"
Click click click click click
Click himself under
Click is used here to draw a parallel between Carter's work and his suicide. The click of the camera is likened to the click which can be heard from a car exhaust - the method by which Carter ended his life.
Carter's suicide occurred in July 1994, only 3 months after his receiving of the Pulitzer prize, and aged only 33. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning after funnelling the exhaust fumes of his car through it's front window. An excerpt from his suicide note reads:
"I'm really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist... depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."
(Ken being Ken Oosterbroek, another member of the Bang-bang club who died a few months earlier, shot in panic by peacekeeping forces in Thokosa Township, South Africa)