Forbes “P-nut” Swisher carried a declaration of devotion in a tattoo on his arm: “Ain’t no woman in the world like my mama Denise.” And after Swisher, 18, was shot to death in a street shootout in St. Petersburg, Fla., on May 31, his mother, Denise, memorialized her second son the same way.
“Seven of us got pictures of P-nut tattooed on our arms,” Denise Swisher says. “We just wanted to let him know he’s still with us. Every time I look down at my arm, I see him.”
P-nut Swisher, who grew up in the Midtown neighborhood, was the tenth of 12 homicides this year in St. Petersburg. Denise Swisher gave her son a traditional burial at the 58th Street South Woodlawn Memory Gardens cemetery. His gravesite is waiting for a headstone. Heart-shaped silver balloons lie in the surrounding grass and a plastic pinwheel spins in the breeze. A short letter, signed, “Loving You Always, Momma,” marks his spot.
But on the streets and in the homes of American’s urban neighborhoods, like the Midtown area, memorials to the fallen walk with the living – on their bodies, their clothes and their cars, in cyberspace and music.
Loved ones wear “RIP” T-Shirts, stamped with portraits of the deceased above the dates of birth and death. One honoring P-nut features a large Planters Mr. Peanut.
Cars coast down the streets, bearing witness in fading white shoe polish: “RIP Mike-Mike.”
MySpace pages flash and scroll with shout-outs, like this one posted July 2 for P-nut Swisher. “i know u cant read dis … but i was just thinking bout u the otha day i know u watchin ova me i love u and i miss u brudda!!!”
Local rap artists compile CD tracks spitting lyrics in praise of the dead: He was somebody’s homeboy. He was somebody’s brother. He was somebody’s father. Someone was his mother. We’re gonna miss you. We’re gonna mourn you. Until the day that, we can come join you.
These populist urban memorials are a way of coping with deaths that makes no sense, says Brian De Vries, associate professor of gerontology at California State University at San Francisco.
People expect death as a part of old age, but when young people die, it creates confusion.
“It pushes us to thinking about more relevant ways of memorializing,” De Vries says. “When young people die before old people, we ask ourselves: ‘How do we make order?’ ”
The Internet has become an especially popular venue for memorials of young people. Use of chat rooms and networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, is helping create new rituals to commemorate loss.
“People use online letters as though they’re communicating with the deceased,” De Vries says. “Somehow through this notion of cyberspace, they feel perhaps they are reaching those lost.”
Weeks after his death, P-nut Swisher still has an active MySpace account, thanks to his best friend Martez “Tez” Green, who was with him when he was shot. MySpace leaves accounts open unless a subscriber cancels, allowing creators to live on indefinitely. Friends write frequent messages, as though they are still hanging with P-nut in the streets.
Tattoos are becoming a standard way to honor the dead with permanent and public displays of grief. Denise Swisher got two tattoos soon after her son died. The one on her right forearm is a picture of his face. Her right shoulder carries the words: “RIP P-nut.”
“Instead of carrying around of a picture of him in my pocket, I carry a picture on my arm,” she says.
Tez Green wears an “RIP” T-shirt bearing several pictures of his friend. His right forearm is now stamped with P-nut Swisher’s portrait, and this message: “T-P Still Carryin’ Me.” T-P, as in, Tez and P-nut. Anthony “Digga” Dixon, another close friend, got a tattoo of an angel looking over the city and this banner: “RIP P-nut.”
Tattoo memorials aren’t the exclusive domain of modern, urban America. The ritual was employed in the United States as early as the Civil War, says Terisa Green, an archaeologist, freelance writer and author of two tattoo books from Hollywood, Calif. Green, 45, who has a blue-and-green dragon tattooed across her back, says it’s the permanence that makes tribute tattoos special and significant.
“When you get a memorial tattoo, you are choosing to remember and deal with the pain,” Green says. “It’s a type of permanence saying you’ll never forget. And, truly, you’ll never forget it.”
Putting tattoos in visible places also provides people the opportunity to talk about the significance and remember the lives behind those portraits.
“Getting a tattoo may be painful, but a lot of people feel the pain of the grief is far worse,” Green says.
Rapper Dana Harrington, a Midtown native who performs under the name Short Fuse, recently produced a CD of seven songs by local rappers filled with tributes to three of most recent victims of gun violence in St. Petersburg. The CD is being distributed in the neighborhood, and thumps songs about Forbes “P-nut” Swisher, Michael “Mike-Mike” Smith and Antonio “Pacman” Roberts.
Denise Roberts lost her only son over a year ago. Kids looked up to Pacman, calling him a leader of the neighborhood. Since the 20-year-old was killed in a drive-by shooting, Roberts has kept him living on her body with five different tattoos.
“Looking at them just eases my mind sometimes,” she says.
Interested in more? Click here to see the multimedia project, “Mother’s love, mother’s anguish.”
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