Joel grew up in Alpine, then drifted away from the family ended up in Tennessee.
Met a woman, had a child. Broke up with the girlfriend but wanted to stay in touch with his son. So he moved into an apartment to be near them, then the ex moved again, told him he could visit, but never made his son available. That started a cycle of depression and anger that led to drugs and an inability to concentrate on a career.
He moved back to San Diego, but hadn’t shed the drugs, so he had trouble keeping a job. He didn’t want to stay with family, so he ended up on the streets. For a time, Joel rallied, went into a program and stayed clean for four years, but when his car died and he had to use public transportation, he arrived late to his job at Wal-Mart too many times, so he lost that job.

Joel spends his time very focused on the moment. He folds and unfolds tarps. He’ll go through trash and harvest things he can barter or sell to get enough money to get high. $5-$10 will buy enough speed for a high that might last a few hours.

Thrown off the sidewalk on a freeway overpass downtown by a police squad of six vehicles, eight police officers, one in heavy gear, he followed a trail of other homeless individuals to neighboring streets. Pushing one cart, pulling the other, he searched for his friend to grab their other two carts before someone went through them. The two men shuffled items from their carts, tossing a few things onto the sidewalk, designating one cart full of items worthy of sale or trade, another cart for recyclables, another for still-good clothes. The waited for the police to leave so they could reclaim their spot and rehang their tarps.

“I wish I had a dollar,” Joel kept repeating to no one in particular. “Then I could refill my soda cup.” His friend took out a fat piece of chalk and artfully drew a fish on the sidewalk using a tee shirt they’d found as a model.
The huge abscess in his elbow joint was red and oozing onto his shirt. A woman who pulled her car up to the curb, offering him the end of her cigarette, reminded him about the flyers posted around the area for an abscess wound clinical study that paid $50 to people with credit card-sized sores they could study. It was near dark, but he wandered off anyway to look for a ride to the clinic so he could get the $50, share it with whoever gave him a ride, and spend $1 of it on a soda.