Chalupa

     After being homeless for a few months, I met an important character. I called him Chalupa. Chalupa was there for me. He gave me a place to stay. He gave me a family to have. He gave me a reason to live.

    Chalupa was someone who took into his temporary home (a house like hotel), gay people from the streets who got along well with him and his partner. I got along great there. So I was welcome to stay there with them. 

    Might I mention that Chalupa smoked meth too. So I found somewhere that felt long term, and that can help maintain my high. With good company. Chalupa was amazing to me. He became such an important friend to me, that I felt love for him like you would a family member. I had thrown away my family to chase my high instead. Here I get a place to belong and call home, fresh from the streets, so I was extremely grateful for this in ways that I tried my best to help with as much as possible.

    See, I wasn't just so freeloader who crashing there some nights on the floor or couch. I shared a double bed room in the house, with a younger guy. We got close living together. All of us did. But me and my roommate, we became brothers to each other. We had a pact together. An unspoken rule that we would have each others back. 

    Fast forward a couple years for a second. To the day that I found out that my roommate who meant so much to me for a decent amount of time, died of a fentanyl overdose. See, there's death in my story. What I haven't mentioned is that on August 1, 2015, right before I moved from Asheville to Orlando, I got a phone call from my Great Aunt, telling me that my dad had died, of a heroin overdose that morning. He was in Southern Louisiana getting clean from heroin. That's the story I was told. I haven't talked to my uncle about it still to this day.

    So first my dad, now my friend. These are 2 of many deaths that I have grown accustomed to having around me throughout my active addiction. 

    While I was staying with Chalupa and the family, I experienced one of my first extreme psychosis episodes. You see, someone else that  was also staying with us, had stolen a van. He got arrested and the cops were all over the complex. I am walking home form the convivence store across the street, and over the fence, I saw the van hooked up to a tow truck and police cars with their lights on parked outside home. 
    What happened though, I didn't find that out until after my mind took a turn to assume that we got busted for drugs, and getting arrested. So I panicked. I raced over to the neighboring hotel, to hide and keep my eye on home. I was convinced that people were after me. I had to hide. I ran up and down all twelve floors of that hotel, in the span of 2 hours. I know if I was seen, I would be caught. That wasn't an option. I then found the housekeeping closets, on each floor, was connected by their own elevator. So I began thinking I was hiding by going up and down and wandering around each floor. 

    Nobody ever caught me. I eventually, once the police were gone, walked back home. I got to the door and it was locked. I knocked on the door and said it was me. Chalupa answered the door. He had me come inside. He asked me where I was, and I told him about what I saw and what I did. That was when he told me that the other guy that was staying there with us got busted. None of us knew that he stole the van. I told him about my episode, and told him I was just so scared. He hugged me and told me it was all okay.

    A week later, I pack up my suitcase, and leave for Fort Lauderdale.