"TEENAGE HOBO JUNKIE"
TEENAGE HOBO JUNKIE
At 13 Crash ran away from home, hopped a freight train from America’s east coast in North Carolina, and jumped from one train and onto another, eventually reaching America’s west coast in California. He squatted in Los Angeles. He roamed through Skid Row. He became addicted to heroin as a teenager. Through shared needles he picked up Hepatitis C. He invested years crisscrossing the country by freight train. He begged, borrowed, and stole. Above all, and with the odds stacked against him, he somehow survived.
His life reminds me of Jack London’s 1907 autobiographical memoir, The Road.
I hadn’t seen him in months. Assuming he had moved on, or died, I was surprised to find him passed out on a sidewalk on the west side of Denver’s Colfax Ave.
He was hooked on fentanyl. Alive, but barely. It was my friend, Crash.
J.P. Caffee
Photography
24” x 36” Canvas Wrapped Print
