Carle Jasmin
A reader wrote last April, to Gay Globe Magazine, an email in which he denounced the privileges reserved for certain people who can circulate with impunity in the Gay Village of Montreal, or elsewhere suddenly, and who do not seem concerned by the cover. -fire or containment orders, and they are not essential workers! I decided to look into the situation and found out what I never thought existed …
As soon as I got wind of the situation, I rushed into the Village to try to meet a long-time acquaintance, Amhed, who has worked there for a very long time as an escort for gay men and who does it to pay for drugs. on which he is irremediably dependent. After three days of « walking in the street », who do I see in the corner of Champlain and Ste-Cath begging for a money? My dear Amhed.
The good thing about knowing Amhed is that he is brilliant, very educated and always allows me to ask him the most intrusive questions without ever losing my curiosity. I informed him that this time around I wanted to speak to him for an article, he agreed, as always.
Amhed is very imaginative and the laws are not going to prevent him from going to make three or four clients a night, either at their home or in the back alleys, behind their homes, where the police never go. He walks on the sidewalks without the slightest fear of being checked or arrested since he has a note from his social worker who declares him severely dependent on hard drugs and that he may need to go to a pharmacy. to take a dose of Methadone or simply to go to his dealer (pusher) to take his drug. Yes, because you see, he is one of those hundreds of people who have this privilege, because the state absolutely does not want to see them in psychotic withdrawal filling hospital emergencies, this is not the time, with the pandemic…
Amhed tells me that his paper never goes to fetch his drugs since that’s the day he takes care of that, when he’s made enough customers to go buy some.
He laughs when he tells me, “I’ve been trying to get things back on track for at least 15 years, but drugs are stronger than anything. I’m on social assistance because I can’t hold any job, when the Canada Emergency Benefit (CEP) came in I applied and got $ 12,000 in all, same with the Canada Economic Stimulus Benefit (PCRE) which I apply for every two weeks over the Internet, have received at least $ 15,000 in total and am not even able to afford housing. I sleep with customers, in the entrances of shops and I arrange myself, « Amhed told me with a melancholy of smile and sadness.
Many people who knew that homeless people or drug addicts had the privilege of being able to go out at night say they are shocked or horrified by this apparent unfairness in the face of their own plight. Between us, I much prefer to be locked up under curfew; than living the privilege of the hell of drugs and human misery, just to be able to go out at night to walk with the zombies of the Village!