Cesar Perez Thursday at the Church Street bus stop.
Cesar Perez encountered a friend by the bus stop near the Dunkin Donuts at Church and Center streets.
“I have only one,” she told him. “I’ll split it with you.”
Not now, Perez responded: He was about to be otherwise engaged, chatting about the lure of drugs on the street in New Haven and his desire to start fresh somewhere else.
“New Haven is no good,” Perez proceeded to say during the conversation Thursday morning, with a reporter on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. “There’s too many drugs and too many alcoholics. People are always falling out while smoking K2.”
Perez said he has been living in New Haven since 1982. He moved from New York, and quickly adapted to surviving the Elm City streets.
Throughout the interview, many people nodded to him or gave him a fist bump. They call him “Silver,” as he is known for sporting a lot of jewelry. Despite the popularity, Perez said that he is ready to get out of New Haven altogether.
Perez hopes to move to Derby or Ansonia for a year, he said, before relocating to Florida. He’s currently surviving off disability benefits and living on Whalley Avenue thanks to a federal Section 8 rent subsidy, he said.
“I want to move where I don’t know nobody like that,” Perez said. “Cause when I go home, I don’t come out during the day unless I gotta go somewhere.” Perez said that he will only leave the house only to conduct errands.
Perez said he had been working hard to remain clean off of heroin since 1990, after he got caught selling drugs and imprisoned for 20 years. He said it’s too easy to get sucked back in the dark hole of addiction and dealing.
“I used to be out here every morning,” said Perez, who is 61. “I’m only out here today to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy.”
“I started using because I was selling drugs and I decided to use one day, and I got caught up with the heroin,” Perez said.
Perez was selling on Frank Street in the Hill back then. He has been incarcerated at Osborn Correctional Institution, Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center, Cheshire Correctional Institution, Garner Correctional Institution. He was released from prison in 2010.
“It’s been like this all of the time here,” Perez said. “There’s always people who fall out from drugs. They go and come back, and do the same thing all over again.”
Perez said that if someone is using and wants to get clean, they need to channel their inner strength. Perez said he also received support from his wife and three daughters.
“If you don’t have no strength and you’re weak, then you’re never gonna do it,” Perez said.
He also receives help at New Era Rehabilitation Center, he said. But he also faces temptation when he runs into someone who’s still using.
“The other day I ran into my friend at a methadone program, and I asked them, ‘You’re still using, huh?’, Perez said. “And they said, ‘Oh, once in a while.’”
Around 10 minutes into the interview, Perez asked to end the discussion.
“People around here probably think that I’m snitching or something,” he explained.
After the interview wrapped up, another old friend of Perez’ got off of the city bus and approached him. The friend had moved out to Waterbury and returned to the area. He said that he was back because of his son. The two mingled for a second before Perez took off to talk to another group of acquaintances on the corner.
Click on the video to watch the full "Word on the Street" conversation on WNHH FM's "LoveBabz LoveTalk."