David “Hopper” Hopkins

“Well it’s six in the morning, thank God the liquor store is open. Damn I’m shaking like hell. This is worse than yesterday. I hope someone comes by with something to drink.”

Once again I was wishing I‘d never woken up. I was wishing I’d died. That’s how I felt almost every morning throughout the last couple of years of that deranged lifestyle. I felt hopeless, and I was out of answers. And low and behold, God gave me a good slap upside my head, and it led to a moment of clarity as I looked up at the two beautiful…

It was in 1996 when I was kicked out of The Santa Barbara Rescue Mission Men’s Recovery Program for non-compliance and drinking. This was the start of my 10-year homeless journey on the streets of Santa Barbara. I’d burned all my bridges with my family and friends, so there wasn’t anywhere to go. It was at this point in my life that I ran out of ideas and answers. I was as hopeless as could be. I saw a whole bunch of other homeless guys across the street under some palm trees, having a good time. I guessed that if they could sit around with no problems, having a good time drinking and carrying on, then so could I. I was pretty damn stubborn and told myself with pride that I would get through this and nobody would even know. When I walked over to join those guys, I didn’t feel too bad because they were all drinking and getting high. After sitting around for a while and drinking a few beers, I felt okay. They told me the Armory was a homeless shelter where I could sleep and get food and a shower. When I got there, it was crazy: cots all over the place, and it stank like hell. There were people talking, yelling and arguing about the food, arguing about the blankets and who had which cot. There were people shooting up under their covers and drinking wherever they couldn’t be seen. Like I said, the place was crazy.

This went on for a couple of months. I was telling my family that everything was okay, and if they could wire me some money it would be great. When they did, it was because of a lie I’d conjured up, telling them anything they wanted to hear to make it sound like it would benefit the both of us for them to help me stay safe and sound. They would have to use a secret question on the money-gram because I had no I.D., and when I got that money, it never lasted long. I would spend it on beer, weed, and smokes. At that point, food was out of the question. There was plenty of that in Trader Joe’s dumpsters or at the shelter. When the money ran out, there was nothing left to do but start panhandling to get something more to drink. God, that was embarrassing… until someone handed me money. It almost turned panhandling into a high. I’d never begged before, but I was able to get enough spare change to get some booze and get by. Then, as time passed, I started to like it. I had no responsibilities and I could drink whenever I wanted to. The rules of life no longer applied. I didn’t give a shit anymore.

Then one particular day, someone came walking up and asked, “Hey could anyone please go down and help Magruder with his gear? He’s got broken ribs, and the cops just kicked him off the beach.” Well I didn’t even know him, but I went down to give him a hand and we became best friends. He had views of life and homelessness that inspired me. He thought laws against sleeping outdoors, having a beer in public or just sitting on the curb were discriminating against the homeless, and breaking them was a form of civil disobedience. It made being homeless a little more interesting, and maybe that is where I was supposed to be. Was I homeless in order to become a “Homeless profit [prophet]?” My brain, at that point, was trying desperately to convince me that my life was the way it was supposed to be. But it seemed to just get me arrested a lot and make me very visible to the police.

A few years went by and I became just another number on the street. My family was well aware of my situation. At one point my sister said to me in a phone conversation, “Someone told me they saw you holding a sign on the side of the road, begging for money. Is that true?” I lied, of course, and said, “Hell no. Who in the hell told you that?” She never did answer that question. Little did she know that one day I indeed had gone down to Montecito and done just that; I “flew a sign” to get some money.  It turned out so well, I went back to S.B. and grabbed James “Magruder”, Don, and Jewels (James’ girlfriend at the time), and told them about making forty-five dollars in a half hour. We packed up all our gear and went down there to make camp under the 101 Freeway bridge. We took turns in fifteen-minute intervals, flying a sign and making good money. Everybody had smiles on their faces. I think we all realized that we were finally out of town, with money in our pockets. There wasn’t a crowd of people arguing over a beer or a cigarette, or whose shirt was whose. We had become one another’s family.

Thank God there was a liquor and grocery store at the top of the hill with almost everything we needed. One of us could occasionally go back into S.B. and get some weed. We had it made in the shade… except there were no showers nearby, and living under the bridge was dirty and dusty as hell. We all looked like Pigpen on “Charlie Brown.” At one point, there were so many beer cans and other kinds of trash around our camp, that it became very visible to people passing by.  One guy stopped and said he’d pay one of us five dollars to help him clean the area and return the cans to a recycling center; he offered to split the return cash. James came back an hour later with 30 bucks, saying, “Man, that fucking sucked.” It was funny as hell. The dirt and traffic eventually became too much, so we went back to the parks and back onto the railroad tracks. We weren’t there long before we got a dog named Brandy to join our little clan.

Again a few months passed, and it was the same day after day: wake up and drink, go and panhandle, drink some more and make sure we had some kind of booze for when we woke up the next morning. Then came the day when I went to hand Don the beer we were passing around, and noticed blood coming out of his mouth and dripping down his chin. All that came to my mind was, ‘Aw fuck, now what do we do?’ It was obvious something had ruptured inside him and he was about to die. Fear spread through the camp, you could see it in everyone’s eyes. I know Don could see our fear too.  We were able to get him to stand up, saying, “Come on Don, you’re from Motor City. Get your ass up and let’s go get you some help.”  We flagged down one of the cops, and he called for an ambulance. Minutes went by as we tried not to show Don we had any worries, and assured him that he was going to be okay. I could sense the police officer and EMT’s knew it did not look good. Don went into the hospital, lapsed into a coma, and later died.

I didn’t know what was going on, but it all seemed to be happening at once – death, that is. Locally, there was one so-called friend who murdered another friend by smashing his head in with a cinder block. There was yet another who walked out in front of a motorcycle, and both he and the driver died. Homeless people were being found dead in the bushes and even on the sidewalks. And then there were the trains.

To tell you the truth, I cannot remember the names of all the people who chose to die by the train. What’s sad about that is I could understand why they chose to end it. There was Mike, who did a big ol’ issue of dope and did not even feel that train. Not like anyone does when it hits them. Memories like this take me back to when I would wake up in the middle of the night and look around at the way I was living and ask God to give me the balls to “Take the Train.” I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled death, but it’s something you smell with all your senses. There’s an essence to it that makes me at once love the people I am still with, but hesitate to get intimate or close to them. You never know what is going to happen in this lifestyle.

With all this going on, people started sleeping in groups for safety and mental security. Some of the guys preferred to be alone, and yes, a few of the girls as well. It really sucked for the girls because of the constant threat of rape. Sometimes the cops would show up at our camp with some girl who was new in town or maybe a girl who had just been kicked out of her house. The girls would be left with us because the cops knew our group was relatively safe, and it was better if they were with someone and not alone.

It was even worse for the girls who were out there on their own, because they were always being hit on, offered more drugs and alcohol by guys trying to seduce them into sexual acts. God only knows how many times they were offered money, homes, or anything else they needed to hear in exchange for sexual favors. And what really sucked is that a lot of the girls took those offers, because they were either broke or needed the cash to support their addictions. Some of them undoubtedly had mental health issues that were not being addressed, like their need for security, love, or just a male figure in their life. There were a lot of girls struggling with conditions like PTSD, depression, borderline personality, anxiety, or any number of things combined.

It was not just all the deaths and abuse, the drugs would run riot as well. I started shooting up speed, coke, or whatever I could afford every now and then or whatever was offered to me for free. Almost everyone I knew was a garbage can when it came to drugs. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it had been that way since I was a kid. This shit was fucking with my head badly. I needed to do something.

Some time passed and I went to the Hospitality House, where I went through detox. God! That was horrible. But thank heavens I was still able to take my Norco for the pain of the neuropathy that I had developed. With the alcohol-induced neuropathy, I would never walk normally again or be able to run or keep any kind of physical balance.

It was not long before I was out on the streets again, drunk as could be. The life with no responsibilities was back. No cares in the world, except where I would get my next drink. The same old cycle was happening: the hospital, the jail, and the tracks. My horrible physical and mental condition became the status quo. More time passed in a blur, and soon I was the one throwing up all kinds of blood. Some days it would be James who was losing more blood than me. Some people had bets on which one of us would die first. Even the police had bets.

Which brings me to the night I would never wish for anyone to go through. We were all down at East Beach Bath House trying to stay out of the weather. It was cold and wet that night, with only the noise of cars going by once in a while and the crash of waves on the beach. There were some people up by the bathrooms trying to stay dry and avoid getting hassled by the cops. James and I must have passed out early, because we were the only two people left down under the pavilion. I peeked out of my sleeping bag one moment, only to see James — my best friend, my brother, the only person left that I truly cared for — hurling up so much blood that a puddle had spread to within an inch of my face. That sense of death I mentioned earlier — it was back, along with a complete feeling of hopelessness.

James was arched over on all fours, the way a greyhound dog stands. There was that smell again, the one that Don and Kelly and all the rest of them had before they died. It took me back to the time I was just a kid with my dog, my best friend, knowing she was dying. I suddenly became a 41-year-old kid, and started to cry as James was gasping the words, “Oh God, oh God, someone fucking help me.”

I lay there unable to move, just looking at all the blood and whatever else was mixed in with it. I could not move. Tears flowed down my face softly as James crawled over to the pay phone to call 911. I was finally able to sit up on a bench when the paramedics lifted James onto a stretcher. While I talked with the firemen, they loaded James into the ambulance. All I wanted was some kind of booze to take away everything I was feeling. My thoughts were racing. ‘Why is my life like this? Is this going to be what life is all about? I need a drink! Does God hate me? Why me? I need a drink! What the hell did I do to deserve this?’ There I was, stuck in my colossal, selfish, egocentric life, not giving a shit about anything or anyone. I was thinking that I was the one on the cross, and that nobody would look up or care.

Life continued on, and the drinking got worse for me. James was at the hospice facility Sarah House for a time. But before long, he was back out trying to do some controlled drinking. And then came the day of my own death.

Patrick, another homeless friend, James and I were out in front of Circle K and The Habit Burger, already with a good buzz and $5, trying to figure out what to buy. Out of the blue came this guy Randall, and he offered us a fifth of vodka for the 5 bucks, and we agreed. Patrick took a gulp and handed the bottle to me.  That’s the last thing I remember, because next Patrick said, “Let’s have a drinking contest,” and I downed the whole thing and went over backward to the pavement. Someone called 911, and when the firemen got there, they used the paddles to get me back. I was dead. Patrick had said to James, “Hey look, I think Hopper’s dead,” and James said, “Good, the motherfucker drank all the vodka.”

I still had not learned anything from that experience. It wasn’t maybe a day later when the love of my life at the time came to see me in the intensive care unit at the hospital, and thank God she brought some more vodka.

I got out of the hospital and went straight back to the tracks to do what I loved: drink. Some of the guys hanging out at the park told me James was not the same anymore. Sadly, it was true. James now had a “wet brain.” He would only get about a half pint of alcohol in his body before he started repeating himself and being rude to people. But deep down inside, I think he knew what he was doing. He never wanted to die sober. Soon the day came when he asked if I wanted to go back into the mountains camping for a while. He loved the hills. But there came that sense of death again, and I said no. I simply said, “goodbye,” because if I had said, “see you later,” it would not have been true. And he just gave me that big-ass, beautiful smile. It happened the way he wanted, and he died in the hills with a buzz. You know what James?  I miss you, and so many others do too.

Three months went by and I remained drunk as hell, going in and out of the hospital due to blood loss. By this time, I had ruptured my esophagus and was not in good shape. I would get out of the hospital and say shit like, “They just gave me four pints of blood!” or, “You should have seen all the damn tubes they had in me, every orifice was plugged.” And I would think it was funny. The fact was that I was starting to sense that smell again, but it was my own death that was just around the bend.

Which brings me back to the point when God gave me a good slap upside the head.

There they were, my two beautiful angels, Stacy and Michelle. They stood before me, weeping and pleading that I go back to the hospital. “Damn it Hopper, you’re dying. You just can’t lay there and die. Damn it Hopper, just go! I don’t care if you have to sleep on my couch when you get out. If you don’t go right now, you won’t make it another day.”

I had nothing to do but go. Those girls, those angels crying made me think, ‘Wow, someone cares for me and maybe I’m not alone.’ I had finally given up, surrendered. My ten years of being so damn selfish and living without responsibilities was over. What really sucked was that there was no way in hell I would be able to stop drinking on my own, and that was one thing I was deathly afraid of. Stacy said, “We will take you to the hospital, and you can tell them that you are going to kill yourself and be persistent about it until they decide to put you in the Puff unit [PHF – Psychiatric Health Facility] and that will give us time to find a place for you to go to.”

When I got to the hospital and told them I was going to kill myself, I can remember telling them that I was going to step in front of a train. The real truth was that I was going to keep on drinking and drugging, and at that point it would have ended in a matter of days. I would be dead. The doctors looked at me weighing 130 lbs., yellow bloodshot eyes, delusional as hell, and shaking so badly that I could have worked at a paint store. They took the bait, and off to the puff unit I went.

All of this was, and still is, blurry in my mind. I do know that at one point they had me in a room that had a table with straps and buckles to restrain someone. And yes, it was me who needed to be restrained. They said I was a danger to myself. I know they had me drugged up pretty good with Ativan or Librium and whatever else to prevent me from having alcohol withdrawal seizures. When those several days in the fog were over, I was able to go out and have a smoke. Thank God Stacy was bringing me smokes. Another day or two went by, and I went in front of the panel of doctors for a psych evaluation, to decide whether I would still be a danger to myself if they released me. I convinced them that I was still unfit for release, so Stacy had more time to find a place for me. A place that would house a chronic homeless drunk being discharged from the psych ward.

A few days later, more of God’s Grace came my way. Stacy showed up with a big ol’ smile, saying a donor had written two checks for me: one check for a month’s rent at the sober living club next to the Rescue Mission, and another worth a couple hundred dollars for food. To this day I’m not sure who that donor was, but I have my suspicions it was Mike Foley, the director of Casa Esperanza. I still wonder if maybe I was a guinea pig of sorts — if given the chance, could a chronic homeless alcoholic turn his life around?

David “Hopper” Hopkins lives in the Riviera Hotel.

*This piece has previously appeared on Homeless In Santa Barbara