Devon, 30

'The Community Builder'

“I was born here, but raised in Atlanta. I spent about 20 years out there. I came out here after my dad died. It was a diabetic heart condition. I personally feel I’m more responsible for it. Because he was really addicted to painkillers and muscle relaxers, and one day I just snapped, told him I was done dealing with his shit. And the next day he died. It’s okay, he’s in a better place now. He’s not suffering anymore. He was 45. When I snapped and told my father that I was done with it. I reached a part of him that was still my father, and he was ashamed of himself. Because he never wanted us to see him like that. I was bitter. I was angry. I said things that I didn’t mean.

I like to think I have a good personality. Being raised in the South, it’s always that southern hospitality mentality. The reason I have so much stuff most of the time is because I accumulate clothes and extra blankets to give out to people. I like to think of myself as a community builder. I like to help out people. It makes me happy. That’s why I liked customer service jobs. Being able to solve people’s problems – it makes me feel good. I’m very altruistic for very selfish reasons. I like the high. I worked for Stubhub as a customer service representative. My depression – some days I get really down. I was having trouble getting into work, stuff like that. So, I lost my job. The same day, I lost my house.

I use the blue pills [fentanyl] right now, and methamphetamine. I have died twice. Once I died on the trail off North Temple. It took seven doses of Narcan, 17 minutes of CPR and paramedics putting an air mask on my face to wake me up.

The tattoo on my arm, it’s a vein trace, corrupted veins. It’s from a song by Mass of Man, Fallen Angel. It’s about depression and fighting your inner demons. I got the veins because one of the lines in the song is, ‘The voice inside your head, I am the poison in your veins, I toy with your emotions, I take pleasure in your pain.’ And that was my battle with heroin. I celebrated 13 years clean. I got my veins traced so that I could always remember the poison in my veins. Nov. 29 is my celebration date.”

Photograph and story documented by Stephen Speckman.