the distance a hoarse voice calls out, “You’re doing a great
job CAHOOTS! Keep it up!”
The group vanishes as quickly as it descended upon
the van. The team receives a call to pick up a man and
ferry him to the Buckley House detox center, and they’re
off again, driving in silence, the radio chirping. “We’re not
trying to be anyone’s savior or something,” Gicker says,
breaking the silence while Stuart-Pope nods in agreement.
I think to myself that this woman has already saved a life
today. “But this is the most fulfi lling job I’ve ever had, and
I’ve had a lot of jobs,” her partner adds.
The man we pick up is quite happy to be heading to
detox. He is poppin’ and lockin’, showing off his slick
Michael Jackson-style moves in the back of the van. He
then insists on showing us and the Buckley House staff
more dance steps as he stands in the lobby, waiting to be
processed.
FACES & DEATH
BRENTON GICKER
PHOTO BY ROB SYDOR
Alvarez is standing in front of a large vertical box,
wrought with chains, bars and iron locks. “This is the most
defeated needle box in town,” he says. The Eugene-based
HIV Alliance maintains several needle drop-boxes in the
city. The purpose of these containers is to provide a place
where intravenous drug users or volunteer clean-up teams
can safely dispose of used syringes, thereby reducing
the risk of HIV, hepatitis C or some other blood-borne
disease. Recently CAHOOTS was called in to remove a
dirty rig from a red Eugene Weekly distribution box near a
frequented restaurant on River Road — perhaps someone
thought we at the paper provide a needle clean-up service
as well. According to HIV Alliance’s 2010 annual report,
50 percent of people who inject drugs tested positive for
hepatitis C in Lane County.
Alvarez tells me that six years ago about 3,000 needles
were found in the Whiteaker neighborhood’s Scobert
Park during a single clean-up. The problem has gotten
worse, he says.
Though the drop boxes sound like a great idea, they do
pose a particular problem. Alvarez recounts a time he came
outside to fi nd the very box he is now showing me smashed
and broken into. A woman had extracted a used needle and
was attempting to shoot up what little residue was left in the
rig. Alvarez ran to stop her but was unable to do so. The drop
box outside White Bird has been broken into three times
for the same purpose. That box is emptied weekly by HIV
Alliance, and despite this it is always full. “This (intravenous
drug use) is one of the real problems I see on my beat, all the
time.” Alvarez says, “Heroin use here is serious.”
Later in the day, Alvarez and Stuart-Pope encounter a
man who overdosed on heroin in the bathroom stall of a
church. The team describes the man’s skin as blue-colored.
They busted into the stall with uncompromising immediacy.
Through the use of emergency medical procedures and
a burly, Pulp Fiction-esque opioid antagonist “Narcan”
needle, Stuart-Pope saved the man’s life.
Conscious of the fact that I (luckily?) came along on
two rather tame CAHOOTS shifts, I asked both teams if
there were ever moments or things they encountered that
were too much — or rather, calls they went on that haunted
them. All of them mentioned that the death notifi cations
were the hardest to put out of their minds.
Let’s say someone hasn’t shown up to work in days, no
one has heard from her, mail is stacking up at the house.
It starts to smell funny. CAHOOTS is dispatched to check
on things and fi nd the body. CAHOOTS declares the death
“THE MOST DEFEATED NEEDLE BOX IN TOWN”
HAND-OUTS
After this seemingly routine event, Stuart-Pope has
stayed on to complete what will be an entire 12-hour shift,
which is not unusual for her. Alvarez has clocked out and
political activist, former prizefi ghter and CAHOOTS team
member Gicker clocks in. Gicker is driving.
Evening approaches. The van pulls up to the Barmuda
Triangle, (aka West Broadway and Olive Street) and groups
of haggard men and women descend upon the vehicle. It
is as if they’d suddenly materialized the moment we hit
the intersection, like videogame characters cued to spawn
and interact once the player has crossed a certain game
threshold. The street was full in an instant. They swarmed,
almost blocking the van’s passage.
Gicker motions for the congregation to meet him up
ahead past the stop signs. He pulls forward. “Reach back
and open that box right there,” Gicker preps me as the
throng of (perhaps) homeless people comes to the front
windows of the van. I open the large plastic tub of neatly
packed supplies.
Condoms, socks, toothbrushes — these are what the
people ask for and this is what they are handed by the
CAHOOTS team. “Do you have any shoes?” one of them
asks. A team member scrambles about in the back of the
van, but comes up empty. No extra shoes. Somewhere from
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