A Young Man Is Dead; Does Anyone Care? : Urban scene: A real-life drama amid old Hollywood’s glitz sums up the cruelty of a city of strangers.

A kid is dead. On Saturday, May 15, at approximately 6:45 p.m., a young man jumped from the roof of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. I don’t know his name, age, social standing in the community, race, religion or any of the other labels society puts on us ostensibly to make us more “individual.” All I know is that until Saturday, May 15, 1993, he had been a living, breathing human being.

I didn’t see him jump. Ironically, at the time, I was in the hotel’s Cordoba Room viewing a TV pilot called “Best Wishes,” in which Ringo Starr chooses ordinary people and grants them their life-long wish.

Looking at the mangled configuration under the white sheet on the street, I wondered what his wish would have been. Would getting it have saved his life? We will never know. Nor will we ever know what pushed him literally over the edge.

From where I stood, in the grand lobby of the Roosevelt, not 40 feet from his lifeless body, it didn’t seem as though anyone cared to know.

The GQ couple on the love seat continued to sip their white wine spritzers, she crossing and uncrossing her legs flirtatiously and he running his hand along the side of his hair for the umpteenth time.

An elegant lady in white brushed past me, leaving behind a faint scent of Chloe. She paused, adjusted her white straw hat in the reflection of the glass doors and continued to her destination. I wondered if she’d even noticed the body. Hotel workers, tourists and patrons buzzed in and out, some offering a glance in the direction of the deceased, most offering nothing.

“Should I get a picture of this?” I heard someone ask. I looked around. A red-headed woman had her camera aimed at the lifeless form. Someone else’s hand reached out, brushing the camera from her face: “No. Save the film. Remember, we’ve got Disneyland tomorrow.”

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, three black youths were in my face. “Hey sist’a, what you cryin’ for? He wasn’t no broth’a.” Was he talking to me? I hadn’t realized I was crying. They buzzed away, laughing and slapping palms and saying things like “Man, that’s wack” (whatever that means) and expletives I have no desire to repeat.

As tears continued their race down my cheeks, for one brief moment I gave thought to how ridiculous I must look: One lone black woman, dressed appropriately, if not fashionably, in black and purple, standing in the awesome lobby of the once-grand Hollywood Roosevelt, lamenting the lost life of someone she never knew. Crying for one who “wasn’t no broth’a.”

But then I thought, to hell with them. If more of us cried for the pain, suffering and losses of strangers, there would have been no Rodney King/Reginald Denny beatings. The threat of an adverse trial outcome could not have held this city hostage for more than a year, and racism would be a word found under “inactive” in Webster’s Dictionary.

No one has ever asked me, but if I had the chance to tell them what this country (indeed what this world) needs, I’d simply say: Before we can all learn to love one another we must learn to grieve for each other. For if I cannot feel your pain, I will not invest in your happiness.

I wish that woman had taken the picture. In his death, that kid was trying to say something. I don’t know what. But at least the picture would have been a permanent record that someone had finally cared enough to pay attention.