<i> ‘Don’t have kids, please.’</i> : Friends in Life, Death : Tragedy: Crash claims three inseparable companions on their way home from weekend visit with young buddies in Arizona.

They met in kindergarten, dubbed themselves the “Loud and Live Mafia” at age 10 and then, as teen-agers, met for lunch every day at a local deli even though they attended different high schools.

Now, three of the 10 young men who have always been best buddies are gone, killed when their pickup truck flipped on a desolate Arizona highway as they returned from a weekend visit with their childhood playmates.

Funeral services are scheduled at 1 p.m. today for Babak (Bob) Dogmetchi, 20, and Arash Ghazinoor, 19, first cousins who immigrated here from Iran in 1981 and grew up as close as twin brothers. Ryan Lemmon, a 19-year-old baseball star who was driving at the time of the crash, will be buried this weekend.

“Everything I’ve ever done, I did with them. Every story that I have, ever, is about them,” said Christopher Peake, 19, the only survivor of the crash. “It’s not like we just hung out once or twice--it’s like 95% of the days since I was 5 years old.

“I don’t remember ever not seeing them every day,” added the former football player, whose left shoulder sports an “LL” tattoo representing the group’s nickname.

With ugly cuts on his head, one eye and both legs, Peake slumped on a couch in his parents’ living room Tuesday as friends streamed through, bringing him a fast-food lunch, homemade chocolate cake, long hugs and a host of reminiscences about the gang of guys who were like family.

Among the best memories were the most recent: up all Thursday night chatting at Lemmon’s parents’ house in Palm Desert, a Friday-night fraternity party and a long Saturday, filled to overflowing with raucous laughter at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and a Sunday morning breakfast at McDonald’s before hitting the road.

“I just remember I wondered (during the weekend) if it would ever be that good again,” sighed Peake, the only one of the four wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. “I feel really guilty. Everybody’s telling me not to feel that way but I can’t help it.”

The crash occurred about 11:40 a.m. Sunday as Lemmon, driving west at about 65 m.p.h. on Interstate 8 in the 1994 Toyota extended-cab pickup truck that Lemmon’s parents bought him two weeks ago, drifted into the center median, then overcompensated, causing the truck to roll over, said Arizona Department of Public Safety Sgt. Dave Myers.

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Three of the young men were dead when police arrived, he added.

The accident is still under investigation, but police suspect Lemmon may have dozed at the wheel, Myers said, adding that no alcohol was involved.

“This is a real common type accident,” he said. “The highways are long and straight and desolate. Fatigue becomes a factor. (Drivers) drift off the roadway and then become alert again and they attempt to correct it, but typically what happens is it’s an overcorrection and they roll over.”

Peake, who spent the night in an Arizona hospital and required stitches in three places, said he cannot remember any details about the crash. Lemmon had been wearing a seat belt when they started the drive at 10 a.m., but may not have put it back on when he removed his shirt about 20 minutes before the crash, Peake said, adding that Dogmetchi and Ghazinoor were not wearing seat belts so they could spread out and nap in the back seats of the truck.

Shock and horror have gripped the close network of popular athletes and their families as news of the tragic crash filtered back to Irvine. At Woodbridge High School, all three victims’ alma mater, psychologists and counselors set up a grief center. Peake and Lemmon’s parents received a steady stream of well-wishers Tuesday, while dozens of relatives, all clad entirely in black, gathered to mourn at Dogmetchi’s home.

“What can I tell you? The loss of your son--it’s part of your body, everything you have,” blurted Ali Dogmetchi, Babak’s father. “For us, your son is your backbone. I lost my backbone. I lost everything.”

The boys’ mothers and grandmothers wailed, moaning laments in Farsi as younger relatives rubbed their backs, held their hands and tried to give them iced tea and a thick yellow soup.

Shookeh Ghazinoor, Arash’s mother, repeatedly slapped her thighs and forehead, dropped her head between her knees to sob, then wrapped her arms around her shoulders, swaying back and forth.

“I want to die too. I want to kiss them, I want him to give me a hug and hold me, hold me,” she said, hugging herself. “He was a good son, too, such a good son. He filled my life with joy, he was such a good boy. I never, ever had a bad memory, nothing bad.

“Don’t have kids, please,” Shookeh Ghazinoor begged a visitor. “They give you so much love and then they take it away without your knowing. You don’t have any control.”

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Complicating the family’s tragedy is that Ghazinoor’s uncle returned home last week from a three-month hospital stay after a near-fatal automobile accident. At his home, next door to the Dogmetchi’s, a magic-marker banner saying “Welcome Home Pafa” and a deflated Mylar balloon still sat in the living room Tuesday.

“He wonders why he survived and they didn’t,” 21-year-old Amir Larijani, the victims’ first cousin, said of his father. “A week ago it was a celebration--now it’s mourning.”

Only about 10 months apart in age, Babak and Arash have been inseparable since early childhood, relatives and friends said. At Woodbridge High they played on the varsity basketball team together (Dogmetchi graduated in 1992, Ghazinoor in 1993). Both went to UC Santa Barbara, though Ghazinoor was transferring to UC Irvine this year, scheduled to start Monday.

Dogmetchi, aspiring to be a lawyer, was independent and a little picky, Larijani said. Ghazinoor, friends and relatives agreed, was a goofy sports fanatic who made everyone laugh.

Dogmetchi was obsessed with Pearl Jam while Ghazinoor loved the Beastie Boys, and both played their music loud: “You’d basically hear them coming to the neighborhood because they had their radios turned up,” Larijani said.

Though they feel twice the grief, family members said they take solace in the fact that the young men died at the same time.

“Whatever they did in this life, they did together. They’re still together. God just didn’t want them to be separated,” said Laya Dogmetchi, 23, Babak’s sister, who spent part of Tuesday afternoon assembling a collage of photographs for the young men’s funeral this afternoon.

“Every tooth lost, they lost together. Every soccer ball that Bobby kicked went to Arash. Every basketball Bobby threw, Arash caught,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right if one died and the other was here.”

A few miles away, Guy and Marcie Lemmon sat in their son Ryan’s room, staring at baseball trophies and savoring the memories of a late-night heart-to-heart they had with the youngster last Wednesday, the night before he left for his last road trip.

“I think I’ve run out of tears, and then I think of something, and find out I’ve got gallons more,” smiled Guy Lemmon as he thumbed through his son’s scrapbook, filled with college recruitment letters, happy snapshots and personal tributes from friends and family.

Lemmon treasures the recent time he spent with his son: a nine-hour day shopping for the new truck, and then another five hours waxing it last weekend.

“It was not about cars, not about baseball,” he recalled of those conversations. “It was about life, about love, about school . . . about everything.”

Since shortly after he learned to walk, Ryan Lemmon played baseball. He started on the varsity squad at Woodbridge High for four years, holds seven of the school’s statistical records, and in 1993 was voted most valuable player. As a high school junior he went to the walk-on trials for the U.S. Olympic team (he didn’t make it), and until his death he harbored semi-serious dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.

Last year he played at Pepperdine; this fall he returned to Rancho Santiago College to be with a former coach and teammates from Woodbridge.

Vince Brown--who met Lemmon at the batting cages when he was 12, then coached him for two years at Woodbridge--said Lemmon’s dedication and commitment served as an example to the team.

Lemmon never missed the extra batting practice each day at 1 p.m., and adjourned to the gym for a weight workout after most field practices, Brown said.

“Young people believe they’re invincible, and as a coach oftentimes you try to remind them to enjoy and love life and play to the fullest and take advantage of what they have, because it may not be there tomorrow,” Brown said Tuesday. “A lot of them say, ‘Coach, I’ve got forever and ever.’ Now some of them have been reminded that there is no such thing as forever.”