You don’t know me. I used to be a Smash Street Boy a few years ago. I left because I had an opportunity and a scholarship to attend a flight school. I have been back to Smash Street a few months now. I am helping Tim. Trig and I are his gopher drivers. Tim has glaucoma. Driving at night would be dangerous, and we drive at night a lot. I am writing a book called ”Driving Mister Tim.”

“Driving Mister Tim” is also a lot of what else? Photography and video. It has been difficult keeping Tim’s butt out of it. I don’t know what will happen to this project. I don’t know if I can even finish it. I never knew that doing this kind of multimedia project would be this hard. It is not important if you believe me or not. What is important to me is just to keep adding more things to it without running out of steam. Tim is not too happy that I am doing this.

Tim Barrus is organizing young male adolescent sex workers to create their own safe or safer places where they can come together and share many of the burdens of the struggles they have. This is easier said than done. I am just here to document it. I can tell you some of the stories. I cannot tell you all of it. Prostitution is illegal. What surprises the boys is that one of the things they share – every last one of them – is a history of sexual abuse. So many kids like this, and I was one of them, think they are the only ones. There are many of us out there. This is the story of just a few.

This is not about trafficking. Trafficking is different. This is about the choices people make for themselves. This is about survival. From time to time I will post some of the work. Please be patient with me. I have never done anything like this before.

Hunter Layfield