The Golden Gate Bridge is America’s foremost suicide destination.

The first suicide off the bridge was a WWI veteran who appeared to be out for a stroll until he told a passerby, “This is as far as I go.” That was three months after the bridge was opened; it was still in its infancy. Sometimes I wondered: If that man had stayed home and stuck his head in an oven instead, would it have changed the bridge’s destiny? Without his precedent, would the next person and the next have reconsidered, until it was understood that jumping off the Golden Gate just wasn’t done? There are other bridges in America that are as accessible and potentially fatal but have virtually no history of suicides, apparently because it just didn’t become a tradition.

Psychologists know there is a contagious aspect to suicide-not merely the destructive impulse itself, but also the where and the how of it. In Japan, they’ve had to close public attractions because they’ve become magnets for suicides. One person jumps into a volcano and more people get the idea. In other countries, the authorities intervene. In America, land of the individual destiny, not so much.

Cops who try to prevent suicides up here will tell you that they’ll see a pedestrian with that end-it-all look and ask them if they’re thinking of jumping. The pedestrian denies it and the cop has to take their word for it and move on. Then they’ll look back and the guy is just gone. It’s that quick. You don’t even hear anything. I know, I’ve seen it, too.

I asked a patrolman once how he recognized someone with the suicide look. He told me, “You’ll know it when you see it.” And I do. It’s in what they’re not looking at. Unlike the tourists, they’re not looking at the city skyline or the Marin headlands. They’re looking at the water. Or at nothing, because all their attention is directed inside, replaying the past and seeing the bleak endless nothing of the future.