Heading Toward the Light

Rebecca invited me to see her new place. It was a dozen or so kilometres outside of town, up a hill, through a forest that had been logged several times over. The owner of the land opened a portion of his property to locals who were either living on the street, or very close to it.

Accommodations were simple: travel trailers, fifth wheels, RVs and campers. All were at least two or three decades old. He had them arranged in a half moon shape above a creek that was, at this time, gushing from Spring run off. This configuration allowed him to keep “a better eye on the place,” he said.

About a dozen shelters were divided between 25 individuals. At the far end of the camp was a large fire pit with a big 50 gallon burn barrel toppled on its side. This was the community hangout zone.

At this camp life revolved around methamphetamine use.

There was some fentanyl here too, but side (slang for meth) was the drug of choice. It was a wild place. And I don’t mean that in an untouched, ancient forest, teaming with charismatic megafauna wilderness sense. I mean it got crazy out here. Imagine a couple dozen people going for days without sleep, very little food, in various stages of meth induced psychosis, some extremely paranoid seeing “shadow people” everywhere.

Over at the fire pit, smoke from a piece of unburned plywood wafted up from a mound of black ashes, keeping the memory of last night’s “party” alive, which ended with two of the residents attacking each other with random chunks of lumber. Nothing too out of the ordinary. I have seen much worse at forest camps where people struggling with poverty, addiction, trauma, and mental health issues find themselves living together in ramshackle housing, no support, isolated from the larger community.

Anything can happen at these camps in the woods. Violence. Exploitation. Some landlords ask for rent paid with sex instead of money. Still, everyone who lived here would say it was better than living on the street.

The guy who owned this place charged a couple hundred dollars a month for rent. This of course depended on the type of shelter. Travel trailers were the cheapest; fifth wheels the most expensive. Electricity was supplied through a thick gauge extension cord that was hot to the touch. It was wired to a pole, probably illegally. There was no running water and no toilet except for an overflowing outhouse. As for heat, a few of the trailers had wood stoves, but some of them didn’t.

Rebecca rented one of the travel trailers.

It sat beneath a large, wise and healthy Douglas fir tree. The trailer was kept somewhat level by a couple of cedar stumps that it rested on. It was medium sized, built in the early 80s, and marketed as a having room for three. The outside was dull, sun bleached with dirty beige paint, and the roof had been colonized by tufts of bryophytes that were doing their part to take the hunk of metal back to Earth, slowly, one bit of rust at a time.

Inside, the space was compact, but surprisingly tidy and clutter free.

Wood panelling covered the walls, while the floor was covered by linoleum that was worn away in places. It had a table between two bench seats, a little counter top, two burner propane stove, a deactivated bathroom that now served as a closet, and a sleeping loft with a foamy for a bed. Compared to the other shelters on the property, Rebecca’s was the nicest. Not for the condition of the trailer itself, but for how she kept it.

“I may be poor, but that doesn’t mean I have to live in filth,” she responded when I complimented her on her space. “You have to take pride in your home,” she said. “It’s a reflection of what you’re like inside.”

On this trip I brought some water to share, fresh produce, a mango smoothie (her favourite kind), and harm reduction supplies - meth pipes, vitamins, as well as condoms and lube. We sat at her little table and she told me how it was going. Her tiny potted basil plant was between us, and Jimmy Hendrix’s Angel was playing from her Bluetooth speaker. Rebecca was beaming with pride at her accomplishment of securing housing for herself.

“You know, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had my own place,” she said, with her big red lipstick smile. “For the first time I get to make all the decisions. It’s not much, but I love it. Took me a while, but this old tranny finally did it, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s good to see you’re taking care of yourself.”

Up to that point Rebecca had been precariously housed in various places throughout the region. She rented rooms, did various kinds of work trade - sometimes housework, other times sex work. When she was really broke she would crash on people’s couches. As a 57 year old trans woman in the rural who struggled with addiction and mental health challenges, life was not easy for her. She was a survivor of repeated sexual and physical violence and, on top of the stigma she faced around her drug use, like so many trans people she had daily experiences of harassment and random threats made against her by bigots.

Still, despite this, Rebecca was incredibly kind.

Among many of the qualities that made her special, this one always stuck out in my mind. She gave money to homeless people even when she only had a little herself, made donations to local charitable organizations, took hungry people out for burgers. One time I even saw her give the last bit of her dope to a street person who was broke and going through withdrawal. I asked her about it and she replied by saying, “He needed it way more than I did. And you know me, I can always find a way to get some more,” she said, with a wink.

Despite her big heart and generosity, people in the street scene took advantage of her, exploiting her kindness, pecking at what little resources she had. Sometimes it seemed like it bent me more out of shape than it did her. I mean, of course it bothered her, but mostly Rebecca would just shrug it off, literally with a shake of her wavy hair, saying, “Yeah, it hurts - but it’s worse for them, because they have to live with what they have done. Karma is real, honey.”

I only saw Rebecca cry once about being done wrong. She showed up at my office a mess, saying she had been ripped off by “a friend.” She had just received her disability check and had cashed it. The friend who took it was crashing for free in her trailer because he had nowhere else to stay.

“If I have a little, I’m going to share it,” she told me. “I’m just built that way.”

Her guest took the money from Rebecca’s purse while she was sleeping. He went downtown, bought himself a new phone, scored a bunch of fentanyl, shot up. Found someplace else to crash. Rebecca needed that money to pay her rent, but being short for her bills wasn’t what upset her. Rather, it was the fact that this person betrayed her trust.

“You know me,” she said, wiping the runny mascara and tears from her cheeks, “I would have probably given him all the damn money I had, if only he would have asked.”

From my experiences with her, I knew Rebecca meant it.

The last time I saw Rebecca she was leaving the area. A lot had happened since the visit we had when she first got her place. That travel trailer burned in an accidental fire caused by one of the other residents of the camp. What little she had was gone. Rebecca ended up on the street. Fentanyl made its way into her life. She bounced from the shelter to sleeping in the park. Street life isn’t easy for anybody, but it really didn’t suit Rebecca. She needed privacy and space. Without a zone where she could retreat to, she was vulnerable to the hostility of transphobes, stigmatized for her substance use and homelessness, not to mention the people in the scene who took advantage of her.

And then, one day, she was leaving - going away for treatment.

With so much determination, she jumped through all the hoops and climbed over all the barriers that make it so difficult for street entrenched people to access treatment for substance use. Rebecca went to all the doctor appointments, met with the social workers, got all the necessary referrals, did her time in detox, sat on the waiting lists, she did it all.

And then that day arrived.

“I’m done with this life,” she said as we hugged goodbye in my little office space. Her mascara was running down her cheeks again. “There’s no stopping me now. I’m headed toward the light.”

In the end, I know Rebecca found it.

Fly on my sweet angel, fly on through the sky…

-Jimmie Hendrix

Image by : Stephanie Kelleet