My Seoul Man

Chapter 34

Our first stop on the Seoul Food Tour was a drag race in little rusty, dusty Murphy, AZ.

Actually, there are two Murphys. The the original one was thrown together by all these crazy ass people who came pouring in to tear up the beautiful hills and mountains nearby looking for gold in the 1800s.

That Murphy is now just a ghost town you drive through to get to the new one. It looks like an abandoned western movie set. Old clap board buildings all broke down, splintery and faded.

I was moved by all the old signs on those buildings, though. Most just said, "SALOON" or "MERCANTILE." Basic. Like the needs of the miners who came in for a hot minute to stock up before running back to those hills and mountains again.

And yet those signs made me feel the presence of all those long-gone people. Each one was like a page in a story. Like the one saloon that had added "Indians Welcome" under its name in wonky block letters.

"Get a shot of that," Ronnie said, stopping the truck to give Yoli a chance to memorialize that moment.

He was our expert driver having gone through some sort of long-haul trucking course right out of high school hoping to get away from the rez. And as Yoli took that requested picture, he just sort of sat there behind the wheel looking mad/sad.

Said, "Probably the only place they were welcome."

And then he did the Native "lip purse" thing toward a building next to that saloon and said, "Pawn shop. So they could stumble over and pawn their silver jewelry to buy more liquor. That kind the Navajo elders used to wear that nobody knows how to make anymore."

"Those Native jewelry stores still buy up all the stuff they pawn in those shops," I told him. "My aunts drove all the way down to Winslow when the Fred Harvey stores at the train depot advertised they were going out of business. They got all this silver and turquoise jewelry they'd always wanted but couldn't afford."

"Couple of my elderly aunts and uncles were hired to sit out at that station so people could take pictures," Yoli said. "People would ask them to do a rain dance for them. Called the women squaws, which is pretty much like calling somebody the 'c' word."

Ronnie woke from the faraway look in his eyes to get moving again. And to tell us, "I bought a purple heart medal set into this real nice beaded choker from a pawn shop a few years back. Tore my heart to pieces knowing somebody gave that up for a coupla shots."

"Used to be a bar in a box car, right on the border between Navajo and Winslow," Yoli said. "Probably had a safe fulla jewelry, those guys."

"A boxcar?" AJ said. His brow all frowned up. "The railroad let them have that?"

"I don't know how they got it, but boy they made a lot of money off misery, those people. It was always open and the shots were real cheap. So the hard-core drinkers would hitch rides down from the rez and stumble out onto the highway or the tracks at night and get run over."

It got so quiet behind that last bit that Ronnie went, "Lookit that Ferris wheel," like he was desperately trying to change the subject.

And we all squinted into the sun as the old main street ended and the wider and more recent paved road out to the fairgrounds opened up.

That shut us up, too. In a different way.

Stole my breath, the view of the "new" Murphy from that little two lane. It was just a cluster of more modern buildings and houses nestled against massive vermillion red mesas. With the cloudless, endless, impossibly aquamarine sky above, it was the picture postcard/Arizona Highways Magazine version of the southwest tourists pull over to take shots of.