Being part of a subculture isn’t just about having the right look, going to the right events, or rubbing elbows with the right people. It’s also about having amassed a respectable number of dead friends before turning 35. All the rare first press records and Sonic Youth tote bags in the world won’t help you establish scene cred if someone finds out most of your friends are alive and well, which is exactly what happened to local Trader Joe’s employee, Donovan Headrick.
When a coworker shows up late for their shift hungover, smelling like cigarettes, and wearing the same threadbare Hüsker Dü t-shirt day after ever living day for three months, you just assume this person is an ally who has also lost at least eight close friends due to unnatural causes. Who could have known the same guy sporting a raccoon tail keychain on his pants would be revealed as a complete poser with not a single dead friend to his name?
Finding out the closest thing Headrick had to a dead friend was an uncle who died from a peanut allergy 15 years ago was a slap in the face to anyone who considered him a legitimate scenester. How are his peers supposed to commiserate over their friend who died from autoerotic asphyxiation while he’s sitting next to them at the bar pouring one out for his grandpa who died of old age surrounded by friends and family? That’s just twisted.
He has a pet rat named Ellios after Ellio’s pizza, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t even think pet stores allowed people to purchase rats unless they could prove at least two of their friends had died from early-onset cirrhosis or gout. No one blames him for his friends not being dead, but everyone is certainly feeling misled. It’s like finding out the sweet old lady who lives next door to you spends her weekends picketing planned parenthood.
It’s tragic to think a 33-year-old with ties to the arts and music scene never had the chance to boost his social capital and cash in on pity points by having a close friend die from drugs, suicide, or violence. Some people just can’t catch a break.