I used to stay down in South Scottsdale and would sometimes come up to shoplift at grocery stores in central Scottsdale. When I was on one, activities that now take me very little time to accomplish would take a very long time due to how easily distracted I would get from being over amped. Because of this, I would make a 2-3 day trip of riding my bike and starting at Indian School and Hayden (bashas) then heading up to chapperal (Safeway) then hitting Indian bend and Hayden (Albertsons) which are all within a few miles of each other. After midnight when they closed, I would go hang at Indian School park getting high until they opened in the morning. One time while I was "on break" I saw what I thought was a silhouette of a man wearing all back step out from behind a tree and then go back. I thought it was just "the shadow people" and dismissed it as a hallucination. Well I saw it a bunch of times again then realized it was a real person and he was walking over to talk to me. He was very drunk and offered me some whiskey. I said why not and did a couple shots with him. He was asking me what I was doing there at 2am and I told him (liquid honesty) and he was doing the exact same thing. He didn't use meth but he and I were both addicted to something and were letting it run our lives. I had just stolen a Bluetooth speaker from bashas and we listened to the pixies as we dug out and ate discarded chicken in the KFC dumpster. I really enjoyed hanging with Jozef because we didn't judge each other and had similar musical taste.
I ran into him quite a few times after that in the same area including one time in jail. He was the kind of alcoholic that would die if he's not medicated properly when he stops.
It's been about a year since I saw him. I don't really go to that area anymore, but I hope he is still alive and doing better in life.
Today I'm grateful that I do not live life like I did when I met this dude. I'm grateful that I don't eat out of dumpsters, get high in the park all night, and shoplift from grocery stores.
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