"Diaries of A Homeless Junkie"

[Preview of my upcoming book]

Night falls. Another dark illustrious landscape of junkies, whores, and the ever so subtle Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mentally ill psychopath who may or may not be having a Nam flashback. Lets hope for the latter, dare I be optimistic, because witnessing the former on a Friday night at 3AM while mercilessly tweaking your balls off on more meth than the German Army in 1944 , makes watching Stephen King's, "The Shining" look like "Yo Gabba Gabba." Seriously, its quite a site to see. And I thought I had problems. There's something so sweet and serene in knowing that although you might be a world class dumpster fire of chaos and torment, there's at least one other dude on the block who's significantly more messed up than me. And yes, to be fair, technically there's no standardized test available for measuring one's total level of "messed up-ness" in life, so I can't guarantee he's more messed up than me. However, I can guarantee that I'm not the one walking down Lamar Blvd at 3AM wearing a trench-coat holding an umbrella on a clear skied night alternating between bouts of maniacal laughter, child like whimpers, and weird primal animal mating calls like were in the damn outback. So there's that. But hey, to each his own, the struggle is real. Some people would call my train of thought "Justification," where one justifies their own delusional behaviors based on their perception of someone's far more severe delusional behaviors. I like to call those people assholes. Others would call this train of thought "Minimization." Only thing you need to know about these folks, is that they are assholes too. What? I didn't say they were wrong. I however, prefer to call this business as usual, life in the gutter, another regular depraved, god forsaken lonely night, living in the morally empty, spiritually bankrupt, sink-or-swim streets, as a homeless junkie.

"Hey Spence what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for strung out heroin/meth addict who eats out of trash cans and sleeps behind dumpsters with stray cats. I know its a stretch, but with lots of hard work, and a little luck, I know I can accomplish anything I put my mind too!" The words ring through my ears like an obtuse church bell on a Baptist Easter morning that wont shut the hell up. You see, while I never once had that conversation of waking up and wanting to ruin my life with poor choices and lots of schedule 1 narcotics injected deep into my veins, I had absolutely had the conversation, "I can accomplish anything I put my mind too." Not only that, I believed it too. I saw it come to fruition even at an early age in the form of winning "Athlete of the year" 2 years in a row at Park Crest Middle School, the first time in the school's history, my first time ever in public school. I saw it in the form of effectively teaching myself how to play piano and guitar because I knew it would impress girls. This is the figurative church bell ringing ever so grand off in the distance, taunting me for all the things I never was, never am, nor ever will be. This is the horror story, the antagonist of my life, the tangible manifestation of my daily reminder that not only are you weak and deficient- you're also a Gold Medal winning coward, sitting on a winning lottery ticket, too afraid to cash it in, because you're so afraid of failing. "What a fuckin pussy," I say to myself.

Have you ever fantasized about running away, cutting ties with everything you have ever known, abruptly disappearing into the night with no destination in mind? For years I dreamt of the day I would run away with nothing but the clothes on my back, departing for a land unknown, leaving no trace of my existence. I often wondered, would anyone realize I was gone? More importantly to my ego, pride, and childlike need for attention and validation- would anyone search for me? Would anyone abandon their own plans, routines, and comforts in the name of finding me? Even more tragic, if they did, when would they stop? When would enough be enough? At what point would they throw in the towel, abandoning the idea of hopeful resolution. At what point would the tears, if any, cease to flow? At what point would the memory, if any, of me fade? In my spirit, I knew something was unsettled. In my mind, I knew something was wrong with me. And in my heart, the part of me that has always experienced the world around me on such a vast, grandiose scale, I knew this wasn't going to end well.

Dusk, dopesick, destitute. The 3 d's I like to call them. Let me tell you- put me in an alleyway, throw me a slab of cardoard, rain or shine- i'll make it work. Well, thats not entirely true, I left out two crucial pieces of that luxurious equation: dope and syringes. Ok, now ill make it work. Point being, bang me up with a fat shot of dope, and ill be living like a king wherever you, or I, place me. Only problem is that tonight I have none of those, except the 3 d's. Take it from me, someone who has also been dopesick in rehab and jail more times than I care to remember, NOTHING is worse than being dopesick while living on the streets. At least in jail you know you can't leave so you're forced to just deal with it. Dopesickness in rehab isn't that bad either, especially if it's a coed facility, because there's plenty of ways to acquiesce the utter physiological shit show going on in the dopamine deprived brain of a dope fiend, in the form of comfort meds like suboxone. If that fails, sex helps too. Ah, co-ed rehab facilities, doing the Lord's work I tell you. Homeless dopesickness however, is an entirely different story. Its like having VIP tickets, all-access passes, to the gates of hell. Not only are you taunted by the fact that nothing is stopping you legally, or institutionally from getting high, you're physically free as a bird as far as that's concerned, you're also taunted by the fact that, without cash and connections, deep down you know there's literally nothing you can do about it even if you wanted to. The harsh reality of being dopesick in any circumstance is that if you don't have money, or at least a homie who can help you out, there's a very small chance of "making a dollar out of 25 cents" for lack of a better term. In other words- aside from having the dope dealer waiting on the corner for you perfectly synchronized with someone on the other corner who you can rob for a few dollars, all the while being able to score and shoot-up in time to actively avoid the scorched earth brigade of law enforcement officers that will be soon to follow- this dope sick junkie doesn't have the energy, drive, or motivation to get resourceful in times of desperation. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, its hard enough just to function. Throw in the fact that I have no possessions, nowhere to lay my head, zero courage to take penitentiary chances, and voila- you've got the 3 d's- destitute, dope sick as hell, sitting under a bridge at 183 & Lamar Boulevard as dusk settles over the land.

Stay Tuned For More...

[Spencer Brooks Otto]