They were living in a motel style apartment on Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas. Truth was known around his hood as a guy who dumpster dived the trashcans and made a living recycling, he was bright, charismatic and industrious. Both of them seemed to have a way with clothes, they were able to rock any look they chose, all from garments found in the trash.

Their Vegas was not the tourist Vegas we have come to know. The famous Strip seemed a million miles away, the outlines of the buildings shimmering to the south. Here on Fremont twilight heralded a palpable shift. As the often blazing sun retired over the mountains the streets suddenly seemed alive with pimps, ho’s, cop cars, pan handlers and an overwhelming sense that everyone was on something.

My first return visit some months later saw them evicted from their apartment and become homeless. They still collected from the trash and recycled what they could, but this peripatetic lifestyle offered new challenges. They still had good spirits and would often help some of the other street folk out with found phones, clothes and toiletries. They both seemed in love and giggled often, filling their days productively. They were well respected in the homeless community, Truth often referring to himself as the Mayor. I’d meet and film the characters who populated Fremont.

As they were now homeless each visit became a challenge to find them, each encounter found them at a different location: living in an abandoned house, under the freeway, on the porch of someone’s uninhabited home. The heavy police presence in the area meant the homeless played a game of continual cat and mouse. Trespass was reason enough for jail.

The seasons would be harsh. A year could yield 100 days with a temperature in excess of 100F/ 38C. The winter nights often below freezing.

I’d learn their back-story. Kitty had abandoned her husband and three small children 9 years earlier – they now lived in California. There had been virtually no contact. She was from a broken home having spent part of her childhood in group homes.

Truth was from Toledo where he’d been raised by his mother. His father was permanently absent, pimping in Las Vegas. His first recollection of his father was seeing his deformed feet sticking out of a blanket when he met him for the first time aged five. He’d explain the feet were a result of a life in pointed shoes … his Daddy was fly.

It transpired that Kitty and Truth had also had a professional relationship. He’d shown her the way to more successful prostitution, never going on a ‘date’ for less than $200. This however seemed to be tinged with the glow of nostalgia. Here they were living on the streets, Truth reminiscing the old days of pimping.

Our encounters together started to reveal bigger struggles with the drugs. He and Kitty were becoming consumed by crystal meth. Their energy for recycling had waned and they spent more time moving collected items from A to B and back again (tweaking). The stress on their relationship was now beginning to show. Kitty would still go on ‘dates’, Truth accusing her of hiding the fact and the money.

They both would reveal moments of genuine wistfulness regarding their relationship with their children. Kitty would often be writing an unfinished letter to her kids back in California. Unfinished was a permanent state.

Paranoia and psychosis were everywhere on these streets. People with mental illnesses self medicating on meth and heroin. Schizophrenia and meth psychosis were difficult to distinguish between.

Truth’s condition seemed less stable every visit. He started to believe he was the chosen one. He’d read the Bible and quote verses randomly and inaccurately. He’d see visions in the sky and badger Kitty to acknowledge she’d seen the same.

Deep down he knew they needed to escape the Fremont life. One day, after a vision he’d had, they walked for three days dragging a suitcase, and a newly found small dog named Faith, to a cave in the side of Frenchman Mountain on the east side of Vegas.

Here in the cold of winter Truth began to gather his thoughts. Kitty left periodically unable to live without the temptations of Downtown. With Faith the dog by their side they’d spend several months here.

Eviction from the cave placed them both back in their old haunts. Surviving within the same few blocks they knew so well, some familiar faces remained but there was also a constant replenishment of America’s disenfranchised.

Truth found himself in the city jail, not for the first time, for trespass  Here he appeared to be in rude health. Exercising and clean from meth he showed great promise for his release. He was coherent, humorous and happy.

Yet on the night of his release he took the biggest hit of meth of his life. Wearing a child’s Superman outfit he’d found in the dumpster, he phoned his baby mamma to reason he was a good absentee father figure and a valuable influence to his kids. He followed the meth cycle of many days on end without sleep and crashing and then sleeping for 2 days. Many of the street folk I met would continue on the drug without sleep for two weeks.

Kitty eventually tired of the street life and the lack of lucidity in her partner. She found a new admirer with a roof over his head. He seemed to have some of his own issues with drink and possibly drugs but managed to maintain a home. She now lived in an apartment one block from where Truth frequently laid on the hard ground.

Truth moved from abandoned house to underpass to abandoned house, fewer street folk than ever noting his presence or whereabouts.
Despair, loneliness and social isolation followed for him, the loss of Kitty taking a large toll. The paranoia increased to new levels. His swagger diminished, his grip on reality ever more unsound. The classic symptoms of prolonged meth use taking their toll, he cut a sad figure.

Having escaped the harsh existence and hustle of the streets, and the unmistakeable pull of Truth, Kitty seemed set for potential new opportunities.

Sadly soon after, she experienced three major strokes in one day. She now resides in a bleak facility in North Las Vegas. She is unable to walk and is fed via a tube. Her communication is limited to nods and gestures. She is 44 years old.