Matthew OBrien - Dark Days, Bright Nights

Matthew OBriens Beneath the Neon introduced the countryand so many media outletsto the tunnels beneath Vegas and the people who lived there. How easy it would have been to play the voyeur, to just walk away. But OBrien does what is needed. Dark Days, Bright Nights is an important book because it refuses to let us look away. It allows us to sit down at the metaphorical table and listen. This is the story of lives gone wrong, of people who have fallen, who are flawed and trying. They are touching and human and alive on the page. This is the story of the other side of Vegas; it is the story of what happened to America. The question for each of us: Will we play the voyeur or sit at the table?

Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children and Alice & Oliver

A profound, moving, and inspiring book about the world beneath Las Vegas and how human beings can survive and overcome the toughest challenges in life. Everyone should read this wonderful work!

Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

With the heart of an artist and the ear of a journalist, Matthew OBrien first shined a light on the homeless people who exist in the storm tunnels of Las Vegas. In Dark Days, Bright Nights, OBrien brings their heart-wrenching stories to the surface and offers us an unforgettable portrait of a slice of humanity most would never encounter.

John L. Smith, author of The Westside Slugger: Joe Neals Lifelong Fight for Social Justice

Dark Days, Bright Nights is not summer reading: Its all-seasons reading, and a reader may well pull it off the shelf and read it more than once. Using the unfiltered words of the homeless in Las Vegas, Matt OBrien has compacted, in some 240 pages, volumes of truth, the kind that sociologists cant possibly reveal in studies and statistics. Matts interviewees are not cold statistics; they are warm humans with tales of embarrassment over failure and of pride over success. I will never look at a homeless person again and see someone with a sign pandering for money. Instead, I will see a caring heart trapped inside a human whose troubled life has been a struggle against the forces of the world and against him or herself, addiction being the greatest of those.

H. Lee Barnes, award-winning author of ten books, most recently Life Is a Country Western Song

In Dark Days, Bright Nights, OBrien interviews thirty-six similarly cast-off homeless, editing their stories into deftly plotted narratives of lost souls driven underground by misfortune, addiction, and abuse. Some make it out, their revelatory struggles testaments to courage, hope, and redemption. For those still there, OBrien offers a call to action. Buying this book is a startevery copy contributes to the Shine a Light project that rescues people from this social and economic neglect that echoes so darkly beneath our American prosperity.

Douglas Unger, author of Voices from Silence and Leaving the Land

Matthew OBrien has expertly pieced together a compelling narrative that tells the tale of human life in the storm tunnels beneath the glitter of Las Vegas. From the dwellers early lives to adulthood, from why they went underground to how they survived or didnt, these stories of celebration will tug at your heartstrings.

Cathy Scott, journalist and author of The Crime Book and The Killing of Tupac Shakur

Surviving the Las Vegas Storm Drains

Matthew OBrien

Central Recovery Press (CRP) is committed to publishing exceptional materials addressing addiction treatment, recovery, and behavioral healthcare topics.

For more information, visit www.centralrecoverypress.com.

2020 by Matthew OBrien

All rights reserved. Published 2020. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Publisher: Central Recovery Press

3321 N. Buffalo Drive

Las Vegas, NV 89129

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: OBrien, Matt (Matthew), author.

Title: Dark days, bright nights : surviving the Las Vegas storm drains / Matthew OBrien.

Description: Las Vegas : Central Recovery Press, 2020.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020024686 (print) | LCCN 2020024687 (ebook) | ISBN 9781949481426 (paperback) | ISBN 9781949481433 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Homelessness--Nevada--Las Vegas. | Underground homeless persons--Nevada--Las Vegas.

Classification: LCC HV4506.L37 O37 2020 (print) | LCC HV4506.L37 (ebook) | DDC 305.569209793135--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024686

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024687

Photos by Steve Fanell. Photo of Matthew OBrien courtesy of Gilberto Campos.

Portions of the epilogue were originally published in May 2017 on dtlv.com.

Portions of Jazzs interview originally aired in August 2016 on Nevada Public Radios State of Nevada.

Every attempt has been made to contact copyright holders. If copyright holders have not been properly acknowledged, please contact us. Central Recovery Press will be happy to rectify the omission in future printings of this book.

Publishers Note: This book contains general information about addiction, recovery, and related matters. The information is not medical advice. This book is not an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or another professional healthcare provider.

Our books represent the experiences and opinions of their authors only. Every effort has been made to ensure that events, institutions, and statistics presented in our books as facts are accurate and up-to-date. To protect their privacy, the names of some of the people, places, and institutions in this book may have been changed.

Cover by The Book Designers and interior design and layout by Sara Streifel.

To Sharon
and all of the others
who didnt make it out.

Seventeen years later, I still recall the scene. I was sitting at my bulky wooden desk in the office of Las Vegas CityLife, a now defunct alt-weekly newspaper. It was late afternoon. Thumbing through the Las Vegas Review-Journal in the natural light afforded by a floor-to-ceiling window, I stopped at a story about Timmy T.J. Weber, an accused rapist and double-murderer who had been captured after three weeks on the run. The final paragraph of the story, which explained that he had used the underground flood channels to evade the police, captured my imagination.

I laid the paper on the desk and wondered what Weber experienced in the tunnels. What he saw, heard, smelled. Did clues pertaining to his crime remain? Could he hear the police dogs howling overhead?

I also wondered what lurked beneath Las Vegas. What secrets did the storm drains keep? What discoveries waited in the dark?

As the managing editor, I wasnt the person to answer those questions; I was shackled to my desk. Only the most daring and desperate mercenary would accept the assignment I had in mind, so I picked up the phone and pitched the idea of exploring the drains to