sky-lit hall where visitors can get pictures taken with fiberglass cowboys, maison-derrière women and a poker playing grandma. I spend a few minutes cramming my wide feet into cowboy boots and moccasins and making futile attempts to convince the lady at the fudge counter to give me free samples. The strength-tester in the back tells me my grip is "about as strong as a wet noodle" and gives me a rating of "Cow Poke," just between "Sod Buster" and "Bronco Buster." Irritated, I leave.
alk-way s line a
Main from roots two quickily door. stum- trat of replicas in play The Daveye w patty shoes, an leather
Buster' and Bronco Buster. Introduced.
Cowboy hats really aren't my thing and I wouldn't be caught dead in leather chaps or a bolo tie, but there is a certain intrinsic charm about this town. Workers give genuine smiles to everyone who passes through — not as they've been trained to do, but as if they actually enjoy their jobs. Every morning a new set of eager tourists arrives, but there aren't annoyed locals who feel their precious space is being invaded.
their precious space is being invaded.
Being in a town with a population of about 800, the mayor of Wall is pretty accessible. He had asked me to meet him at the single-strip municipal airport on the west edge of town at 1 p.m. Mayor Dave Hahn, a 64-year-old, flat-topped man sporting jeans, a yellow denim shirt and gold aviators, forgot about our meeting but "wasn't doing anything worth canceling anyway." We take a seat in front of his single-engine airplane and get down to business, sort of. "You should know that my job as
business, sort of.
Mayor is strictly a part-time job," he says in a jolly, slow voice. He smacks his lips in between sentences. "I get 60-bucks a meeting, and we only have like two meetings a month." Hahn has been mayor here for over 20 years, and insists this will be his last term.
We make small talk for a few minutes; he tells me the only serious crime in Wall this year was an incident where four high school kids broke into the local golf course, and he can't remember there ever being a murder here. But mostly, Hahn is interested in his airport. He built two of the hangars himself and owns all but one of the planes, so his pride is quite understandable. With a firm handshake and a smile, we part, but not before he gives me a souvenir pocketknife with his title printed on it: Dave Hahn — Wall Municipal Airport. No mention of his mayor status, though I'm not the least bit surprised.
surprised
The cafe in Wall Drug is perhaps the standout feature of the entire store. With seating for more than 500 grubbing tourists, this is Western dining at its finest. Fine Tiffany lamps illuminate one
finest. Fine! Thinly lamps infusheddes of the most expensive Western art collections in the country and life-sized woodcarvings of somber Indian chiefs tower over a hand-carved walnut bar. A baked ham dinner is the special tonight. It's a one-half-inch thick slice of juicy ham with an ice-cream scoop of bright yellow potato salad and baked beans so thick with molasses I witness a fly struggle valiantly before sinking into the pasty goo.
into the pasty goo. Because this town is so small, the drugstore can't fill all positions with local workers, so it employs about 60 college-aged kids from Eastern Europe every summer to work the café. A gorgeous, towering, blue-eyed Czech Republican girl named Petra (pronounced PAY-trah) kindly took my dishes, and after working my usually pathetic boyish charm — the language barrier probably saved me — I was invited to a party (pronounced PARD-tree) later that evening.
After a few Budweisers at the Cactus Café and Bar to loosen up, I stop at the town's lone liquor-grocery store and pick up a 0.75 liter of the smoothest vodka it has to offer, a $7.29 plastic bottle of Kamkatcha, and make the seven-block walk to the east end of town.
seven-block walk to the backdoor
Entering quietly through the backdoor
of the two-story house, I try to keep a low profile until I can find Petra, failing miserably. What was just seconds ago 60 jubilant 20-somethings knocking back Pabst, shots of Jagermeister and, thank God, Kamkatcha, is now 120 cold eyes wondering who the hell the new kid is.
wondering who the Petra spots me and gracefully dashes across the room, making an upbeat announcement of what I can only
Wall by the numbers
announcement of what I can say, assume is the reason for my presence. A few of the girls smile, and two guys in the corner shoot me dirty looks, but everyone else pretty much resumes their usual conversations. I bat eyes with my Czech princess for a few minutes – her English is limited and my Czech nonexistent, so analysis of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is out of the question – before I'm coaxed into taking a few shots with a 6-foot-6 broad shouldered guy named Peter (pronounced PAY-tr). Eyes red, the sharp taste of cheap vodka lingering in the back of my throat, I see Peter is
1,812 Miles traveled
361 Semi trucks blaring horns
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"IS YOUR CAR BROKEN DOWN OR SOMETHING? ... NO ONE STAYS IN THIS TOWN FOR MORE THAN A DAY." She'S RIGHT; I'M THE ONLY PERSON HERE WHO ACTUALLY PLANNED A TRIP ABOUND A DRUGSTORE IN SOUTH DAKOTA.
Animals meeting their fate with a bug-smeared front fender. (2 raccoons at once, 1 rabbit and 1 bird who technically committed suicide)
Red Bulls consumed
suddenly yelling across the room at another kid, apparently also named Peter. An argument of unrecognizable chatter ensues between the Peters, and a glass falls off a table, shattering on the tile floor. In half an instant, everyone including Petra - is involved in this little yelling match.
yelling match.
After realizing that any attempt on my part to calm this situation is useless, and that whatever the hell is going on here has nothing to do with me, I inch my way back toward the door I entered only 10 minutes ago, give a quick "thanks anyway" nod to Petra, who has taken a break from the action for a cigarette, and head back to my campsite back on the west edge of town.
It's past midnight. Cheap, warm vodka mixing with cheap beer has created a boiling mess in my stomach, but a torn sleeping bag atop a thin air mattress never felt so good.
Day Two
Drug for an 11 a.m. meeting with the store's third generation owner, Ted Hustead.
After a quick rinse in a moldy shower at the campground and a Cactus Café breakfast buffet, I head back to Wall
ation owner, led Hustead.
He greets me outside his sprawling second-floor office wearing shined leather boots, Wranglers, a short-sleeved blue Oxford and a tie dotted with American flags. Hustead is half-cowboy, half-Wall Street, but all business. He tells me the store spends an average of $120,000 each year on advertising. A full-time "sign artist" paints 18 new signs each year, and 20,000 or more people come through every day during the summer, each helping themselves to a free bumper sticker.
each helping themselves to a dinner, "I have to admit," I say, "I've been here before, and spent the entire day in your store yesterday, but I still can't figure it all out." He immediately laughs, as if he's heard this before.
coming back again. We've been in the same promotion game here since 1936. Business, Erik, is a theatre. Wall Drug is our stage." He's right. This entire place is a twisted Broadway musical showing continuously 15-hours a day, every day, 365 days a year. Hustead gives me a kind of hardhack, tells me to enjoy
heard this before. "We're a roadside attraction," Hustead says. "We try our best to create an experience where people will enjoy
crushing handshake, tells me to enjoy my trip, and hurries off.
For lunch I eat a buffalo burger at the Badlands Bar and Grill. I feel a bit guilty eating since this is supposed to be buffalo country and I have yet to see a live one anywhere. A stuffed possum with grashing teeth perches above the bar. I'd like some ranch sauce, but the sign above the cook's station makes it strikingly clear: "Notice: This is not Burger
King. You get it my way or you don't get it at all." Ketchup will do just fine.
As I step out the back door to cross the alley into Wall Drug's backyard, a kid darts past me, screaming with tears streaming down his little face. Maybe he expected to find tire swings and tree forts, only to be confronted with something different. To my immediate left, for a quarter, visitors can watch an 8-foot gorilla slam a piano, a quartet of Cabbage-Patch-looking dolls and stuffed bears rock the banjo while lifeless rabbits spin in circles. There's a fiberglass jackalope, bison, dinosaur, bear and another gorilla, all with terrifying looks on their simmering faces. A stuffed horse with much of its hair rubbed off is frozen in a bucking position and begs to be sat on. In the middle of all this sits the original well that Ted Hustead pulled water out of nearly 70 years ago. Way in back, a mechanical T-Rex, complete with smoke and warning lights, roars every 12 minutes. At night, this place would look like a perfect setting for a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sequel.
Loathing in Las Vegas sequen.
Having enough of the backyard, I head to the pharmacy to purchase some postcards and bumper stickers. The lady behind the counter squints at me. "You were here CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
POOL BOT WATER-WALL BRUSH
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9.23.04 Jayplay
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