SUICIDE'S SHADOW

If one were to do the senseless thing--to take the path of least resistance, to give it all up for the void--it is easy to see why one might choose to go by leaping from the cliffs at Point Fermin. There is not much in the way of natural beauty in the port town of San Pedro, at the southern end of Los Angeles. Almost everywhere, the views of the Pacific are cluttered by the oil tankers, the container ships, the canneries and the flaming smokestacks that provide the jobs in this working-class town. But at Point Fermin there is a...