Evel Knievel Week in Butte

? Evel Knievel "Oh no! The babies have mullets!" . I screamed the thought to myself as I stood in line at the Salt Lake City Greyhound terminal. I was headed to Butte, MT, for Evel Knievel Week, a homecoming celebration for Butte's most famous son. The bus trip, I assumed, would serve as a forecast of the social climate that I might find in Butte. But mullet-cut twin infants was a more foreboding forecast than I was prepared for. I took an entire row, third from the back of the bus, out of eye contact with the mullet twins. Directly behind me sat a crusty, mean old Texan who looked like a cross between Waylon and Willie, with absolutely none of the charm. Tex was already spitting rape and AIDS jokes as I took my seat. His captive audience was a couple sitting directly across the aisle from him. She was enormous, while he was so tiny that at first I thought she was some sort of guardian for him?he looked like a 14-year-old in the care of a 30-year-old. She was paper white. He was coal black. She spoke loudly, incessantly and was impressively well-versed in the latest hiphop jargon. He rarely spoke, was shy, almost invisible, practically hidden between her great girth and his window.

They politely fake-laughed at the old Texan's jokes. Tex appeared to be making them up as he went; they had no punch line and plenty of punch. She tried to fend him off by berating the militia and Klan outfits common to the regions through which we were rolling. Undaunted, Tex moved into his final act, racist jokes dripping with purely contemptuous comments.

The bus stopped for a lunch break at a truck stop diner. I sat in my booth and watched the little mullets at feeding time. They sat one empty booth away from me. They started to look cute to me, like baby birds, sucking their mac and cheese like worms. I tried to wave to them when I thought they were looking at me, but I couldn't get their attention. I felt bad. I wished that I had made friends with them at the bus depot. I felt like they were ignoring me as payback for my negative and unfair judgments. Then I realized that their eyes were severely crooked. I felt horrible.

Back on the bus, Tex took a long nap. While he slept the couple got close and affectionate for the first time on the trip. They hugged, held and kissed till they fell asleep. I read Joe Louis, 50 Years an American Hero. Joe was Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel's first childhood hero.

The couple awoke still amorous. Tex woke up grumpy and in need of what he kept calling a "jug." He massaged his wrinkled, pitted and angry puss. As he came to he saw what I already had: a vigorous, enthusiastic handjob was being administered across the aisle. It turned out the man was neither tiny nor shy. I pretended to read, but he caught me peeking and proudly waved at me. Tex caught on and let out a long, pained groan. The guy flipped a long finger at him. For the rest of the trip Tex grimaced and groaned like a farm animal with an old abscess.

When the bus stopped in Butte I was the only passenger to offload. I felt like I'd been in a Jerry Springer studio on wheels.

When I was a kid I had an acute sense of three places on Earth: my own hometown of Hopewell, VA, because I lived there; Washington, DC, because the president lived there; and Butte, MT, because Evel Knievel lived there. Now I had come to Butte for its first annual Evel Knievel Week, and foolishly I arrived ready for a potential rumble because of the way Knievel used to brag about his raucous Butte roots on The Wild World of Sports when I was a kid. He painted the town as rough and rowdy, and its menfolk badass barflies, cowboys, mountain men and miners.

Butte was founded on an unparalleled wealth of gold, silver and copper discovered there by a few prospectors in 1863. Immigrants rushed to Butte from every corner of the world; over the next 50 years the boomtown grew from a few to nearly 100,000 inhabitants. Butte became known as the "Richest Hill on Earth." This melting-pot mecca (literally and figuratively) sat above thousands of miles of honeycombed mine tunnels, with some vertical drops reaching 3000 feet. Men mined under the most extreme and extremely dangerous conditions?temperatures topping 100 degrees with an ever-present threat of bad air, fires, blasts, cable breaks and cage crashes. If an accident didn't claim a miner, most likely silicosis would. The early miner's average life expectancy was 50. It's no wonder that above ground these men played, prayed and politicked harder than any. These were Butte's, and Evel Knievel's, forefathers.

On my first night I attended a custom car and bike show, a "Show and Go," in the lot of the local GM dealership. A live band plowed through Skynyrd, AC/DC and Creed covers. I tried to stroll among the gathered in the most unassuming manner possible, not wanting to attract the attention of a potential opponent. Hopewell, where I was raised, was a small industrial town once dubbed by The Washington Post as "the meanest town this side of hell." I'll step into a ring and dance a few rounds on canvas with anyone on the planet, but wrestling on asphalt is just not my style. Not only might there be cowpokes, mountaineers and miners with anger-management problems to negotiate, but there were also hundreds of bikers from all parts of the country passing through Butte on their way to the world-famous, 62nd-annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. The Banditos, the Cossacks, the Freedom Riders, the Gypsy Jokers, the Blue Angels, the Blackjacks, the Hermits and the Hamsters were there. Yes, there really is a club named the Hamsters.

As it turns out there was less testosterone and ill will in that GM lot than you'd find at a Manhattan art social. People were completely gracious, generous, genuine lovers of life who had gathered to celebrate the art car, the art of the motorcycle and, ultimately, to pay homage to Evel Knievel. I returned to my room that night once again shamed by my quick and unfair judgments.

I had reserved a carefully specified room at the historic Finlen Hotel. The following night, multi-stunts veteran Spanky Spangler, "The Falling Star," would do a "fire fall" off its ninth floor as a tribute to Knievel, his longtime friend. Before turning in that first evening I looked out my second-story window. I recognized the lone fellow pacing the dark, summer-chilly street directly below. Spanky is a bearded, barrel-chested fireplug of a man. With both hands stuffed in his pockets he shuffled back and forth with an ever so slight, practically undetectable limp. He'd shuffle, stop, look up, look down and repeat. The Falling Star was contemplating his arch.

I hopped out of bed early the following morning with the excitement of a kid on his birthday. This was going to be a big day. I would get my first look at the Evel Knievel Museum exhibit, meet with Evel at a private social, then witness Spanky's fire fall from atop the Finlen. I went back to my window and Spanky was there again, this time with his crew of four. They were inflating, testing and positioning a huge, specially designed air bag. The bag grew toward my window ledge. I had reserved the best seat in the house.

After Spanky and his men had satisfied some early morning preparations, positioning and precautions for the stunt, I went with him around the corner for breakfast at the M&M Diner. The M&M is more like a saloon than a sandwich shop; it offers a 24-hour "casino" where you can gamble while they scramble.

I had hundreds of detailed inquiries for Spanky. He's a real daredevil laureate, an author of hundreds of unique and original stunts. Spanky has executed more than 2000 stunts since he began his career in his early teens. I asked the 49-year-old when he'll hang up is helmet. Spanky hinted that next year's Grand Canyon jump in a jet-powered car his crew is currently building would be his last. I wondered how he could survive the crash if he were to fall short. Spanky reasoned that he would survive anything, because he has a granddaughter now and he had to live, if only to watch her grow.

Cool desert winds progressively kicked up all that evening. One big gust could suddenly push Spanky's target away from his intended path. From his ninth-floor stunt suite, he radioed a request instructing the assembled firefighters to reposition their biggest rig alongside his airbag to block the threatening strong winds.

Down on the street, an audience of more than 10,000 pumped their fists to a rendition of BTO's "Taking Care of Business" performed by a local band called the Butte Rats. Then Spanky's crew chief signaled all systems go, and the band segued into "The Star Spangled Banner." The crowd swayed, and most sang. In the crowd, I saw Evel Knievel himself peel off his red, white and blue custom leather jacket and wrap it around a chilly Fox newswoman as she delivered an on-air countdown.

I locked my legs around my room's radiator and lay out, far out onto the second-floor ledge of my perfect perch. Above me, Spanky stepped out onto the ninth-floor ledge and waved down to the throng 120 feet below. Using a fiery torch, an assistant ignited Spanky's body suit, which was coated with rubber cement. The noises from the huge crowd below changed in that exact instant. Fun night-out hoots and hollers gave way to panicked screams. The cacophony of hysteria was so loud, so strong and sustained it nearly shook me loose from my foothold. Instant insanity.

Spanky stood on the ledge, engulfed in flames, for much longer than seemed necessary. I wondered if he might ignite the hotel. Earlier, I had asked him if the air bag that would catch his fall had been treated with a flame retardant. He explained that by the time he hit the bag the flames wold have been choked out by the lack of oxygen during his very fast descent. What doesn't smother during the fall, he said, would be snuffed out at impact.

Not this night. Worried that the same high winds that threatened to shift his target might also blow out the flames before he even left his ledge, Spanky had insisted on extra amounts of the flammable glue. The quintessential showman, he stood up there cooking longer than usual, to ensure that the (nonpaying) crowd would get its money's worth.

So "The Falling Star" blazed big and bright by the time he finally leaned into his graceful fall. Rather than going out, the flames seemed to flare even bigger and brighter as he hurtled toward my second-story perch. There was no way this fireball was going to extinguish. Spanky was burning like hell when he hit the bag below me. The bag is designed partially to deflate upon impact, otherwise he'd bounce half a block away. Spanky was swallowed up in the bag's cavity, still very much on fire. His crew dove in with wet towels and extinguishers. After a few tense, busy seconds, Spanky walked out, seemingly unscathed.

I dashed downstairs to join the hundreds of people giving him high fives. He smelled like burned hair.

Evel Knievel Week drew international interest and much income to Butte's historic landmark district, said to be the second largest in the nation after New Orleans. For me, one of the biggest lures was the temporary Evel Knievel exhibit at Butte's Piccadilly Museum of Transportation Memorabilia and Advertising Art, major pieces from which will be permanently housed in the "Evel Knievel Experience," a museum/attraction that opens in Las Vegas next summer.

As a boy in the mid-60s I was simply transfixed by the man who would become "King of the Daredevils." I never missed a bike-jump broadcast. Evel Knievel was brilliant and beautiful to me. I hung onto his every word, his every move. In the early 70s, he began promoting a plan to jump a mile-wide canyon on a specially designed jet-powered "X-2 SkyCycle." I'd strain to photo-memorize the teasing, all too fleeting images of the rocket prototypes that came across the pre-videotape Saturday afternoon airwaves. I'd sketch what I could remember seeing, and compare my impressions with my friends at school the following Monday.

When I stepped into the museum and first laid eyes on the actual X-2 SkyCycle, I was overtaken by a euphoria I can only compare to my first meetings with its pilot and Muhammad Ali. (I've had the pleasure to meet both icons, separately, 12 years ago, and again a few times since. I also met Lassie, but that's another story of another icon.) Over the next few days I would become intimately familiar with the X-2. I returned several times to answer gnawing questions and curiosities I had lived with for the past two decades. I inspected every detail, decal and dent. I rubbed its sleek steel curves and its nosecone, which had caved in and crumpled when it crashed into the Snake River canyon wall in 1974.

Delightfully, the exhibit also displayed the earliest prototype of the X-2. This silly-looking jet trike was never built to leave the ground. It was a prop, a promo piece built for press cons, personal appearances and parades. Knievel's ominous "Jaws" bike was also there. Knievel has always been understandably quiet and uncomfortable about the event it's infamously attached to. The King of the Stuntmen was the premier showman of the 70s, and when the movie Jaws threatened to upstage him, his answer was to jump a tank full of great whites. Brilliant stunt?but in a practice run before the live broadcast, he lost control of the bike and was thrown into the arena bleachers. For the first time in one of his stunts, he was not the only one who was hurt: he hit a cameraman, who lost an eye.

Evel Knievel Week featured a lot more activities. There were mini-motocross lessons for first-timers. Some kids got to ride on the back of Evel's bike. The older biker set took a four-hour cruise under Butte's beautiful Big Sky, with Knievel in the lead ("Behind me, no passing!"). Local kids competed in an Evel Knievel lookalike contest. One of them, 10-year-old Zakk Mulcahy, was impeccably decked out in a museum-quality ensemble that perfectly mimicked Knievel in his finest hour.

I crossed paths with Evel a number of times during the week's public activities. I'm always nervous when in the company of the King. For me, it's like meeting a Beatle, or the other King.

I sat with Knievel in his dressing room at the Butte Civic Center before a rock concert in his honor closed the week's activities. I suspect that more often than any other living soul alive today Evel Knievel has knocked at death's door. The hepatitis-C he contracted four years ago had him closer to passing through its threshold than had any of his perils in performance. But he got lucky?again. A liver transplant in the nick of time has him looking fit, tanned and as handsome as ever. He looks like the son of the very sick and near-dead man I had last crossed paths with three years ago. He dresses much the way Elvis might today. At 63, he has regained his great style, and has swagger in spades. Even when he's in a good mood he's intimidating. I've been in close quarters with many of the world's greatest prizefighters, and not one of them came across anywhere near as tough as Evel Knievel. After all, to step into a ring knowing you'll take your licks is nothing compared to falling out of the sky at 85 mph onto asphalt.

Just before going to Butte I had heard a rumor that Evel Knievel would come out of a 23-year retirement to jump again in 2003. He confirmed it, claiming he'll jump 220 feet, a distance he had derived by combining his age of 64 next year with his previously longest jump record of 156 feet.

I kept a steady weeklong poll of everyone from his most loyal fans to those who might be only vaguely familiar with his legend. An approximation:

5 percent: "Is he still alive?"

20 percent: "With the new bikes they're building these days he'll make it. If he said he'll do it, he will."

25 percent: "He won't jump again. He's just strumming up hype for the media."

25 percent: "He can cover the distance, but he won't have the upper body strength to land the bike proper. He'll get badly hurt. He could die."

25 percent: "He's in too much pain, too sick, he wants to commit public suicide, he's got a death wish."

In that dressing room, Evel sipped an O'Doul's (to "save the new liver") and rolled right into my interview ready to offer his well-rehearsed medley of stories: Joe Louis, the 32 broken bones, the big balls, the renewed spirit within him and of course the inspirational standards. I stopped him short. I'm one of his biggest fans; I knew the routine. I told him the results of the poll. He offered another standard reply:

"Eighty percent of the people watch because they want to see you make the jump. There's another fifteen percent that would like to see an accident, but want to see me survive it and walk away... And then there's the five percent who want to see me die."

He claims he'll jump again because he can again.

"By jumping again, at my age and after all I've been through, the way ups and the way downs, both physically, financially, and spiritually?through all the greatest triumphs and the lowest turmoil of my personal life, I feel like maybe I can inspire the people of America to get up again, no matter what they've been through."

In a way, Knievel embodies his hometown. Butte's been the butt of many a joke, and its most famous son is the biggest joker of them all. Town elders who can't forget his raucous, rebellious youth recall "Bobby" as the town troublemaker, a con artist, a petty thief, a thug. Some of the more unforgiving townsfolk are still apt to label him that way. Knievel himself has chuckled his way through many interviews, gleefully retelling the atrocities he enacted on the town.

One incident earned a young Knievel an overnight stay in the city jail and, coincidentally, his showman's moniker. Knievel's cellmate was another local named Knoffle. Police officer Maurice Mulcahy?Zakk Mulcahy's grandfather?passed the cell on a routine security check and remarked, "Well, goddamn! We got Evil Knievel and Awful Knoffle here tonight."

Butte sits on what was once a precious piece of land, so seductive, so fruitful, so powerful and promising that thousands rushed from every corner of the world to be near it. They bet and built their lives on it. Butte delivered. But 100 years after its first offerings, the land tired. Butte was worn, wrinkled, pitted, ravaged, hollow and shallow. There was simply nothing left to give.

Evel Knievel's life has mimicked his hometown's. There was something unique, attractive and valuable about both. Both were rough, tough, stacked and packed, bold and beautiful. They both grew into great glamour. As a result, many thousands rushed to them, and many made much money with them. But for both, the riches came at a price: a long life of extreme risks, of grave injury or death. Their collective financial ruins, and their physical and psychological scars, ran so deep that it was unlikely the debts would ever be fully satisfied.

I am happy to report that both the "Richest Hill on Earth" and the "King of the Stuntmen" seem to be in a glorious process of forgiveness, recovery, redemption and reparation. You can call it a comeback, for both of them.

Evel Knievel Week ended with an evening of fireworks and rock 'n' roll. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts took to the stage and dedicated "Love Is Pain" to him.

"I think it is better to risk my life and to be a has-been than to have never been at all," Knievel says. "Even though crippled and busted in half, it has been better to take a chance to win a victory or to suffer a defeat than to live like others who will never know a victory or defeat because they have had not the guts to try either."

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