Trevor Krenzelak grew up in a mobile home in Bellaire, Ohio, just across the river from West Virginia. He liked it there, liked watching beavers rearrange the woods behind the trailer park. But on Krenzelak’s 13th birthday, his family’s home was destroyed when remnants of Hurricane Ivan stalled over the valley and dumped nearly 10 inches of rain in 24 hours. The flood waters had barely receded when Krenzelak’s dad “got messed up” in a motorcycle accident; before long his father was addicted to painkillers.
Everything spiraled. The disease that gripped his dad seemed to infect nearly everyone in Krenzelak’s life. “There were a lot of drugs,” he remembers, “and hardly any food.” His grandma got him a job at Target, where she worked as a cashier, but Krenzelak quit after a few weeks. “People were just there for the money,” he says, without a trace of irony.
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