Royal, 65

‘Wild Life’

“I’m from McGill, Nevada, by Ely. I grew up there until I was 26 years old … I was a gold miner, a mucker, and I made way too much money as a kid. I graduated high school, worked in the gold mines. Bought a brand new truck, motorcycle, guns. Wild life. A lot of drinking, a lot of partying. Too much.

When I graduated high school, I was either going to join the marines or play baseball – I had a scholarship for Weber State. I was a great baseball player. Ten days before graduation I got in a head-on car collision and lost sight in my left eye. In high school I played third base. I was good – got a lot of home runs. Three years later I played on a minor league team in California – made a little money playing baseball.

The first mine I worked in was for Standard Slag, in Atlanta, Nevada. It’s a little, tiny mining town. When I failed a drug test, I was about 23 or 24. Then I went into construction. I’ve been smoking pot since I was about nine years old. I’ll probably be smoking pot ‘til the day I die.

They built a big prison in Nevada, and I worked on that for three or four years. When I was done, I said, ‘I don’t want to end up in a prison I built.’ So, it was time for me to go. I went to Florida. I worked for Disney World. I didn’t know a single person. I was a cement finisher. That place is weird – it was built really weird.

My plans in life were to retire by 35 and buy me a bar and kick back the rest of my life. I had an opportunity to buy a bar at 33. I cashed in my 401K and got the bar, the Green Guinea ... Owned it for three and half years. Then I got my leg cut off.

I had over 250 blood clots between my ankle and my knee. I think they came from when I had my car wreck in 1979 … I got some bad blood or something. After I had my bar I went to work for Unicorn Productions and did stage lighting, then I went from there to Pratt Sound, local sound company, best sound company, worked for him for over 20 years. Then I got my second leg cut off.

This past winter was the worst I’ve ever had it. It was so cold. I thought I was going to die out here.”

Photograph and story documented by Stephen Speckman.