DEVOTED FATHER REMEMBERED BY FRIENDS.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

At heart, his friends said, Brian Bailey was still a farm boy from central Texas who feared God, loved heavy metal music, called women ``ma'am,'' and tooled around town in a Ford half-ton pickup truck.

But when he moved to Los Angeles 18 months ago, Bailey took to his new home immediately. He loved snorkeling at Point Dume and fishing off the Santa Monica Pier, snowboarding in the Sierra, and worshipping at the Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Reseda.

But what Bailey really loved was his $25-an-hour job as a tunneling mechanic for Metro Rail subway contractor Traylor Bros./Frontier-Kemper, friends said.

Every afternoon when he came home from his 6 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift, his face blackened with grime, Bailey would prattle on about his life as a ``lokie'' - one of the men who kept the underground locomotives in working order.

``It was a lot of hard work, but he really loved that job. He loved the people he worked with. And it was good money,'' said his close friend, Diane Ballew.

Bailey, a 36-year-old father of three, was a guy who followed the rules and didn't do stupid things, said his roommate, Joanne Copeland.

Copeland said officials need to fully investigate her friend's death and added that she doesn't believe a new subway is worth human lives.

``I'll walk, personally, to save my friend's life,'' Copeland said.

A crane hoist struck Bailey in the head and injured him fatally him Wednesday morning at a Universal City subway construction site. He became the third Metro Rail construction worker to suffer a work-related death this year.

A spokesman for his employer said Thursday that at the time of the injury, Bailey was in a restricted area where he should not have been.

Ballew said she was ``very angry'' over Bailey's death, but believed that it might have simply been a tragic accident.

Bailey shared a three-bedroom home in Reseda with his son, Christopher, 12, a Sutter Middle School student, and Copeland and her son, Shawn, 21.

Christopher will return to Texas to live with his mother and sister, Julie, 11, in Farmers Branch, Texas, family members said. Bailey's stepdaughter, Haley, 6, also lives with Bailey's ex-wife in Texas.

On Thursday, Copeland reminisced about Bailey as she poked around his bedroom, the walls lined with photographs of Christopher, Julie and Haley.

On a bookshelf, Copeland found a dog-eared Bible. ``That's what he took when he did his laundry. He'd sit and read with Chris, so he could teach him about morals and values,'' Copeland said.

Bailey was a recovering alcoholic who had just celebrated a year of sobriety, Copeland said. Having traveled down a few rough roads himself, he didn't want to see others take the same path, she said.

So every Wednesday evening, his Bible under his arm, Bailey visited teen-agers at Juvenile Hall in Sylmar to talk about the power of faith.

On Thursday, Copeland's phone rang incessantly as Bailey's friends called to offer condolences and ask about services.

A memorial service is expected to be held later this week in the San Fernando Valley. His body will be flown back to Texas for burial in Leona, the tiny central Texas town where Bailey ran an emu farm with his parents, Marylou and Wilton Bailey.

In Texas, Bailey had played drums for a Houston rock 'n' roll band, but he never made the big time, said Marylou Bailey.

About two years ago, the bottom fell out of the emu market and his marriage to his second wife, Beth, ended in divorce.

At the suggestion of a close friend who worked on the Metro Rail subway project, Bailey picked up stakes and moved to California.

At about 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, Bailey was handsome, with shoulder-length hair and a trim physique.

He didn't have problems meeting women, but he was much more interested in spending time and money on his kids, said Ballew, who dated Bailey for about three months.

``He was no deadbeat dad. We'd have a $150 phone bill from him just talking to his kids in Texas,'' Copeland said.

Christopher, who had ``always dreamed of living with his father,'' had just moved in with Bailey in July.

Bailey and his son shared a bedroom, but the arrangements were just temporary, Copeland said. In the back of the rented house, Bailey was had nearly finished a $2,000 guest room, which was to become Christopher's.