A Picture of America in Picture Rocks
“Started out as a framer, you know building walls and houses and that. There was a time when framing was a respectable profession. A framer would have a nice 4 bedroom house, 2 car garage, brand new cars every year, they had speedboats. They could even go take a vacation up in Michigan for the summer. It’s not there anymore. Nowadays you’re lucky if you make minimum wage with your hands on a hammer. I used to be a framer, now I live in a tent back over there by that tree”
Dave was sitting on the back of a truck next to another guy in dark glasses and a hat. They were apparently selling homemade motorized bicycles with little 50cc engines welded to them. The price tags read about $600-$800 per bike. I couldn't distinguish why the prices were different. Dave was quick to speak and quick to correct, he wasn't selling the bikes, that was Joe's job. He was just there because Joe was "paying him to sit there, drink, and keep him company."
“This land is technically private land we’re sitting on here, one of those middle-of-nowhere parcels of land they gave to the workers on the transcontinental railroad because it cost too much money to Shanghai ‘em and they didn’t have the cash to pay them right. This parcel belongs to a fellow by the name of Herb Kai and I know him, we stay off bar property back that way and we’re good. So we’re allowed to drink out here so long as we don’t flaunt it, cops can’t do anything. And it’s convenient because it’s right by where I’m living at these days.”
He gestured back to a wide, shady tree about 100 feet back. Dave's been living under the tree next to the Wagon Wheel bar in Picture Rocks, Arizona for about 3 months, "since Christmas." He says it's not the first time he's had to crash there. He was living there before when a friend, a Vietnam veteran offered him a place to stay and asked him to help as a caretaker. His friend had a stroke a while back so he was a falling risk, and Dave needed a place to stay. "There were a good number of times I'd come in and he was stumbling and bloody, so I had to help stitch him up. But eventually he recovered really well from the stroke itself. I like to say he patched up 95% just like me." He held up his hands, with a finger half missing on his left hand.
"These days, his alzheimers gets bad at the end of the day. In his mind he's back in war, and I'm the 'gook' to him. So one day he told me to 'get out' and he's throwing things and such, so I came back to this spot."
Dave has a relatively upbeat attitude compared to his bike selling truck mate, who didn't have much to say besides some odd jokes about drinking gasoline and train accidents, but that didn't stop him from criticism of the country.
“This country’s gone way way way downhill in my experience. Now I’ve been, not all over the world but I’ve been to North Africa, and through Europe back in the day. And we got the best thing going by a long shot, just from the freedom of it, like you can do so much more as anyone in society than so many other places. But here’s a good one for why it’s messed up here today. Monday night, my eyeball swells up because this tooth got abcessed, and I 911 myself. Now I’m on the Arizona State Health Plan so this is all free to me, but they’re just gonna save my life, they’re not gonna pull the tooth. Just think about that. It’s $1500-$1600 to get a trip in from here to the hospital on the ambulance. They probably charge about the same to stick a hypodermic needle in to suck out the poison in my jaw. So that’s what I mean about America going downhill. We’ve gotten all about treating the symptom, not the problem and it costs us.”
Dave grew up in South Bend, IN, right across from Notre Dame. He remembers looking up at the golden dome of the school and knowing he could never go there. "I tell people it's because I'm an atheist, but it was always a money thing. I could never afford it there, and even if I got a scholarship, I'd never have the money to fit in." His comments bit effortlessly to the core of most of the issues we talk about every day.
When we left, Dave insisted we all shake hands one more time and thanked us. "It's nice to have a moment to talk to people with thoughts in their heads." Hope we live up to that.
