Speaker 1: This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast
Speaker 1: More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive.
Speaker 2: Jerry Klickstein was born in Boston, Massachusetts, too at best,
Speaker 2: challenging circumstances that led him to a journey that led
Speaker 2: him to writing about his journey in his new book
Speaker 2: called Crooked Smiles. What Sorry, Crooked Smile. What it Took
Speaker 2: to escape a decade of homelessness, addiction, and crime. Jared Klickstein, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 2: So your childhood? Is that a fair assessment? It was challenging.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, listen, my parents were heroin addicts and
Speaker 4: they eventually started using crack cocaine, and you know, I listen,
Speaker 4: I'm still lucky that I came from like a two
Speaker 4: parent household, I guess and all that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, there was challenges.
Speaker 2: And at what point, I mean, were they homeless as well?
Speaker 2: When you were that? When when you were young, did
Speaker 2: you struggle with having a place to live?
Speaker 4: No? I mean, my dad had had a pretty good
Speaker 4: union carpenter job and it was sort of okay, and
Speaker 4: things worked out, and you know, it did get worse
Speaker 4: and worse, and eventually, you know, by the time I
Speaker 4: was twelve, it was probably heading in that direction. But
Speaker 4: fortunately I had an aunt and uncle in Oakland, California
Speaker 4: that that came and adopted me, and we tried to
Speaker 4: put my parents in rehab, but that sort of just
Speaker 4: floundered for years, but eventually took hold of my dad.
Speaker 2: At what point did you strike out on your own?
Speaker 2: Jared Klickstein as the author of Crooked Smile.
Speaker 3: Pretty quickly.
Speaker 4: I mean I started doing heroin around nineteen and nineteen twenty,
Speaker 4: and by the time I was twenty two, I was homeless.
Speaker 4: And it's you know, it's pretty pretty simple. You just
Speaker 4: you run out of money and run out of friends,
Speaker 4: and you run out of family, and no one will
Speaker 4: really put up with your horrific behavior. So it was
Speaker 4: it wasn't that that complicated for me to become homeless.
Speaker 2: At the time. Were you aware that a lot of
Speaker 2: this was because of influence of your parents or were
Speaker 2: there other reasons?
Speaker 4: Uh? No, I didn't really think it was because of them,
Speaker 4: and I still don't know if it really they had
Speaker 4: anything to do with it. I think it was just,
Speaker 4: you know, I really got addicted to oxyconton really quickly,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know that ox con was essentially heroin,
Speaker 4: and and.
Speaker 3: You know, just listen to the stuff is super physically
Speaker 3: and mentally addictive. And and I you know, whether my
Speaker 3: parents were heroin acts or not, I.
Speaker 4: If I had done that much oxycon and heroin, no
Speaker 4: matter what kind of background it came from, I think
Speaker 4: I really would have wound up addicted. But but then again,
Speaker 4: I think I did become addicted to suppressed pain of
Speaker 4: growing up in those circumstances.
Speaker 2: Jared Klechstein is with us a crooked smile what it
Speaker 2: took to escape a decade of homelessness, addiction, and crime.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that first night you spent when you
Speaker 2: were homeless?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first the first night, I actually I still
Speaker 4: had a car, so I slept in a car, and
Speaker 4: that's sort of cheating. I don't know, it's sort of
Speaker 4: like a it's like being homeless with like a life
Speaker 4: vest on. Yeah, you know, it's not that bad, but
Speaker 4: you know, I obviously eventually you you lose the car
Speaker 4: and then you're sleeping outside and that is very frightening.
Speaker 2: Did you find yourself in homeless camps at some point?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, you know, I wound up homeless in Los
Speaker 4: Angeles and naturally gravitated towards skid row where homeless people
Speaker 4: gravitate to.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you're kind of you eventually.
Speaker 4: Make friends, I mean, you make enemies, and if you're
Speaker 4: I mean, if you're lucky enough, you make some good
Speaker 4: friends and.
Speaker 3: You end up in a camp. Then you sort of
Speaker 3: protect each other.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, you're all homeless and on drugs,
Speaker 4: so someone will doublecross you for five dollars. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: that's it's not like, you know, it's not like you're
Speaker 4: you're in the foxhole with someone that's honorable or anything.
Speaker 2: Talking to Jared Klickstein that crooked smile. At what point
Speaker 2: did you decide to write this book?
Speaker 4: About six years ago, I wound up in a situation
Speaker 4: where I was living with some people that were sober
Speaker 4: and they were trying to help me get sober, and
Speaker 4: I just started writing it and I thought that, you know,
Speaker 4: I didn't really want to live anymore, and I started
Speaker 4: started writing this like poetic, you know.
Speaker 3: Self obsessed suicide letter.
Speaker 4: And it kind of just turned into this book eventually,
Speaker 4: I you know, it turned into a draft.
Speaker 3: At least.
Speaker 2: Most of your homelessness was in Los Angeles or was
Speaker 2: it between Los Angeles and Oakland.
Speaker 4: Most of it was in Los Angeles, but I was
Speaker 4: homeless also in Oakland and San Francisco.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, the majority of it was in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: And of those three cities, which one was the best
Speaker 2: to be homeless in?
Speaker 4: I'd say Los Angeles because Los Angeles has skid row,
Speaker 4: which is essentially like its own city of homelessness, And.
Speaker 3: You know, it's adventurous, and there are some resources.
Speaker 4: They're not resources to really there's not a lot of
Speaker 4: resources to help you get out of homelessness, but there
Speaker 4: are a lot of resources to sort of help you
Speaker 4: maintain your homelessness, for lack of a better way of
Speaker 4: describing it. But yeah, and the drugs are better in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles than they are in They're just higher quality
Speaker 4: where they were.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Crooked Smile is the name of the book. And
Speaker 2: you can hear this is kind of it's kind of
Speaker 2: dark humor, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, you know, homelessness and addiction are are extremely dark.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, or or maybe fortunately, you get.
Speaker 4: Yourself in some pretty funny situations because when you are
Speaker 4: under the spell of addiction, you sort of don't act
Speaker 4: in your best interest and end up in crazy, crazy
Speaker 4: situations that that are humorous if you after the fact,
Speaker 4: they're humorous.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can you give us an anecdote of one of
Speaker 2: those instances?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, you you really sacrifice your safety when you're
Speaker 4: on drugs, so you'll get your you'll start hanging out
Speaker 4: with people that that you know, you risk your life
Speaker 4: basically on a daily basis. And you know, there's all
Speaker 4: kinds of things that I've gotten myself into. I've you know,
Speaker 4: I ended up getting held hostage in a suitcase naked
Speaker 4: by people that were attempting to sell me.
Speaker 3: To a human trafficker.
Speaker 4: And and that was really scary in the moment, but
Speaker 4: but after I realized, you know it is it is
Speaker 4: pretty funny that, you know, these people tried to sell
Speaker 4: me and and I wasn't very attractive because I was
Speaker 4: on drugs, so I was and they, you know, they
Speaker 4: beat the hell out of me. So I was like
Speaker 4: covered in blood, and they were trying to take pictures
Speaker 4: of me to send to this potential human trafficker, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't looking very sexy. So so fortunately, uh no one,
Speaker 4: the guy wouldn't buy me, I, uh, what do you like?
Speaker 4: Cut a deal and I got I got out of there.
Speaker 4: But uh, you know that is frightening, but it's it's
Speaker 4: also it is funny after the fact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it does doesn't do much for the
Speaker 2: self for the self image, does it. You couldn't even
Speaker 2: be sold to human traffickers?
Speaker 4: No? I mean perhaps now I could, But yeah, in
Speaker 4: the moment, Uh you know.
Speaker 3: I was all I was on meth and heroin.
Speaker 4: Just that's a no one wants the babysit a meth
Speaker 4: or heroin addict.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: That seems like the least fun person to hold captive.
Speaker 2: It's Jared click Stein and he is the author of
Speaker 2: Crooked Smile What it Took to Escape a decade of homelessness, addiction,
Speaker 2: and crime. Have you come to any conclusions as to
Speaker 2: what we need to do as a nation to better
Speaker 2: homelessness nationwide?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that there's a lot of issues.
Speaker 4: I'd almost use the words spiritually. I mean, we just
Speaker 4: have a lot of vision in this country and a
Speaker 4: lot of leaders that aren't really concerned with achieving anything
Speaker 4: more just attacking the other side, and we just keep
Speaker 4: sending money to other countries, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: we just have.
Speaker 3: Thousands upon thousands.
Speaker 4: Of homeless people, and a lot of them are addicted
Speaker 4: to drugs, and we have to give these people hope,
Speaker 4: and we have to stop enacting policies that sort of
Speaker 4: just maintain their homelessness and enable their homelessness and maintain
Speaker 4: their addictions, and you know, set these people up for
Speaker 4: a life worth living with long term nonprofit treatment and
Speaker 4: specifically a job change.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Speaker 1: Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
Speaker 1: weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation