Vicki came into Uturn after coming to Brandon on a bus from Winnipeg and eventually ending up in the Centre for Adult Psychiatry. In the previous 5 months she had stopped using cocaine, meth and alcohol and was escaping a very dangerous environment in Winnipeg where she was connected to some pretty nasty people capable of doing very nasty things.
Vicki could be, uhhhhh, well random is too polite but since this is a family show we'll stick with that. It was amazing to see where the conversation could go in a heartbeat with her. One such chat sticks out in my mind very, very clearly.
We were sitting on the couches in the Uturn office chatting about how things were going when, without any hesitation, Vicki said, "I am pretty sure my pizza was stolen."
"Your pizza?", I asked?
"Yeah. I put it in the oven and then I took a shower and then when I came out of the shower I thought, 'wow, that pizza smells good.' And then when I opened the oven door there was nothing there. I know it was Shaun."
I closed my eyes, trying desperately to wrap my head around someone stealing a pizza out another person's oven when I said, "so you are pretty sure it was stolen? Why do you think it was Shaun?"
"Yeah, because he likes pizza. He likely smelled it in the hall, came in and took it when I was in the shower."
"But it sounds like you're not sure if it was stolen or not. Where else could it go?"
"I know right? So I think you should evict Shaun because that's not cool."
I just slowly nodded by head, trying to put together a response and look concerned enough to not have Vicki think that I thought she was crazy. During this moment there was a pregnant pause which ended with Vicki stating, "and someone stole my peephole."
Still trying to cobble together a measured response from the great pizza caper I responded, "uhhhhhhhhh, your peephole?"
"Yep it's gone. But don't worry, I put a piece of Kleenex it the hole."
"So it's been quite the week for you", I said. "First, your pizza was stolen, or so it's assumed, from your oven and then your peephole from your door was pried out."
"Yeah. Truth be told, I'm not feeling completely safe around here."
Later that day I took a stroll through the Uturn apartment building and, sure enough, there was an entire Kleenex stuffed into the peephole in Vicki's apartment. At lease she took care of it.
Vicki worked extremely hard to make a different life for herself but it was very, very difficult. She had so many obstacles from her addictions (that she was doing really great with) to mental illnesses to trying to adjust to a new city. Overall she was doing really well but one day she got some money that she wasn't expecting which put her in a really good mood. At the same time she was with an unsavoury character who had heroin in his possession. Another Uturn tenant was with both Vicki and the other guy and didn't want to use any needles but didn't want to leave her alone either. Sometime during that night of drinking and drugging Vicki overdosed and died. It was the first loss of a tenant that I experienced in Uturn. I truly believe that if the heroin hadn't been available right in that moment that Vicki wouldn't have searched it out which is extremely sad. The combination of feeling excited, a negative influence and available drugs along with a severe lack of impulse control led to her death.
Every time I look at a peephole I think of Vicki.
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