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I remembered reading a newspaper article on teen homelessness, a couple of years earlier. “Where could I find them?” I wondered as I opened the phone book to browse. Under Homeless Services, I found I told Brad what I wanted, and he invited me down. Thrilled, I grabbed my tape recorder and left on a pleasant, surprisingly mild January day. Missing the address Brad gave me, I parked in front of an auto parts store just to the north. I walked past a narrow parking lot to a building, the first storefront of which had a foursection front window with “Homeless Youth Resource Center” painted above it, and a ‘Safe Place’ poster in the lower left-hand corner. A narrow front door led me to what appeared to be a storage room, with boxes and clothes piled everywhere and a baby stroller in the corner. Three cluttered desks and a filing cabinet in front of the window belied that judgment. Brad, the director for the past year and a half, waved me to a seat. He immediately spoke about how some of the kids felt “burned” by a recent newspaper article, which contained misinformation and painful I wasn’t interested in those heart-wrenching but surface details, so do not mention odors or the condition of their clothing. I was interested in knowing these kids. What made them tick? What precipitated their moves to the street? What were the conditions in the homes from which they ran? Were they abused by their parents? How did they get by when the Resource Center was closed–from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m.? And While I was interviewing Brad [Chapter Four], a tall, round-shouldered figure moved around in the back of the long, narrow room. I couldn’t make out his features or his age. The room was filled with recycled I met the mysterious figure, Cockroach, in the restroom. His wavy hair, almost shoulder-length, was dripping water onto his bare shoulders. He politely gave way to me. When Brad later called him to come speak to us, I said that we had met in the bathroom. We joked about the level of our intimacy, and I felt myself off to a good start. Brad asked Cockroach for his opinion on the Center’s youth accepting my project. Cockroach’s answers sounded noncommittal; but as I looked to Brad, he nodded Cockroach’s assent. As it turned out, most of those I interviewed were 20-years old but had been on the streets for years. Cockroach “First time I left was August, three years ago,” he began. “Been back and forth from here to there,” he said, in part, to explain that he often goes back to see his family, with whom he gets along fine, as long as Cockroach is the youngest of six children in a blended family, four boys and two girls. He and his oldest blood brother have been in and out of counseling since Cockroach was ten. “My two half-brothers and
He and his older brother are offspring of a violent marriage. “There’s always been violence,” said Cockroach, showing no emotion. “My dad beat the shit out of my sister.” The kids were sent to foster homes for awhile because their mother couldn’t handle them. “Hyperness, I suppose was the problem,” he said. “I have no idea, really. I don’t have a clue. That’s life, such as it is.” I asked him what prompted him to leave home, and he answered that he didn’t know, but added that his parents looked for him for a while. “I don’t want them running my life,” he said, without any visible emotion. “I don’t think they realize I’ve lived a hard life.”
He sleeps or “squats,” as they call it, with a few others, who don’t frequent the Resource Center, in whatever abandoned building they feel like opening. “I eat most of my meals here,” he said. “Or set up a trap and kill something.” A smile slithered across his face. “I’m just remembering good times being out on the highway and lookin’ up at a million stars, right out in the middle of nowhere,” he insisted. “You know, there, nobody can tell you how to feel.” Then after reflection added, “Silence, peaceful.”
The hardest part, he said, was trying to get off the street, get an apartment, and stay out of jail. He was picked up by the police for concealed weapons and drug paraphernalia. “I had my knife that I always carry, and a throwing arrow. I had my pipe and my roach clips, that the cops took. They took my needle-nose pliers,” said Cockroach with dejection creeping into his demeanor. “They took these things out of my spiritual bag, and I’m still on the carpet on “Well I do, now,” Cockroach told him. “Would you like to come to the courthouse, now,” said the officer. Cockroach let him know that he was headed into Casper, Wyoming, as they headed for jail. “I’ve lived in California, Arizona and up in Oregon,” he added. Cockroach returned to the hardest thing about living on the street. “Trying to find a squat,” he mentioned. “Even though, there are a lot of places to go.” We talked about a series of four boarded-up buildings I’d seen just around the corner from the Resource Center, which he’d opened and used.. I saw that they were torn down, three months later. The best part, for him, of living on the street, is getting away from every single soul, being by himself, doing what he wants to do. “It’s living life without society’s--how shall I say this--bullshit,” said Cockroach scornfully. “Being asked not to carry a knife or hock a logey on the sidewalk.” “I’ve been smoking cigarettes since I was eight,” he proudly stated. “And I’ve been smokin’ weed since I was nine. I took my first taste of alcohol when I was seven--Everclear shot into a watermelon. Been drinkin’ ever since. Drink like a fish, smoke like a chain.”
Wizard Cockroach said he was intimidated by the tape recorder, so in advance I listed some questions I would be asking. As we talked, I glanced over at Wizard, who had tears streaming down his cheeks. I continued, allowing him the dignity of his experience. When another youth walked by and asked, “What’s wrong?” Wizard answered, “I forgot to blink my eyes.” Whatever. The next day by five o’clock, tired and really not wanting to go to the Resource Center, I remembered saying I would. Trying to build trust with these young men, I picked up the microphone I had borrowed for my recorder, packed myself into the car, and drove the short distance in a light snowfall. The minute I arrived, I was glad I had come. A cleanly scrubbed Wizard greeted me without his watch cap, revealing close-cropped light-colored hair. He wore matching brown pants and brown shirt, clean but unironed, and walked toward me with his Wizard’s excitement extended from the symphony to his eagerness to be interviewed. “I like being interviewed,” he said. “I did a documentary, once.” Wizard is twenty years old and was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He was polite and respectful--even apologized for cussing. He seems to have the innocence of a young child, coupled with the jargon of the treatment community. Wizard, too, is a poet, who recited his works to me by memory. I also have included some of his poems, one with the author’s explanatory comment: “At age twelve, I got locked up and put in state’s custody by my mother,” he began. “Because my mother was unfit, they locked me up.” He went from institution to institution. “I break out of institutions,” he stated wryly. It started out as juvenile homes, then it moved to detention centers, and from there to worse places with higher security. A lot of elopement followed, escaping for months at a time from those institutions and, consequently, living on the streets. Wizard explained that he went through a lot of his early years in a “pretty weird environment.” The only freedom he knew was when he was on the run and in the streets. Wizard mused that, in a lot of ways, living on the streets is what he was taught; so that’s probably a big reason why he’s out here, now. He expressed his desire not to live this way, but says that old habits die hard. “The first place I went to was Charter Vista in Fayetteville at age twelve,” he continues. “I was there for three months. Got out. Went home.”
That’s basically about my dad, who was there when I was younger. I have small memories of him, being close to him when he was around. And then he took off. And I guess ‘the tooth’ represents me being part of him and him getting rid of the whole family and leaving me. And when I was thirteen, he came back and introduced me to this whole new family, which accepted me right away. Christmas: he was going to take me to his new house, and I had all my stuff packed on Christmas Eve. And he never showed up. ‘The man who lost me’ is my father who just cast me out, again. And after that point, I just started rolling through the institutions. I guess that’s what ‘rot in the He was out for two months, then went to a place called Harbor View, where he stayed for almost a year. He maintains he started a couple of riots in that place and ran a couple of times. “Me and another guy ended up taking a room in one of the buildings ransom, kind of, When he turned eighteen, the problems in Wizard’s life snowballed. Because the police in his home town assumed that he was “just this terrible guy,” they watched him and, from his point of view, harassed him. He ended up going to prison and doing two years for something he maintains he didn’t do. He was released the previous August 29. “My thumb brought me here,” he said. “Most of the time that’s how I get around.” Wizard explained that his mother is an alcoholic and a drug addict. “All around junkie, I guess,” he says. Typical of children from alcohol or drug-addicted families, he apologized for his mother’s behavior, explaining that she tried to do well. But she had a lot of feelings she
His wasn’t a family, although he had a sister three years younger. Wizard’s mother was a nurse who was gone most of the time. When she came home, she cried on his shoulder, but, if anything happened, he was the scapegoat. “So, I was there to be the ear and listen to everybody,” he pouts. “And I was also there to be the whipping boy for everyone.” A lot of violence was perpetrated by his mother’s roommate’s kids. They used to beat him as well as verbally abuse him. “That was pretty hard on me,” he complains. “I was the one who took all the abuse, there.” He spent his adolescence in a society separate from the mainstream, one with its own rules and boundaries. He spent his adolescence in institutions. “I spent a lot of time in rooms about eight by twelve. Eight by six, sometimes. Just in there for weeks at a time. My food “Restraint beds, things like that, were a big part of my life. You know, I was either tied to something, or in a little closet somewhere. So, my social skills aren’t the greatest in the world. I guess I’ve spent so much time being locked up that it’s like the caged-bird type-of thing.” Wizard asserts that the state doesn’t do any good by hospitalizing and criminalizing these youths. “When kids are put into state’s custody, they’re warehoused their whole lives,” he points out. “And then, when they’re let out, most of them are at an age, that there’s just no place for them.” They can live on the street, or, if they do get a job, they haven’t been taught money- management skills. It’s a merry-go-round of institutions, attempts at survival outside, and back to institutions, again. Any institution. “I haven’t been a real violent person in a long time,” he notes, trying to take responsibility for his actions and apologizing for whining about his situation. “Through the years, I have done things that have kept me in those places. I handled my situation a lot different than a lot of other people.” He rebelled and fought against his caretakers, explaining that he didn’t want to be a passive person who would let them just hold him against his will, particularly when he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. “I rebelled against that. A lot. I was very violent for a long time.” More than the usual adolescent confusion besieged Wizard. Confusion over the cause of his having to live this way. Confusion over why no one would listen to him. If one gets angry in an institutional setting, most staff aren’t equipped to hear it. Their answer: “Get in the quiet room.” “If you say, ‘No, listen. This is what’s wrong,’” said Wizard. “Then they jump you and hold you to the ground.” Wizard was not someone to take that kind of slight. He fought back. “And that’s what got me into a lot of situations,” he reflects. “That got me in maximum security
“Really, in a way, I would say that living on the street sucks, in the sense that you don’t have a home,” said Wizard in answer to my question about the worst part. “You don’t have a lot of the security that most people have.” But it kind of simplifies things for him. “It’s kind of like I don’t have to do the whole big drawn out deal of livin’ with society’s rules that I don’t know how to do,” he said. “It’s a lot less stressful out here. I can go and work a job and get paid that day and live okay. I’ve met people who are more good-hearted and more loyal than I have in a lot of ordinary society. There are a lot of people who aren’t worth a shit out here, too.” He apologized profusely for his language. The best part, he said, was freedom. “I guess, more than anything, the reason that I’m out here is basically to find myself,” said Wizard. “I spent a long time crawlin’ into myself, and it’s going to take a little while to crawl back out.” I sincerely hope he lives long enough to make a meaningful beginning on that long road. It’ll be a struggle. Joker A native Salt Laker, eighteen-years old, he was dressed more conventionally than most of the youth hanging out there--slacks and a clean beige, corduroy coat. He had a neatly trimmed haircut, more like you’d see on a downtown businessman than a homeless teen. He “I left home at fifteen,” he opened. “Well, I left home when I was fourteen, but went back for about three months and then left.” And before he left, he spent time in the Detention Center. “It was a second home,” he said. “I got caught stealing a couple of times, and beat up His mother smoked marijuana heavily and his father was an alcoholic, as was his stepfather. “It was fucked,.” said Joker sadly. The precarious relationship with his stepfather led to his leaving home at such a young age. “We got into too many fights to count.” Joker admits to still smoking marijuana and to having been a crystal methamphetamine addict for about a year and a half. “I quit doing that, about two years ago,” he said proudly. “The thing with me is, mind over matter. I woke up one morning, decided I was tired of staying up for weeks at a time, and smoked a joint.” He went back to sleep, and when he woke a couple of hours later, carried on with his life, as if he’d never used that highly addictive amphetamine. He’s a lucky one. He used to live in a squat with others from the Resource Center. “But livin’ on the streets ain’t all it’s cut out to be,” he asserted. “It’s fun sometimes, but you’ve got to be responsible and get your life in order. Right now, I’m livin’ in a motel, paying my rent, have a job” Much more satisfying. He said that the hardest part about living on the streets was wondering where your next meal is coming from, and if you smoke, where you’re going to get cigarettes. Another hard part was sleeping in a squat and waking up with a 9 mm revolver pointed at his head. “Cops,” said Joker. “That’s a wake up call.” He has to work for his keep, because he can’t ask people he doesn’t know for money. “I have a sense of honor, I guess, pride or something,” he said. “Panhandling, it’s just not for me.” Best part? The sense of family and the partying. They back each other up and keep an eye on one another. “They’re perceived as troublemakers and basically filthy rats,” said Joker. “They’re not. They’re actually pretty good people. Some have problems. Everybody I hadn’t thought to ask the youth about their relationship with God, until Joker. His response was interesting: “We’re not on speaking terms right now.” He explained that he was raised a hippie, even though his mother and father were both raised Mormon, and he was Bones Dressed in black from the watch cap on his head to the heavy boots on his feet, he wore a black t-shirt with white lettering that said “Bones,” over another long-sleeved black shirt. He wore black cloth gloves that left his fingers uncovered. These gloves, in turn, were covered by leather wrist guards. A metal, spiked arm-gauntlet adorned his right forearm. He had numerous rings in his ears and underneath the watch cap, he showed me his sandy-colored hair which was cut in what he called “long haired bowl cut.” This cut seemed popular with these kids--shaved sides to the level of his eyebrows and long on top. He appeared as thin as a starving youth in a refugee camp. We moved to the front of the room for privacy. He was twenty-years old and said he was born in Alamosa, Colorado and had lived on the street for about four years. I was surprised how friendly and open he was when we started the interview, in contrast to his usual facial expression. I instantly liked his amiability which, I think, is not reflected in his words: “I’ve done different things,” he began, to distinguish himself from the ordinary homeless youth. “I had a house once for about six months, and then I lost that because my roommates dogged me out of the money.” Afterwards he returned to squatting in abandoned buildings His home life was backwoods, riding motor cycles, “steel horses,” and living on a farm with a large extended family. His grandfather and patriarch of the family used to have a beer business, sold that, then had a potato business and sold that. “I’m fixin’ to go home in about He hasn’t been home in four years, but said he plans to go this summer, stay about a month, and then return. “I’m one of the only street kids that gets along with every one of his immediate family,” said Bones. “My dad and my mom get along with me. My grandparents get along with me. My Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda, all the grand kids, the cousins get along with me. My brother, my sister, my aunt and my uncle. We all get along together and there’s no sibling rivalry. I ain’t lyin.’ You want to call them up and ask them.” With all these lovely relationships, I asked what prompted him to leave, and have to confess I’m a little skeptical of the answer. He said he just got sick of home life. However, it was his explanation that raised my cynicism. “Money in my pocket every day was just not fulfilling enough, anymore. Thousands of dollars” said Bones. “I worked for what I got, but I think I got more than what I deserved for doing four, five days work at a time.” Living eleven miles out of town got boring and wanting to move out of “the country” were the other reasons he gave. “I got bored with goin’ to town everyday and hangin’ out with the same old crowd,” he said. “You know, it was the same old crowd through school, same teachers my dad had, my uncles had, my aunts had. The same teachers everybody in my whole household have had.” He smoked marijuana, but doesn’t consider that a drug, but “a way of life.” His family members drink and smoke a lot of pot. He made the distinction that he smokes a little pot, all the time. He was on heroin for two years and had difficulties getting off. “For three weeks, I He explained that squatting’s a process: If you’re kicked out of one, you’ve got to know where another one is. Then you’ve got to break open the new. How long they stay depends on how long before you’re caught. “I mean someone sees you going in there and gets curious,” he point out. “Calls the cops, and they go over there. They bust you, or you get out okay.” Money comes. “Most of the time we just sit around and spange up money, ask people for spare change,” said Bones. “Like, if you want a pack of cigarettes, in about fifteen minutes you can get about three dollars, that’s a pack of cigarettes.” Snowy days and rainy days are the hardest. He’s had days when he didn’t have a place to go on rainy or cold nights. “I’ve spent nights outside--freezin’--passed out pretty much,” reported Bones. “I’ve passed out in this parking lot.” During the summer, he’s fine, The party life is the best part. He’s always looking for a party and drugs. “If I can’t find a party,” he said. “I’ll just go to sleep.” Then, he gets up, smokes a little pot, and if anybody has any better drugs, he’ll do those, a lot of hallucinogens--mushrooms and marijuana–what Bones said that he doesn’t have a relationship with God, but does with “spiritualism.” He believes in something that he maintains is much older than God, Mano, or in “laymen’s terms,” Oden, or Thor. “I believe in Norse mythology put into Druid mythology,” asserted Having been around motors all his life, he maintains that he can build, draft, blueprint, and make his own car, machine the parts. “I can do anything,” he bragged. “Jack of all trades, master of about seven.” However, he’s had only three paying jobs since being on the street, Happy Born in Tarzana, California, Happy said that he’d never lived in one place longer than three years, moving from California, to Arkansas, to South Carolina and here. I waited to interview him, as he was the only youth in the Center. When he finished his call, he explained that he was making arrangements to “go to Job Corps to get my life straightened out, so I can support my girlfriend–fiancé now.” “When I was a kid, I got beat all the time,” said Happy. “I got burned all the time, like scars everywhere [pointing to his chest].” His parents were divorced before he was two, so he doesn’t remember much of a real family life. “I love my dad, he’d never hurt me,” he said. “Unfortunately, I lived most of my life with my mother.” She’s the one who kicked him out at eighteen, and he’s been on and off the streets for two to three years. He was banished for trying to help a fourteen-year-old boy in his neighborhood, who’d been kicked out by his own mother, after an argument. Happy graciously offered to let the boy stay in his storage shed. “My mother asked me, one day, if she could borrow my storage shed, and I told her that I didn't have the key right now and she’d have to wait,” reports Happy. “Then her boyfriend broke into it and found a bed laid out.” The boy hadn’t even stayed there, yet, and, in fact, had gone home. Happy’s mother told him to leave. Happy usually eats at places like Dees, or asks for money on the streets. Some people tell him to get a job. “But at the time, I had no ID to get a job, and no money to get an ID,” says Happy plaintively. “But there’s a lot of nice people.” Five dollars is the most he’s been given at one time. He tries to make it the best he can. “No illegal activity, recently,” said Happy. “But, when I was first on the street, I went to a bank and tried to forge a check for over $360.” He spent a couple of days in jail, and was supposed to do three years probation, and pay a hundred dollar fine, and do some community He was staying with his girlfriend, whose parents surprised him when they said he could live there and pay $200 a month. But, he was excited about going to Job Corps. “It’ll take as long as I do,” said Happy hopefully. “I’m gonna work my butt off for my girl, ‘cause He spoke about squatting in a building for a little over a week. It had heat, some blankets, and a bathroom with no running water. So, he went across the street to wash up at a mall. He usually carries a blanket with him, and can often find an alley in which to crash. “I The hardest parts for Happy were either the cold, or wondering where your next meal was coming from. He wants a family and worries about how he’s going to get one. He wants to raise children of his own. “I just want a regular job, livin’ in a house, takin’ care of my own The best thing about living on the streets is the freedom. “You have nobody tellin’ you what to do, or where to go, or for how long,” stated Happy. “Just your own free will.” But, then he reflects on his hopes and dreams, and concludes that he can handle having a boss, right As far as drugs are concerned, from age fifteen to seventeen, he did everything except heroin. “I never shot up, but I tried a little bit of everything here and there,” shares Happy. “Now I do nothin.’ I lost too much.” Happy believes in God, but mentions that he hasn’t gone to church much and should go. He was born into a Christian home, read the Bible with his mother, and the message sunk in. I asked if he blamed God for his mother kicking him out. “No, I knew that God wasn’t doin’ Jason I left him and went back up front, waiting to see if anyone else would appear. When the Center Coordinator arrived, I interviewed her, while Jason wandered around in the general area, with apparent disinterest. Having overheard our conversation, Jason came over afterwards and said he was now willing to be interviewed. I was surprised and grateful. Jason talked openly about his father’s death and his ineffectiveness in preventing it–a story that he chose to stop when his grief became overwhelming. He also shared about his drug use: He quit cocaine a long time ago, had been off heroin for about three years, although Born in Las Vegas, Jason had been homeless for about a year and a half, the last year of which was spent in Salt Lake. He began by sharing his pain resulting from the previous interview: According to Jason, his home life was okay, although his parents separated when he was eight. The mother and kids moved in with a man who was to become his step-dad, an exmilitary man, really hard-nosed. He learned to live in the house with “tough love.” “I had to “What drugs?” I asked about his father’s former drug use. “Name ‘em,” Jason responded quickly. “A lot. All different types: methamphetamines, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, all sorts of things. Just a lot of different drugs.” They don’t do that many drugs anymore, except marijuana. Since he’s moved out, he has a great relationship with his parents. “They’d actually send me money, if they could afford it,” he said. “But they can’t. They’re trying to buy a home.” Both his mother and his stepfather have spent time on the street at separate times. They understand. Upon Jason’s graduation from the Job Corps, he went to his father’s place in California. “My dad passed away in August, a year ago,” explains Jason. “It hurt a lot. It’s a very unexplainable pain for me to express.” Early one morning, when Jason was having trouble sleeping, he heard his father mumbling in the other room, so, went to check on him. “He didn’t have his oxygen on, and I tried to calm him down,” said Jason tentatively. “I didn’t know exactly how to put it on, so, I put it in his hand and said, ‘Put your oxygen on and go to bed.’” Afterwards, Jason moved to Salt Lake City and got a job as an alley coordinator at the Olive Garden restaurant. “If I had worked a little bit longer,” he said. “I would have been a cook.” He quit that job when he received a small inheritance from his father’s estate. He paid He eats at the Resource Center and occasionally donates blood at a Plasma Center, $12 for the first donation in a week, $22 for the second. “Then I spange, spare changing,” said Jason. “I do that also, but not that often.” The hardest part for Jason is not knowing where you’re going to sleep at night. “Besides where you’re going to sleep, knowing if, in the winter, you’re gonna freeze, have frost bite,” lamented Jason. “You know, I’ve had places where I’ve slept in abandoned buildings at Jason’s best part was that he didn’t have the responsibilities of a more conventional lifestyle, like paying rent, paying bills, wondering, “Is my check going to be here by the time rent’s due.” There’s a lot of stress renting an apartment, or even a room, for people without money- management skills and a steady income. “But I find it’s more stressful being on the streets,” said Jason. “Wondering, ‘Am I going to freeze to death. Am I going to have to have a part of my body removed because it’s frost bitten. You know, it’s numb and I can’t feel it, and Jason was a Southern Baptist until he was thirteen or fourteen. At that time he thought, “Wow, I’m in Utah, and these people are knocking on my door wearing name tags that say ‘Elder.’ I wonder what L.D.S. is like.” He doesn’t like them anymore, sees them as annoying, and considers himself non-denominational. “I believe there is a God,” he affirmed. “What about a relationship with Him?” I asked. “Not a good one. I’ll say it that way,” Jason responded. “There’s one there, as far as I ask Him for help, when I need it.” But then he admits that he thinks only of himself and notices that selfishness. But he thanks Him when things go right. “There’s a smaller relationship Sid “Five minutes,” he responded. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” I went in, picked up some transcribed interviews that had been reviewed by the teens, and chatted with those who had also moved inside. After ten minutes, I went out again for Sid. “Five more minutes,” he said. “Please just give me five. They’re leaving.” “And you’ll never see them again?” I asked playfully. Sid laughed and told me to come get him in four minutes. I was subject to the whim of these teens. I needed their cooperation, so had to interview on their terms. Sid treated me with respect when he came in. He sported a black, short mohawk, and his pierced septum, tongue, bottom of his chin and lower lip contained all manner of silver baubles. Wearing a black t-shirt that said, “I know Jack shit,” he also wore some beautiful “Been on the street for four years,” he began. “I’ll be nineteen, March 2.” He was born in Utah, but has lived on the streets in California, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida and Louisiana. His mother is from a town twenty miles north of Salt Lake. She met Sid’s father and moved to Texas, birthed Sid and his older brother there, and then went on to California, where the couple was divorced. She then met Sid’s step-dad, who was in the military, and the family There was violence on his stepfather’s part as the home was run “the military way.” If the two boys behaved other than as their step-father wanted, they got hit. If they wore different-type clothes than anyone else, they got hit. “You know, you basically had to wear what he wanted,” said Sid simmering with resentment. “And if he didn’t want you wearing it, you didn’t wear it. That went for hair, shoes, rings, piercings, as well as clothing.” His parents did alcohol and drugs, marijuana, acid (L.S.D.), and mushrooms. Speed, once in a while. Sid asserts that his stepfather was the reason he left home. “I got tired of his shit,” he said. “We were always at each other’s throats.” So, he decided to move in with his older brother, with whom he didn’t get along. “So, I moved out on the streets,” he said proudly. “I’ve been there ever since.” He lives one day at a time and refuses to plan. “Protect yourself any way possible, and find friends,” Jason admonished. “When it comes right down to it, I am violent.” He’s been arrested for marijuana, assault, illegal weapons, assault, assault on a police officer, marijuana, and distribution of acid. “I got probation, mostly, and, altogether added up, about a year in jail.” Sid lives wherever he can lay his head. He squats or goes couch surfing from one couch to another at the homes of friends. He spanges at the mall or walking down the street. “No relationship with God,” he said simply. Sid articulated ways of defending himself. People can use smileys, which are padlocks on chains, but only when they’re outnumbered two to one. “That, or just straight up fist to fist,” he said. “Once in awhile, you have a real good one and get into a knife fight. Those are kind He does a lot of marijuana, and some hallucinogens, and states that he’s a “straightarrow heterosexual, definitely not a faggot.” He’s got a girlfriend, now. “Blond hair, blue eyes, 100% German?” entreats Sid, with a twinkle in his eye. “Come see me.” Sid denied that there existed either a hardest part or a best part about living on the street, other than that he’s free to do whatever he wants. Oreo The joyful and confident demeanor of this twenty-year-old intrigued me. He explained that he got his name because, when he was younger, all he did was eat Oreo cookies, contrary to what I had expected. “I'm black, white and Samoan, born in Samoa,” Oreo stated. His father used to drink excessively but has since quit. “I do marijuana and alcohol,” volunteered Oreo. “If I could, I’d smoke weed everyday, but I usually can’t.” He settles for four times a week, to escape his reality. Oreo spoke again about the difficulties he had with his He’s got places he can stay, and people who’ll take care of him. He goes to his mother’s place every once in a while. He also squats. “But most of the squats I’ve been in had heat and running water,” said Oreo. “There’s a couple I’ve been in where didn’t have no heat and no blankets, in the middle of a winter storm, and I had to stay in there all night. So, I just kept myself moving all night long until it became daylight.” At the first morning light, he jumped on a bus and rode as long as he was allowed. He usually panhandles. “Or find stuff. Like I’ll get stuff like a radio or a T.V. or somethin,’ and I’ll go sell it,” he adds. “Or I see a lot of them on the side of the road and I pick ‘em up and I fix ‘em, and I sell ‘em. I’m just a natural.” He’s been fixing electronic equipment since he was approximately seven-years old. The hardest part for Oreo is what he calls the coldness of the people he meets. He has problems discerning whom he can trust. “You know, and it’s hard to pick them out,” he said. “You go, ‘Well, I might trust this person,’ then you turn around and you can’t trust them.” The best part of livin’ on the streets: “I’m free to do whatever I want, when I want, and how I want, with whoever I want,” ended Oreo, not surprisingly.” About God, “I really don’t got one.”
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Homeless Youth – The Guys