Life and Death of a Drinking Teen-Ager : Family, Friends Mourn the Loss of Youth ‘Most Likely to Succeed’

Nobody could get mad at Mario Navarrete. Irritated, yes. He was a kid, after all, 18 and prone to dumb things like staying out too late or the occasional smart-aleck remark. But he was a chubby-cheeked charmer with a sweetness that could disarm even the most macho tough guy.

He was one of those people who seemed to have everything going for him: bright, a natural leader, good athlete, an unusually talented musician and artist. He was the kind of person, his high school principal said, you’d expect to be named most likely to succeed. He grew up in an old-fashioned nuclear family: mother, father, older brother and sister, even a dog and cat. His father was an architect, his mother a homemaker. Nice people, everyone said, who obviously loved and supported Mario.

Yet Mario Navarrete drank too much, way too much. Not just a couple of beers now and then. No, Mario drank to get drunk. His family, friends and teachers all knew this and it mystified them. But Mario wasn’t an ugly drunk. If he showed up high at home, it was only to raid the refrigerator, then sleep it off. And he never showed up drunk at school.

Early on the morning of Nov. 12, Mario Enrique Navarrete was found dead, face down on the floor of his family’s garage in Echo Park. The county coroner’s office has not yet issued its findings, but his family suspects an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Not suicide, though, they’re convinced. Just happenstance, the wrong combination of things in his body.

In the greater scheme of life and death in Los Angeles County, Mario Navarrete will be just another statistic for this fiscal year. Maybe to compare to the coroner’s statistics for 1981-82 when 17 youths between 10 and 19 died of alcohol and drug overdoses, or for 1982-83, when 12 died.

A Hard Loss

But to his family, friends and the surprisingly large number of people whose lives he touched, the death of Mario Navarrete is a hard loss. What hurts most is the sense of frustration and helplessness felt by those who cared for him. That’s why a scholarship in Mario Navarrete’s name, for a boy or girl with his same potential, has been established at Wilshire West School in Santa Monica, where he was graduated in June. And that’s why Mario Navarrete’s teachers, family and friends say they want to talk.

For even now, they say, they’re not sure what they could have done to make things turn out differently.

. . . Although Mario does well in his academic work and relates well with his peers, he is preoccupied with existential and spiritual concerns. His sense of self is closely linked with death and depression . . . It is crucial that Mario’s link with depression and drugs not be overlooked at this time.

--Mid-year counseling report,

Dec. 15, 1981, by Mark Mitock,

director of Wilshire West School

It’s minutes before 9 a.m. on the Monday after what’s come to be known as that Tuesday, the day Mario died. For his former classmates at Wilshire West School, life goes on. There was a football game on Friday and now, a handful of teen-agers are standing in front, talking and smoking as they wait for the school’s weekly assembly to begin.

An L-shaped collection of classrooms squeezed around a smaller than half-sized basketball court on a rundown residential street in Santa Monica, Wilshire West School is small, private and state-accredited. Its program covers grades 7 through 12 in a therapeutic

setting for what founder-director Mark Mitock, 40, calls “youths at risk.”

It was at Wilshire West that Mario was allowed to bloom. Comfortable in the intimate, family-like environment--37 students and a faculty of 11--he made good grades and consistently behaved at a 5, the highest ranking on Wilshire West’s behavior scale. His art and music talents were appreciated. He was needed, and so developed into an athlete and a school leader. Twice he was named Wilshire West’s “Student of the Year,” an award voted by the school’s staff.

Indeed, as people talk about Mario--about his attraction for things mystical, his passion for hawks (many said it was eagles) and Indian lore, how on Halloween and on nature field trips he’d paint his face like an Indian--it would seem that what might have classified him as an oddball at most large high schools only made him special at Wilshire West.

“He was very precocious,” Mitock said. “There was a certain spirituality about him that was endearing, yet frightening. It served to separate him from everyone else. His (alcohol and drug) abuse, I think it was more of a coping mechanism (than peer pressure).

“There was something so special about him, just in the way he always managed to right himself. He never fell over the edge. It was never a matter of him cracking up the car or being drunk and disorderly. . . . This sense of being that he had, it was as if he stood among us--but was not of us.”

Mitock is haunted by Mario’s death. A marriage, family and child therapist who founded the school in 1972, he has seen plenty of mixed-up kids. And while they’re all different, there’s also a pattern, he said, heading back from the assembly to his office in a trailer on the edge of the school grounds.

‘Resistive Behavior’

“There’s usually a history of resistive behavior, a lack of respect for authority, some drug use, poor grades, poor attendance, a lack of focus that goes beyond the usual adolescent search for identity. The student may be on probation. They’re at risk--academically, socially, emotionally. In order for them to make it, they need someone to look at what’s going on with them.

“On a larger campus, these kids can fake it. But on a small campus like ours, you can feel it if someone’s having a bad day.”

Mario Navarrete wasn’t much given to bad days. Rather, Enrique Navarrete would explain several nights later at the family’s two-bedroom home near downtown Los Angeles, the idea of enrolling his son at a school like Wilshire West was to catch Mario before he got into serious trouble. Already he’d had to repeat eighth grade because he’d missed so many classes and he was playing around with drugs.

Those first weeks at Wilshire West, back in 1981, Mario was angry and distrustful, Mitock and the Navarretes said. But the intimate, structured environment worked. The weekly counseling (in addition to that on an as-needed basis) seemed to be effective. And indeed, except for Mondays, when Mario was regularly hung over and missed school--the truancy problem diminished, Mitock said. For the next four years, Mario would either ride in with his father who worked in Santa Monica, or, more often, would make the 25-mile commute by bus.

He continued, however, to drink.

Mitock shook his head and sighed. “We are people who teach the need for people to take responsibility for their own behavior. Mario always felt he could beat the odds, that he could keep the hobbyhorse going.

“I think he experimented with all drugs, but alcohol was his drug of choice.”

It wasn’t easy, talking like this. Mitock paused, his manner thoughtful, then continued:

‘Looking for a Meaning’

“He was always looking for a meaning, a meaning to life. But he was looking outside himself. Like his fascination with eagles. He couldn’t understand that the meaning of life is within you. He had this need to manipulate his external environment.

“I guess what this whole story represents to me is that you can never be too cautious about seeing

kids in trouble. But, I’ll tell you, it was never like this boy was going to kill himself if we didn’t do something. He came by the week before his death, just to say hello.

“I guess the reality is that he always thought of himself as dying, when we thought about all he had to live for.”

It was a horrible nightmare for Cruz Elena and Enrique Navarrete. They could talk about Mario, how he was always a rebel who dressed differently and liked different music than their other children. They could relate almost dispassionately their experiences with assorted counselors and advisers pre-Wilshire West who generally told them that drug and alcohol use was normal among teen-agers these days, and their best bet might be to kick Mario out of the house.

They could look at themselves, this ordinary middle-class, church-going family--nobody smoked, nobody really drank. “It’s weird, isn’t it?” Sonia Navarrete, Mario’s 23-year-old sister, said, laughing ruefully. And as frustrated, as angry as they all got at Mario, there was never any violence. There was never even any yelling, said Sonia, “just a lot of talk.”

But there were also moments this particular evening when eyes would mist, when memories of Mario’s sweetness took over.

That’s what Cruz Elena Navarrete, 45, wanted to remember. “He was always so protective of me. One night when the slasher was still in the news, Enrique was working and the other children were out. Mario, he was supposed to go to a party. But he left, then came back and told me, ‘Mom, you’re more important than any party.’ ”

And at the rosary and the funeral, she added, her manner suddenly proud--there were more than 600 people at each. They didn’t know Mario knew these people. It made them feel good: the Filipino family who told of Mario stopping by for dinner every now and then, the paraplegic whom he occasionally visited, the lady at his job (at a local hardware store) who told how Mario advised her like a brother.

Later, while Enrique Navarrete, 52, held her hand, she recounted hour by hour everything that happened or was said that last night until they found him in the morning and tried to resuscitate him.

Sat Close on a Couch

The Navarretes sat close together on a couch in the living room; Sonia, a dental assistant, and Armando, 21, a mobile disc jockey, at their feet. Sonia’s son, Michael, 6, cuddled against his grandmother. The room had doubled as a bedroom for Mario and Armando; Mario’s trophies from Wilshire West filled the fireplace mantel. One of his paintings hung on a wall by the dining table.

Enrique Navarrete did most of the talking. It’s he who’s feeling the guilt, wondering what he could have or should have done. (He was away the night of Mario’s death, having flown to Niagra Falls on business.) If there’s one thing he feels good about, it’s Wilshire West. “They gave him so much love and understanding there. We had to pay (nearly $500 a month on the school’s sliding-fee structure. Full tuition is $8,700 a year). But it was worth it. They did a heck of a job. Mark (Mitock) said it wasn’t enough. But I was satisfied. Mario

was too. He missed the school.”

The drugs--that was like another life, another set of friends. Older friends, Mrs. Navarrete said, “26 and 30.”

“He’d come home at night after doing some drugs and I’d want to beat him up,” Navarrete said. “I talked to him, but I just couldn’t get anything through his head. But I never hit him. I thought if I hit him, he won’t know the next morning why or what happened.”

Navarrete refused to sign the paper for a driver’s license unless Mario gave up drinking. “I told him, ‘I don’t want you to drink and kill some innocent person.’ You know,” he added, “he never went after the license and he didn’t bug me anymore.”

‘Grow Out of Drinking’

Armando said he and his brother weren’t very close but that Mario always told him he’d “grow out of the drinking.” Sonia Navarrete looked into placing Mario in a hospital treatment program, but was told he had to come willingly. Enrique Navarrete said he talked with people at Alcoholics Anonymous and was told the same thing, that Mario had to decide on his own.

“I guess I thought he’d get over it,” the father said. “Maybe I just put a blindfold on. I’d get angry and he’d walk away. He just didn’t want to hear it. And if I used force, I worried he might just leave.”

And that was the last thing the Navarretes wanted. For all the grief and all the worry, Enrique Navarrete said, “we loved him. And he was our responsibility. We couldn’t kick him out.”

It must have been Craig Rosenblatt’s first or second day at Wilshire West when he met Mario. That was a year or so ago. “I was a new kid, standing around just watching, and he started talking to me, getting me involved. I liked him,” Rosenblatt said, leaning back on the worn sofa in the school counselors’ office.

Rosenblatt, 16, of Mar Vista and Bobby Rochholz, 15, of Culver City were pretty good friends with Mario--as these things go. Geography--most of Wilshire West’s students come from all over the city--makes it hard for them to get together on weekends. And Mario was a moody guy; friendly, but still hard to really know. Still, Rosenblatt and Mario used to get together after football games and once Rosenblatt even got over to Echo Park for a night of partying.

Rochholz couldn’t remember how he’d met Mario. It was at least two years ago. They’d played sports together. “But I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, Mario was an alcoholic. Though he hid it pretty well.”

Talking about Mario was easy for Rosenblatt. He remembered how Mario would come up with names for everybody, like his counselor, ‘Amazing David’ Dawson. And the tattoos. Getting Mario to draw a tattoo on you was a really big thing.

Rosenblatt thought some more: “If he got mad, he’d get off (calm down) real quick. He wouldn’t pick a fight just to show anger. Usually, he’d slam a door and leave, sit alone for a while, then come back and apologize. Mostly he got along with everybody. He was like a peacemaker. And if he liked you, he liked you--whether anybody else did or not.”

Rochholz said he thought Mario drank “to hide his feelings,” but admitted he wasn’t sure. He’d talked to Mario about his drinking, Rochholz said. “He always said he could handle it, the usual thing.” Mario even went to an anti-drinking meeting with him, he added. “I think he found it interesting. But

. . . I guess Mario was the kind of person who had to find everything out the hard way.”

Mario Navarrete talked to Craig (Buck) Johnson and David Dawson. Johnson, 33, was Mario’s freshman counselor and worked with him off and on during his years at Wilshire West. He also coached him at sports, taught him science and repaired benches with him during the year Mario had a job as school handyman. Dawson, 41, who’s now a chemical dependency counselor for Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital, was the drug counselor at Wilshire West. He’s also a reformed alcoholic.

Gregarious and affable, Johnson thinks about Mario: how he took to scuba diving, how they’d talked about Mario coming up and working on the ranch Johnson wanted to buy in Ojai. They talked about a lot of things: girl problems, “not sexual, just dealing with them,” this whole business of growing up. But why he drank, why he hurt--if indeed that’s why he drank--Johnson just doesn’t know. “Maybe if we knew why he was hurting, things

might have been different . . . I don’t know if he knew.”

Dawson talked to Mario the Thursday before that Tuesday. “He was unhappy because of his inner turmoil, low self-esteem, because he was short. . . .”

Dawson sighed. Were the whys really that important? What was important was that Mario was an alcoholic and he wasn’t doing anything about it. “He called me ‘Amazing David’ and you know why? I’d walk up to him on a Monday or Tuesday (after a weekend of heavy drinking) and tell him how he felt. It’d blow him away that I could do it.

“I’d tell him, ‘you can’t hear until you hear, you can’t change if you just keep on going.’ He went to two AA meetings. But he wouldn’t tell me if it hit home. That would have been conceding. There’s a difference between admitting a problem and accepting it. Mario admitted, but he didn’t accept.

It hits hard when a classmate dies. You think it could be you. At least for a while.

It may hit parents even harder. They know it could have been their child. And the possibility lingers like an obsessive dream.

“I don’t think Mario was unique,” said Kathy Entrekin, who’s had two of her three children at Wilshire West School. “These kids are like all adolescents. They’re part child, part adult. And no matter what we do--love, teach, hug them--if they want to go and try drugs or drink, they’re just going to. And you hope they’re eventually going to figure right from wrong. And hopefully because you’ve been there.”

It looks like her children are going to make it, she said. Her daughter, who graduated with Mario last year, is studying to be a beautician. Her son, who suffers from dyslexia and has had some tight calls with drugs, is now working in construction.

“Aside from the fact that he’s sometime careless, he wants to make it. He wants to survive. He wants to be a millionaire,” she said with a laugh. “But I tell him, it’s one day at a time. You’re never safe.

“And I guess that’s the message all parents should get from Mario’s death. You’re never safe.”