All news channels were on alert. The first victim was a destitute elderly man named Charles "X", without a surname until the autopsy revealed his full identity. Born in Seattle, he supposedly came to San Diego because of the weather. He found something else.

Much of my journey into the empathy necessary to understand it all forces me to somehow feel the abject way in which the dead might have simply tripped into their demise by the hand of this monster. There is only a feeling, a bitter taste of glass, sleeping pills and vodka I can relate to, with the last vestiges of hope wiped-out from my eyes.

Almost every night brings nightmares about this killer, thrusting all I am into the fire. Would I do the same thing to the helpless? 

The second victim was a Julie "X", homeless since 2015, a portly woman whose history is lost now. The count has only started.

Albeit not proud, I left my last lover in Iowa before coming to Vista, San Diego in 2015. That's because I became homeless in 2013, after Dermot and I were through. Alcohol to numb my psychic pain caused me to behave ungratefully toward my middle sister Carlotta. She then proceeded to evict me from her apartment. Life has been bittersweet ever since. 

For five years I was on the streets, in-between sobriety programs and crisis centers. Never too proud to admit who I really am, even when it hurts. I have found a pace and some self-forgiveness to crawl out of my existential pain.  

I attempted suicide four times, but I always checked myself into an E.R. close to the end. I felt and then knew I would not die in the gruesome ways I  planned. Something keeps me alive, and I hope to know what it is.

Garlands on the spinnet, and my nimble fingers processing my life by slowly reaching into the monster, the Beast I thought I had become in my own life. I'm not as cold or even unkind as I've been told I am. Being formerly homeless has not rotted my nature.

Now, someone is killing the destitute, and living is a confusing maze of decisions, all unknown until I open the door, and leave my flat. Will I come to face this killer? I'm fascinated because I am getting a thrill by following in the killer's mind; to seek, hunt, wait. 

Victim number three was a runaway teenager named Billy "X". He was not fifteen yet, and this death felt and registered in me as harder to fathom because of the innocence of the dead boy. Where random violence suddenly becomes terrifying reaches me throughout. 

Victim four was a tattooed man, homeless since his discharge from prison. Walter "X". Why do I want to know about Walter? He looked as if he could "exude parametres" to anyone outside his co-hort circle. What a mass of prejudices I have become. 

Another dead body, but ask what they did wrong. I wish to know nothing about the reasons that give the right to kill, yet I still stare outside the window in my small bedroom at a moon that sells me silence in exchange for slumber.

One night, I put on charcoal gray cargo shorts, ash gray trainers and an anthracite gray hoodie, hoping to blend into the sidewalk. There were rumours that The Vodka Killer would prey on people within my neighbourhood. The things I could ask! What may I ask?

After hours of observing cars going past me, and deranged transients yelling out about their insular little problems, I chose to walk out to the Marina, on the Northwestern side of the city.

This man and I are separate but for a sliver of love. 

© Text: Orlando Barahona

© Image: Henrik Berger/Flickr

Creative Commons License This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.