They called him “Joker” because of his big lips and his big laugh.
“When George laughed, he looked just like the Joker on Batman,” said Billy, who spent nine years drinking on the streets with George Chase Alone, a 47-year-old homeless man who died Sunday in a sleeping bag along Speer Boulevard.
Billy and friends gathered Thursday in Father Woody’s Chapel of Hope at West Seventh Avenue and Lipan Street to say a rosary and tell a few stories about Chase Alone and his companion, Larry Huntsinger, a 44-year-old man who died the same night while sleeping just a few feet from George.
The Denver coroner’s office has not yet determined what caused both men to die the same night. Foul play isn’t suspected.
Sean Porter, 44, said he came to Denver three years ago after finishing his chemotherapy and started drinking again after a year and four months of sobriety.
“I met George as soon as I got here. He made sure I had a safe place to sleep, and a bedroll,” said Porter, while a dozen men, most of them homeless, listened in the tiny chapel.
“Larry, George’s ‘road dog’ who was camping with him, died for want. He died for lack. He lacked any water. He wanted a drink.
“A lot of people don’t care about us. I feel the most worthless of the worthless. But those guys never hurt anyone, and they died right there on the street,” Porter said as his eyes welled up with tears.
Theresa Jacobsen, a counselor at Substance Treatment Services inside the homeless shelter at East 16th Avenue and Lincoln Street, said Chase Alone had been sober for months.
“He was looking good; he was really taking care of himself,” she said.
But Porter said Huntsinger had just cashed a disability check and indicated he thought the two drank themselves to death.
Little is known about Huntsinger’s past. Chase Alone grew up on the Oglala Sioux reservation in Pine Ridge, S.D.
“He was legally blind and had to wear great big glasses,” said Jacob sen, the counselor. “But he did tremendous beadwork, beautiful stuff like dream catchers.”
Billy, who was married to Chase Alone’s cousin Bonnie for 6 1/2 years, said George “never bothered anyone. He was a great talker.”
Billy, who’s now sober and cleaned up, was sad. But he understood why they had gathered in the chapel.
“You can’t live out on the streets and stay sober. You just can’t do it,” he said nervously, knowing that he and any of his friends could slip anytime.
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
