Last week, the winter shelter I was staying at closed, and about six of us guys packed a bunch of tents and equipment out to a swampland in Forest Grove. I set out with a couple guys Tuesday night, cuz I wanted to get a head start on setting up camp. It felt like a new adventure after spending the last two months lining up for everything at the shelter and being told when to eat and when to go to bed and when to leave in the morning. FREEDOM was on my mind, and boy did I feel free.
I was wet too, wet and loaded down with gear. I was with Dan (the caramel man) and Chris (sunshine). Dan is a couple years older than me, but looks at least 15 years older. His back is all screwed up and he required help with his pack.
Chris is 24 years old, but he acts like a teenager, all depressed and mopey all the time. Chris is a good guy, he's loyal to those who are loyal to him, but you can't wait for him to do anything. The only time he shows any initiative is when his immediate comfort is being challenged, and then he just might bark at whoever is telling him to pitch in. He is having trouble adjusting to his homelessness, but hell, we all have trouble with that.
Dan's a medical marijuana guy who makes pot caramels that he was handing out at the shelter. Dan was a lot of fun to hang with at the shelter, cuz he always had pot. So, at least you could get stoned. I had my best night's sleep at the shelter after Dan smoked me out on my birthday. Dan kinda knitted Chris and I together; we both were hanging out and getting stoned with Dan.
This was the crew I went out to the swamp with. There were a few other guys who came out there and camped too, but we hardly ever saw them. They were tweekers and we were pot smokers. It's funny but on the street you can kinda sort people by the drugs they do. Most street people smoke cigs, but not as many are outright drunks as you might think. Most smoke pot, but not everyone. Tweek is such a crazy drug that tweekers usually stay with their own, while the pot smokers and drinkers hang pretty good with most people.
Well, we were out there working our asses off getting our camp set up and even hauling in bags of gravel from the train tracks to prep the ground for a new site in another part of the swamp that would get us onto dryer ground. We had just finished a day of hard work hauling rock, when a voice was heard calling out in the swamp. It wasn't a voice any of us recognized, so Dan went out to see what was up.
Dan cam back and told me that the owner of the land we were on had come out to do some target shooting, and discovered our camp. He said we had to get all our shit out of there that night. All of our heads were spinning. We quickly went back to our tent sites and gathered up what we could carry. Dan was trying to get the rest of us to help him with his gear, which he a had plenty of after days of constantly bringing stuff in. Chris looked confused and I was asking Dan what the plan would be for all of us after this. Dan said that it was all over and we were on our own. He offered a bowl of weed in exchange for helping him get his crap out of camp, and I saw that as a dead end.
I didn't want to spend a bunch of time assisting Dan, who could stay with his sister if he needed to, only to end up stuck with no where to sleep for the night. So, I told Chris to grab his stuff and get it out to the tracks and that I would meet him out there. Chris and I took off down the tracks and didn't look back.Chris was pretty fed up with Dan at that point. Dan had been barking orders to everyone, but Chris took it personal telling everyone that he didn't like being told what to do.
I led Chris out to Beaverton where my friend Travis camps. I thought maybe Travis would put Chris and I up in his tent for the night. On the train, I found a complete pack of smokes that someone had dropped, so we had smokes for the night. While we were waiting for Chris' phone to charge a little on the MAX platform, Chris managed to get hold of his buddy Larry who just happened to be staying at the local Motel 6 one stop up the tracks from where we were. We hooked up with Larry and his girl Carlie who were both drunk and wrestling all over the room, but we got showers and a bed.
The next morning Larry led us out to his campsite under a bridge off of T.V. Highway. That's where we are now, Larry, Chris and myself. We'll see how this goes.
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