A friend and former coworker of mine went dark about a year ago. We both got laid off from a restaurant in Portland, Or during the pandemic. He elected to use his unemployment money to get super addicted to fentanyl. Once all the unemployment money and government eviction protections ran out he went out on the streets and disappeared.

Flash forward to last week, another friend and I were drinking on the sidewalk in front of a bar. Our old friend happened to walk by. Neither of us recognized him at first, he had become straight stereotypical homeless guy. All scabby and hauling a cart of stolen goods. We made contact with him and figured out where he was staying at a “safe rest village” not far away. I walked back there with him and met a few of his new crew, they all smoked fent and passed out in front of me. Homeless friend and I were both from the same hometown and I’ve known his family have been trying to get a hold of him for months, so I arranged a time to meet with him the next day so he could use my phone and get some shit together.

He didn’t show up to the meeting, so I walked down to the SRV. Security at the SRV doesn’t let outsiders in and won’t say the names of anyone inside, I paid a guy walking in to go grab my buddy. After waiting about 45 minutes he finally rolled out. I walked with him down to the needle exchange and caught up with his life more. Him and his friends generally buy fentanyl for $1 a pill. It works on a barter system a lot of the time, trading bikes and power tools straight for pills. After he picked up his supplies for the day he said he needed to pick up something back at the village and would meet me outside in a couple minutes. Never came back out.

I’ll try again next week.