't show the enemy that you're hurting, or he'll exploit your weakness. He never showed me his pain, only his funny stories.

So one day, after I ran into him on campus, he called me up out of the blue. He had finished his master's work and was ready to party. "Ey, braddah! Come on down, I got some six-packs all chilled up and ready to go! Let's talk story. . ." Jerry said on the phone. "Shit, Jerry, I'd like to, but I got to get these prints ready for my graduate thesis show. Maybe next time?"

A pause. The low hiss of static on the line.

"Yeah, sure, brah. I just wanted to talk story, like old times. . ." I laughed. "Yeah, Jerry. You were my sempai, my senior student. Those were good fun times."

"Yeah. Maybe next time, huh? Take it easy, then. Maybe next time. . ."

I put the receiver down feeling a little guilty. Other friends mentioned that Jerry's girlfriend had broken up with him and suddenly hitched up with someone else. Maybe he was feeling down and needed someone to talk to. -But I needed to finish my work. And Jerry was tough. He no need talk story like dat.

"I didn't know this was going happen," Mel said. We were eating a light repast on paper plates in the mortuary's reception hall. "A week before, I found Jerry crying to himself in front of his locker. I asked him what was up and he straightened up and acted like it was no big deal. Real macho, you know. Cops aren't supposed to show hurt. He acted okay after that. -Until that night. -Ey, you nevah bring one jacket? I t'ink going rain." I didn't know, and no one else knew, how much the breakup must have affected him. On top of that, he had just gone through a messy court battle because he had been accused of physically mishandling a suspect. Jerry never let on how much he was hurting because he had learned, all to well, not to show the pain. He didn't show it to his enemies, but he also didn't show the pain to his friends, either. Unless, perhaps, the phone call was a last, veiled attempt to reach out. And as a kohai, I had failed him. But how was I to know? There was no way for me to know, of course, and Mel said so, but it didn't lessen any of our collective guilt at our friend's passing.

After Jerry called me, he put the receiver down, downed another bottle of beer, and then took a walk on the North Shore beachfront outside his home with a loaded rifle.

He must have gazed at the moonlight hitting the incoming waves for a while. The beauty of the scene was hard to ignore. Jerry had spent days and nights on those same beaches, diving, boogie boarding, sand boarding, sunning. . . The sands that swirled beneath his toes carried bits and pieces of memories. He must have conjured up images of his high school sports triumphs, his hot dates on the beach, his spearfishing with the old gang, his training in martial arts. Memories must have reached up from the darkness of the sea and encircled seaweed tendrils around his mind. Like clouds that swirled around waiting to pour a summer shower. . . It was a full moon and the tide was coming in. The waves kept coming in, one after another, rolling in on the sand, oblivious to Jerry, to the seasons, to the wind and darkness. Waves knew no season. They just keep rolling in.

There he was, alone with the waves, the clouds caught in the silver light of the night, the unblinking one-eyed moon.

The whispering night lights must have caught the glisten of his well-oiled gun barrel as he put it against his head.