Steve Skojec

Note: I thought I’d take a break from the regular stuff and give you a bit of narrative non-fiction. Enjoy.

When you have to leave the house before 6:30AM, setting your clock forward an hour for daylight savings time is not an enjoyable transition. I’ve been late to work the first two days of this week, because my body never quite believed my alarm clock when it chirped at me that it was time to get up. This morning, I managed to drag myself out of bed before it was too late to catch my normal train, and as I hit the road on this cool-but-not-frigid morning, I noticed that in the stars were clearly visible. I was immediately reminded of another time when early morning departures through the pre-dawn darkness were common

In 2004, while living in Arizona, I got a job as a guide for a Hummer touring company. It wasn’t much of a living – in fact it was the most economically difficult period of my life. But it was one of those jobs you take for a while because it sounds like fun and holds the promise that you’ll do very well “when the season hits”. (That year, it never did.)

I’ll never forget getting up early – way early – before the sun was even thinking about rising, slipping into my camo-pants, strapping on my boots and heading out to my car. The little black Toyota Matrix we had at the time felt sleek and smooth as I made my way out of the apartment complex and onto the long and barren stretch of desert highway, especially in comparison to the behemoth I’d be behind the wheel of when I got to work. It’s been four years, and I remember it like it was only a few months ago.

By oh-dark-thirty, I-10 was already beginning to slow under the influx of cars from all the brand-new West-of-Phoenix suburbs that had exploded out of the city’s housing boom. If I’m lucky, I’ve scrounged up enough change to buy a coffee at the Avondale Starbucks to push me through the morning rush, as I eventually emerge from traffic and curve through the oddly bifurcated Phoenix skyline en route to Scottsdale.

On the occasion of morning tours, I’m often the first to the shop. I’d get out and unlock the padlock and slide back the heavy, razor wire tipped steel gate, then pull my car inside the cinderblock walls. Safely inside the compound – it wasn’t the best neighborhood - the ritual began: unclamp and open the backward-facing hood, check the fluids, start the big diesel engine, check more fluids, ensure proper tire pressure, wipe the sand out of the interior and the mud off the outside, stock and load the cooler, close up the hood, grab snacks and waiver forms, and finally go.

Before long, I’m pulling into whichever resort my customers are staying in, usually the opulent Phoenician. I push the growling V8 up the palm tree-lined drive and to the courtyard to park. The guests are usually well-to-do, doctors or lawyers or businessmen from back east. They tend to love Arizona’s mild winter climate while I miss the autumn leaves and snow, and their trips invariably include golf and sightseeing that takes advantage of the relative warmth. Many of the guests have never seen an H1 up close, and their excursion into the unknown begins the first moment they approach the vehicle.

The Hummer H1, known to the military as a “Humvee” or HMMWV (High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle) has a certain mystique about it. It’s unlike any other vehicle. It has an unmistakable and imposing presence. It seems to bring out the child in people, and they immediately begin exploring it, examining the cavernous 16 inches of ground clearance, the massive 37-inch tires, and the distinctive hood that spans its wide and surefooted stance. Two steel rings protrude from the middle of the hood.

“What are those for?” Someone asks.

“Helicopter hookup. There’s a harness that can be affixed to those rings and the two on the bumper, and the whole thing can be lifted by a Chinook.” I say it like I know for sure, which I don’t, but it’s part of the tour guide game - if you fact check the information you’re given, your stories can become less impressive. I open the back door and start helping people in.

“Oh.” The inquisitor says. You can see him playing out the scene in his head, trying to figure out the physics.

If it’s a cold morning, I give the guests an option: the canvas flaps and clear plastic windows in the safari top roll up to expose them to the open air, but we’ve got at least a 40-minute trip on city roads and highway before we get to the slower pace of the trail, and it can get rather chilly up there.

With the decision made, and waivers signed, we’re off, with me trying to figure out how I’ll come up with the requisite small talk to make the trip. I’m miserable at small talk, and it’s easily the hardest part of the job. I can only hope they want to discuss current events or world news (I can talk about those) or better yet, just lose themselves in the moment as they stare out the window and the noise of the open road and the roaring engine makes communication too difficult for a while.

Occasionally, something interesting happens en route. Once, a black BMW 7 Series sedan with limo tint pulled up along side of me on the highway on the way to the trail. In the midst of a conversation with my passengers, I don’t notice it right away – until I hear shouting. The shouting continues and I turn to see a black man sitting in the passenger seat of the beamer, continuing to shout, his words not quite registering above the wind. His face looks familiar. I see the tattoo. Then my recognition software kicks in, and I know. “Mike Tyson?” I ask myself. That’s Mike Tyson, I think. The surreality of it washes over me, and I realize I’d better ask him what he’s saying.

“What?!” I yell. The passengers have, by now, noticed our escort.

“I said,” he yells, his lisp lost across the gap between our vehicles, “If I call the number on the side of your truck, can I get my Hummer tricked out like that?” I realize he’s talking about the safari conversion, which adds a “U”-shaped row of stadium seats in the back of what is typically a 4.5 passenger vehicle.

“We don’t do the work,” I fire back, “But if you call, I’m sure we could tell you where we got it done.” My boss, I’m thinking, will get a kick out of this call, I’m sure.

“Thanks!” He shouts back. I realize he’s about to roll up the window and move on, so I pull out my cell phone and ask him to oblige. He does, and I snap a quick shot, holding my phone out the driver’s side window with my right hand while keeping the 100-inch wide wide truck in the lane with my left.

One more for the story book.

The road out of Phoenix to Payson, Route 87 (known as the “beeline highway”) is the way to the trailhead. As we pass through the Salt River Maricopa Indian Reservation, the road begins to increase in altitude while we progress northward. The sparse low desert is increasingly punctuated by teddy bear cholla and giant saguaro as we ascend, and the flat terrain gives way to rocks, hills, and mountains.

We arrive at last at the trailhead into the Tonto National Forest, occasionally followed by an AH-64D Apache Longbow combat helicopter, nearly silent until it’s hovering just a hundred yards above us, fresh from the Boeing plant in nearby Mesa. The high desert is their proving ground, and I sometimes wonder if they’re using us to test their targeting systems.

Under the shadow of the Four Peaks, we’ll spend the next hour skirting along cliffs and washes through the maze of interlocking pathways that comprise the trail named after the mountains. Our first stop is the set of poorly maintained restrooms at the trailhead. It’s at this spot that I point out the silhouetted mountains on the Arizona license plate, and direct the guests’ attention to the real mountains that they portray. The “restrooms” consist of two rarely cleaned outhouses riddled with buckshot, courtesy of local off-roaders. These separate the squeamish from the real outdoors types.

As we pull out of the rest stop, I lower the air pressure in the tires to 30PSI with the flip of a switch on the dashboard. After that we’re rolling on increasingly rougher trail, and the tour is a whirlwind. Up and down hills with inclines as steep as 60 degrees, through narrow washes that tip the vehicle on its side like a scene out of The Dukes of Hazard, and without hesitation through deep, soft sand. If there’s mud, all the better. There are dozens of plant types to point out, local myths and legends to explore, cactus demonstrations, photo ops, and stunning views to take in. Animal sightings are a rarity, as the Hummer makes too much noise chewing up terrain that would be nearly impossible for most other vehicles to traverse. The good news is that diamondback and scorpion sightings are rare, too.

The group finally sated, I whip them through a long sandy wash surrounded by dense brush at speeds that make some of the passengers laugh nervously, until the trail ends on a stretch of asphalt that circles around to the shore of Saguaro lake. The lake itself is a serene setting amidst red rock canyons. After a brief, final stop at the “restrooms” here, we’re off to the highway again, descending wearily into the smog-choked valley of the Sun. From door to door, the tour lasts four hours, and by the time I drop off the guests, hoping I’ve entertained them well enough for a good tip in addition to their already costly ticket price, I head back to the shop to clean up the rig, and if I’m lucky, do it again, this time in the scorching heat of the afternoon sun.

I look back with fondness now on a job that had been, at the time, a low-paying, dirty, repetitive, exhausting way to make a buck. I’d never go back to doing it again. The work was too inconsistent and I had mouths to feed. I should, I now realize, have found something else sooner. There were months we had to beg and borrow just to buy food or make rent.

But in these early mornings as I drive to work while the stars are still out, I can almost smell the diesel fumes and feel the open air pouring in from the rolled up canopy, and I can’t help but smile.

Some days, I’d give just about anything to be out on the trail having a carefully scripted adventure instead of sitting in my windowless office, wishing I could only see outside.