(Old) Profile: Frankie Turiano

Frankie Turiano spoke calmly to me as his shaggy, dark hair fell into his eyes. He almost listlessly recalled to me a past that would bring many to tears. He didn’t seem to be disconnected though, just finished, as though he couldn’t care anymore. The 19 year old, born outside Chicago in Lake Zurich, Illinois, snapped some rubber bands that he wore on his wrists and began to tell me the story of how he became homeless.

Turiano lived with his mother and father until his parents got divorced when he was five years old. Turiano ended up living with his sister, and his alcoholic mother, who later remarried to a man that physically abused Turiano. Turiano moved more times than he can actually remember. He recalls living in Pearl River, New York, Issaquah, Washington, Squim, Washington, Seattle, Washington, Grand Junction Colorado, Southaven, Michigan, San Bernadino, California, Eugene, Oregon, and North Manchester, Indiana before ending up in Manhattan, New York at the age of 14. He recited the places to me as though he was reviewing a grocery list and told me he had no real ties to any of them. He readjusted the headphones that sit around his neck, and continued.

Turiano told me that his mother had surgery to remove a brain tumor. “She didn’t really change much, she just couldn’t remember anything," Turiano said. "She was still an alcoholic, so I guess she retained that part of her brain.” Turiano later discovered that his mother had been deemed “unfit” to care for him because of the surgery, but he remained in her care all the same because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Not long after Turiano’s mother had her surgery, an altercation took place between Turiano and his stepfather, who was intoxicated and threatening Turiano’s life. Turiano was ultimately arrested for assault after hitting his stepfather with a metal pipe. “He was like a 300 pound guy, and I was just reaching for something while he was choking me,” Turiano said. Turiano’s mother called the police during the fight. By the time they police had arrived, the fight had ended and Turiano’s stepfather had left. “They picked him up off the street and got his side of the story, and then arrested me before I could say much,” Turiano said. Turiano and his mother spoke after the fight, “She said she didn’t want to take care of me anymore after I got arrested,” Turiano said.

When he was 14, Turiano moved in with his father, who was living in New York City, working as a stockbroker. Turiano’s father worked for a brokerage company that was testing new trading techniques. Initially these techniques were a success, but eventually things began to slow down for the company on 34th Street. Because Turiano’s father worked on a commission basis, he felt the crunch when business slowed.

Turiano’s father was addicted to heroin and cocaine. I asked if Turiano had ever seen his father using drugs. Turiano informed me that they lived in a one-bedroom apartment, so it was hard to hide. Turiano said, “Well, you could smell it. It smelled terrible. I walked in on him while he was shooting up, or he’d come out high. Sometimes he’d fuck up and come out with the tie around his arm.”

Life went on like this for two years. Then, when Turiano turned 16, his father began to fail to pay the rent for several months and instead funneled most of his money into his drug habit. In December of 2006, Turiano’s father spent his entire paycheck on heroin in an attempt to overdose. He often got depressed around Christmas time because it marked the birth of his twin daughters, one of which died in a car accident. Turiano’s father was also in a financial bind, as he owed hundreds of thousands in back taxes and child support. “He failed at that like everything else in his life,” Turiano said, “so we were without money and then one day he was gone. He went to the hospital, checked himself in. Then I was alone.” Turiano’s father attended a rehabilitation center in Florida because it was a chance for him to escape New York City, which he had begun to hate. Furthermore, Turiano’s aunt and uncle paid for him to attend the center.

Turiano then decided to leave the apartment for two weeks, sleeping outside. “The apartment was there, but I figured Child Protective Services would start looking for me,” said Turiano “I didn’t want to be put in an orphanage or anything.” When Turiano could no longer stand the winter cold, he broke into his high school for shelter. There, he slept in the basement or the dressing room behind the auditorium. No one was in the school because it was winter break.

After they received a call from his father, Turiano’s patriarchal aunt and uncle reached Turiano on his cell phone (which had not yet been disconnected). They flew in from Seattle to New York and the four of them had a meeting with a therapist to discuss the father’s options. Turiano’s aunt and uncle gave him money, but “I didn’t like to take it because my aunt was a bitch about it. She’d complain about it once she gave it to me. My uncle did it because he’s just a great guy, but my aunt just did it to make herself feel better,” said Turiano. Turiano was not close with his father’s sister, but took a liking to her husband because he was level headed, caring, and a good listener.

Turiano then moved in with his friend, Claudio (AKA Diggy), a tall Puerto Rican man with a deep passion for skate boarding and the female body. He only lived there for about two months before being kicked out by Claudio’s mother. “She didn’t like me. I was just trying to make it, but she was very controlling. She was always yelling at me and I didn’t like it.” Until he graduated high school, Turiano lived with his friend Victor Bankhead. Bankhead and Turiano met at school, though Bankhead was a grade above Turiano. Bankhead was an aspiring model with an affinity for comic books and video games. Turiano’s aunt and uncle were paying Victor’s mother, but Turiano grew tired of his aunt, so he got a job as an usher at Shakespeare in the Park, and worked the night shift from 7pm to 2am, six days a week.

I asked Turiano why he didn’t just give up in the face of such hardships. His drive to succeed was undeniable, but almost inexplicable, even for him. Turiano seemed to be fueled by the desire not to end up like his family members, to be remembered for something greater than himself and his own tribulations. “I kept trying because everyone in my family just sucked so bad. I hate all of them so much for being such fucking losers, for being bad at everything in their whole lives. I wanted not to suck.” He snapped the rubber bands at his wrist before continuing, “I didn’t get into drugs or alcohol because, well, I saw how great the drink worked from my mom, and pops did real great things on the H, so, I figured it wasn’t what I should be doing.”
Turiano sighed when I asked him if he wished he had a family. Turiano said “I had really shitty parents and sisters and aunts and uncles and the whole nine, and then I just had none at all. I do feel like I would like family, but I don’t dwell. It’s just something I won’t have and I don’t miss it because what I had wasn’t really that great.”

Today, Turiano has received a $40,00 scholarship for college and holds down a steady job with a company that works to bring the arts into public schools. He also has his own apartment in Manhattan, New York. I asked him what it is like to have a place he can call his own. Turiano opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. He gave me a half smile and said “It’s weird… kinda surreal. I feel like at some point someone’s going to stop me and be like ‘no you can’t’ or tell me that I missed some step. Everyone in my family always made it seem so hard when it came to getting apartments and paying for bills. It’s not if you don’t waste all your money on booze and heroin. I don’t even think my life has been that hard. A lot of people have it worse.”