(Do you know many of the people here? Is there a lot of abuse either within their own families or they come from...) Yeah, well, I’m sure they probably did have a hard life growing up and that is why they do the things they do now because they come from alcoholic families and they already got it in the genes pretty much to drink alcohol. Some has been around it all their life and they feel its okay to do it. Just like me. My brother is an alcoholic. It took his life and it damaged my life mentally and it completely destroyed my childhood because I grow up and have fun. I had to teach my little brother how to ride a bike and teach him how to read. Teach him how to write. (You were a parent as a child?) Pretty much yeah. You know, someone to look up to. I stopped spending time with my little brother after he started clinging to me and he wanted to commit suicide just because I would not let him hang out with me. So I had to stop hanging out with my friends and focus on him again. Until about 21 and then that is when he did his thing and went to jail. To get to the point about me and another thing that got me into all this crazy drama is because I started smoking pot when I was 13. I found a little smoke in my uncle’s truck and I thought, hmm, lets try this. And then I started drinking beer, stealing my mom’s beer on the weekends. Then I started selling pot. And I kept drinking. And then I started selling cocaine, and then I started selling acid. I got so big to where I had 15-20 cars pulling up in my driveway. I would not wake up out of bed unless I got a phone call saying hey can you get me this can you get me that. I was the only one who could get and I knew everybody in (his town). I was born and raised here. And I was buying drugs cheap. Once I had my daughter I stopped. I wouldn't touch acid no more. The coke I was done with that for over a year then and I quit selling and I was done. After I left my ex I did not go back to smoking pot, I did not go back to selling drugs. I started drinking to kill the pain because I did not have no medication. I did not have no pain pills. That is what I would do. I would drink myself to sleep to kill the pain. I would get up and go to work. I would out-work anybody. I was cool. With all the people I worked with I was really nice and cool and then it got to the problem after 10 years of doing it there was really like this guy is not going to change. He is running himself into the ground. He smells like alcohol. (**he's talking about himself) I was only doing it for the pain, you know, and after I lost my job and everything that did not stop me from drinking. Until I got here. And then I realized I'm out in the woods and I need to change. I got a feeling like I'm going to end up killing myself if I'm out here doing this. So I went to the Hope team (medical) and I stopped drinking for 3 months. If i pick up a beer I will wind up in jail over a simple battery charge. I snapped and now I got a situation right now where I have this job willing to put a lot of trust in me and with a little bit of money if i can make the money that i need to make a week or a month to get up out of the woods and i got other people that know what kind of work i do and how good I am. Easy money and hopefully the word will get out, all I want to do, I'm tired of stressing and mentally. I went to talk to a psychiatrist in there (Hope med). After I told them how I was doing she goes, you know what, i’ve only known you for 5 minutes and I can tell that you are )(*& -up in the head. Her exact words. She says you have had major head trauma. You lost your hand. You are not mentally in the right state of mind. You are different. I have tried to learn how to adapt to where I can still make a living but my body cannot handle after the accident. I almost broke my neck. I almost broke my back, my hip. I'm in real bad shape. My nerves are shot from here down. I can barely hold my arms up. I want up out of the woods. I want out. I do not need nothing big. I’m not looking for a house. I'm not looking for a trailer. I'm looking for something where if my wife gets on disability I got a little bit of money coming in to take care of her until then and then she can probably split the bill with me. I'm not going to have to stress no more.
(you are clean now?) I'm clean. (what about mental problems) I just recently told the psychiatrist down here at O.B. Family Health Center. I went in there and they are like oh, we have not seen you since August, that’s been what 5 -6 months. And they go well you could have come up here and seen someone else and she goes you went to jail, what was that for, drinking alcohol? I was like yeah i was in a bar, had a couple of drinks. (**he got into a bar fight) ...I don’t want to fight no more. I used to have that in me, that rage, you know, all of that hate that I had. ...the responsibilities I had to take on. I was bad in a lot of places in life and a lot of things personally. I talked to a psychiatrist when I was probably 18 and he started asking me questions, doing an evaluation on me. He asked a couple of personal questions and I said look, I said you got me so mad right now I want to flip this desk over and come over the top of it and grab you by the throat. I said I am ready to mess you up and he says well what I think you need to do is leave right now. He got scared and he called in another evaluator that was bigger than he was and he tried to calm me down and I was like, this is uncool. I have gotten more open and I have started reading the bible and I put a lot of things behind me and I know I did some things that were wrong and now I am in a situation where I wake up in the morning and I go alright, I am out in the woods, it aint my piece of property. Anybody can come out here today and throw me out of here. I've got to stay hidden, I've got to stay low. If i need something I do not want to get caught coming out of here. I am going to wait until the sun goes down and then go get it, you know, I’m just worried about it. I keep the place clean, I have the trash picked, all the garbage,... and I know there is a cop riding by all the time and I figure if i keep it clean, you know, when they come my bike is hidden underneath the tree and all they see is maybe a piece of a tarp or something hanging out from underneath the tree then they wont run me out of there and then I would have to find another place to go. Because that is how people get sucked into the evilness out here. They will go to a place, go well these people are camping out here well lets hang out with these guys. well by the time it gets dark they are already drunk wanting to kill one another, you know, or they are waiting for you to fall asleep so they can knock you out and rape your old lady, you know. And then you do not want to go through that so you roll up your tent, you move somewhere else. You know you find another spot somewhere else and then all it takes is one person to see you that knows you, where you are going and you are being followed, being tracked. If i can get up out of the woods where I have a place for my mentally challenged wife to sit all day and take her medicine and relax...she don’t have a care in the world...then I can not worry about that part of it. But I can go out and make the money and do the work and work night, day, whatever it takes to do what i need to do for these people.
(you don’t want to go on disability?)
Right now I could but then I would be in the woods for another year or two years. I don't know if I will get run out the next day.
(so going on disability would prevent you from getting out of the woods?)
Yeah. I will get a chunk of money whenever I first start getting on it and then I would have income but I do not want to be out there for the next two years.
(so you could not get a job once you got on disability)
No. I pretty much already qualify for it. I brung in $$$ a month. Mentally I am not stable and my body is physically not able because I will get out there and start working real heard and by the 3rd or 4th day I’m like, look, this is too much work, you know. My body is starting to hurt. I can barely move, have problems tying my shoes. I sit down for 15 mintues to take a break I cannot get, I’m going home. (eventually you will have to. Do you think if you work long enough to get a place and then go on disability?) I am not working for someone, a company, a full time job. I am working for people that need a job done, a small job in a house. (handyman carpentry... subcontractor under the table type stuff?) Pretty much that is what I am going for now and then I am taking up part of the lawn maintenance part too. I am getting there. If I can make enough money by the end of this year to have my license back, start paying my child support again and have an RV paid for cash then all I have to do is find somewhere to put it. If i can have a piece of land that I can park it on. If a church needs a maintenance man I will park the RV at the back of the property and nobody will know I'm there, I'm there full time. I could be a handy man. But I’ve gotten mad at the medical team at MH and I see what is going on, helping the homeless. I know they only do a few things for the homeless. They will try to do a little bit more but once they leave at the end off the day and they go home... that’s it, it’s over. They do not call you. They do not say hey, you know, you need a ride or want to go fill out an application. A ride would be so helpful. Yeah they give you a bike but do I feel like peddling a bike 20 miles that way to fill out an application. ...When I leave here tonight, I’m not going to drink a beer. I am going to go home and I’m going to relax, go to sleep, I am going to get up and go to work in the morning. When I get done working Thursday I’m going to kick back and drink a beer and take Friday off, I’m not working. I got nothing to do. Saturday, I won’t drink nothing Friday night. Saturday I go to work, ready to go. Sunday I will probably try to go to church and try to meet a few people to try to get more work. One job a week.
(It sounds like you’ve got a plan, you just need everything to fall into place).
Yeah, its what I need. I'll let you make up your own mind about Bob. I left the interview feeling very sad and confused, mostly sad.
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