You signed in at the front office with a show of legit id. This guaranteed safety.

There were several tenants, both women and men who were vying for my business.

I had money, I didn’t cause trouble and was generous to a fault… I was what you would call a highly desirable CUSTY…

Drugs and sex were on the menu and my abstinence from sex had little to do with morality, just my extreme paranoia of sexually transmitted disease. Because I wasn’t after anything other than a safe place to get high, I was granted trust. I was told everyone’s back story whether I wanted to hear it or not. I was very popular. 

Towards the end, after days turned to week’s and months to years, after everything’s been said and the drugs weren’t working, I looked around the room and realized that I knew everyone’s story, and there was 1 common denominator.

We had all been seperated from our primary families. Everyone of us including me. The reasons were all different, rape, incest, betrayal, violence, abandonment , bullying, delusional perception… death. 

It didn’t matter how we got there really, that was the tragedy;  the results were in. What mattered to me was, in that moment… were any of us getting out?

I left and never went back. 

Dennis Mantin