That Evening Sun is a photo-journal of life, love and interminable lasting on LA’s Skid Row
by Suitcase Joe
Alfred, known on the streets as Evil, has been a long time affiliate of the Diamond Street Gang, but is no longer an active member. He once made large amounts of money, running drugs and guns for his gang, but eventually that all caught up to him. Things continued to get worse and he lost his wife in a divorce and the custody of his son. He tells me: “I hit a rough patch and lost my kids. I feel like a burden to everyone. I’m ashamed to be seen by my mother.” The wound on his stomach is from when he shot himself with a .45 last November. That was his first attempt at taking his own life. He tells me he’s made a lot of mistakes and with that has come a heavy price. Alfredo has exhausted the generosity of his friends and family and he has no one left to turn to. For the last two weeks he’s been living out of his car in Skid Row where he prefers to be out of sight from everyone. This past Saturday he tried to take his own life again. He got hold of a new gun, sat in his car, turned up the music and put the gun to his head. Luckily a man nearby happened to see this and quickly pounced upon him, wrestling Alfred’s gun out of his hands. The gun went off in the incident, but fortunately no one was shot. Whoever the man was talked to Alfred and calmed him down. He bought him food and alcohol and gave him a few dollars for his drugs (crack). The man told Alfred, he knows he can’t control him doing any of that, but please don’t do this, (referring to his gun), which he said he was going to give him back, but asked him please not to take his life. Alfred didn’t want the gun back. He told the man to keep it. But he told me this of his attempted suicides: “I lived, but I’m not happy to be alive.”
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Suitcase Joe is a Los Angeles photographer who lives anonymously in our amongst. His Instagram page is an important document of our times. @suitcase_joe