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by Matt
Bud Scruggs. Charleston, SC. December 9th.
On this bright, bluebird day, I toured the historic city of Charleston,
camera in hand. I saw a lot, but nothing more fascinating than the
18-year-old named Bud Scruggs that I met in downtown Battery Park.
Absentmindedly strolling down the sidewalk, I was there taking pictures,
when I heard a voice calling from somewhere nearby. Looking around,
I identified the thick, southern drawl as coming from a scraggly-looking
young man sitting alone on a park bench. His dirty blond hair was
short, and he wore a goatee, weathered blue slacks, and a grey long
underwear top. His teal, flannel-lined jacket was wrapped around
his well-built torso, and his bike stood upright nearby. Bud, as
I soon learned to be his name, was just saying hello. I reciprocated
and walked over to him. He explained that he was just sitting on
the bench doing some tricep extensions, and I explained that I was
driving around the country interviewing people our age and asked
Bud whether he would be able to spend a few minutes chatting with
me. He said yes and we spoke for a little less than an hour. He
laughed a lot too while we were talking. It was a slow, low, drawl
kind of laugh.
Where are we, and what are you doing here?
Charleston, SC, working on automobiles. I’m a mechanic.
Where are you from?
Blacksburg, SC. Three and a half hours away…Up in the mountains!
How did you find yourself down here?
Ahh, I don’t really know. Same way I ended up in Florida and
everywhere else. I just travel.
On what?
Vehicles, greyhounds, bikes.
By yourself?
Always. Always travel by myself.
Do you like to travel by yourself?
Oh yeah! It’s the feeling of being free and nobody there to
slow you down. It’s a great feeling.
So how long have you been traveling for?
Ever since I was 15. Everywhere I go I work. Ya know, get hotel
rooms, have plenty of clothes and food. But the summer’s even
better ‘cause all the girls and stuff out on the beaches and
all. I like staying near the beach ‘cause the ocean. It calms
ya down.
Where are you staying now?
I’m staying in Mount Pleasant…across the Ravenel bridge.
And you just came over here to hang out?
Yeah. A long ride.
Is there a reason you started traveling?
Just wanted to be free. Prove somethin’ to myself. Ya know.
You always hear people putting people down, saying ‘you can’t
do this, you can’t do that.’…You can do it. They
can’t stop you.
Do you want to prove anything to anyone
else?
Not really. I just set my mind on something, and I go for it, and
I get it that way.
Do you have a family?
Yeah, I haven’t talked to them since I was like 15….Don’t
mess with them anymore.
Is there something that happened?
My step mom was abusive, and I ain’t have the courage to hit
her back, so I just left. I think that was better than going to
jail or endin’ up doingsomethin’ stupid. So I had to
get out of there.
How much do you think your upbringing affected
who you are today?
I think when yer a younger person you go through a lot of stuff—makes
you a better person than what you would be. Makes you stronger,
your mind stronger. You don’t want people to be treated that
way, so you treat people different, and that’s when people
treat you different—treat you like a respectable human instead
of just some guy walking down the street that looks all crazy and
stuff, ya know?
How big was the town that you grew up in?
Little. [Laughs] It was ahh, two stop lights…Let’s see
our high school had three hundred people in it. And let’s
see, about two thousand people maybe strewed all over the place
in the country and all. Not that many. Not too many.
Did you go to high school?
Oh yes, I went to high school until I was in tenth grade, and then
I quit and went to a military school and graduated. Went to Willow
Gray in Colombia, SC.
You left home before you went there?
Uhh, yeah. I left home, ya know, and then I went to high school
down in Florida for a little bit. And then I quit and then came
right back over this way. And then I went to a military school.
On December 11th I graduated at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South
Carolina. It was a military base.
You did not want to go into the army?
I thought about it, but then I’m like, ‘I might get
shot.’ And I said I better not do that ‘cause I want
to have a family when I get a little bit older.
What do you think a successful career would
be for yourself?
Stuff I did in Florida like carpentry work and masonry. Ya know,
simple stuff like that. Make pretty good money.
Where do you think you’ll be in 10
years?
Ten years…California. Singing or something.
In a band?
Ahh, yeah. Country music or something like that.
Do you play guitar?
I do a little bit…I had a chance to go to Kentucky about a
month ago and try out my singin’ abilities, but I decided
not to. I should of.
Wanna sing us a song?
I dunno. I only know a few, ya know? And they’re all Hank
Jr. songs.
Wanna sing it?
Ahhh, later. I gotta save up. I got some people to sing to later
anyway.
Who are you singing to?
People at an art shop. This guy wants me to come in and sing, so
I reckon I have to go in and sing. [Laughs] Right down there on
Market St.
Why do you get up in the morning? What
drives you every day?
Just thinking it’s another day. Another day, another dollar
you gotta earn. You gotta survive. Just getting to know that yer
free when you get up in the morning instead of, ya know, somebody
telling you what to do every morning. Somebody yelling in yer face.
Sounds like you are pretty happy that you
are not at home?
Oh yeah. I’ve adapted to it, I’ve learned how to take
care of myself. And that’s pretty much what I do. I’ll
work, I’ll eat, I’ll sleep. [Laughs] That’s my
life. And then days off like today, I go exploring. Just making
a little bit more money to get to wherever else. Whatever pops up
in my head next—where I wanna go—that’s where
I’ll be at in the next month or two.
Do you think that you are unique for someone
our age?
Nah, I am just the average kind of person. I go around singing to
the ladies on the beach and stuff.
So you are just like any guy?
Yeah, just any guy. Make the girls laugh.
Have you had a girlfriend lately?
Not since July. I really ain’t even looked for one and its
almost Christmas!
What do you think defines kids our age?
Is there anything that ties us together?
Well we’re all born around the same time. [Laughs] No, people’s
different ya know. Different strokes for different folks. Ya know
there might be some things the same about you and me. You like to
travel and I like to travel and that would be like the same thing…You
see some of these people, ya know, you see preppy folks, your lower-class
folks, and your red-neck folks. And it’s like you’ll
see the preppy folks making fun of the red-neck folks. But then
you’ll see the red-necks making fun of the preps and the lower-class
folks. [Laughs] It all ties in together, ‘cause nobody’s
perfect. Ya know? It all goes together someway ‘cause we’re
all brothers and sisters.
Is there nothing that really unifies us?
Yeah, ‘cause I haven’t found nobody like me yet. ‘Cause
I don’t know about other people, ya know? Some people might
be the same, but there’s only one of you. That’s the
way it is. That’s the way I believe it is—there’s
only one of me ‘cause I don’t see nobody as crazy as
I am go traveling and all this good stuff. Just leave home and go
free.
In terms of pop culture, how much do you
follow what goes on in music or Hollywood?
I listen to older music. Ya know, like Hank Williams Jr., Black
Sabbath, old Metallica and stuff like that. And old country and
bluegrass. I don’t know nothin’ about the opera and
all that ‘oops I did it again’ stuff, ya know?
Should we care that care that Brad left
Jennifer for Angelina?
Man, I am in love with Jennifer Anniston! [Laughs] I used to have
a picture of her. I don’t think you should care, but I know
I do.
You do care?
Yeah. I don’t think he’s right in his head.
Should people follow that stuff?
Nahhh! That’s just like wrestling—all it is, is entertainment.
[Laughs] They’ll be together four years and get an annulment
and it’s over. Ya know, it’s like they was never married—no
records or anything—it all goes away. I read them People magazines
and stuff—all it talks about is $1.5 million weddings and
all this stuff. They coulda went and bought a brand new Rolls Royce
man. I don’t see why they waste all that money on something
that could be held like in just regular church or in a back yard.
Ok, switching gears. Do you think we should
be in Iraq?
No, I don’t think we should. I think the reason we went into
Iraq was for the oil, and they had no proof of nuclear weapons.
And they wanted Saddam, which they ain’t got no new charges
on him. They’re throwing stuff on him from the ‘70s
and stuff like that. Like mass genocide, killing his own folks.
I don’t think we should have gone over there, ya know? You
hear these tapes put out by Osama Bin Laden and stuff like that.
We don’t know what they’re saying man. You hear what
the government wants you to hear. They could say, ‘Ohh, this
was a holy way.’ They be speaking in their language saying,
‘Ohh, we didn’t do nothin.’ And our government
will switch it around ‘cause we can’t understand what
they are saying and say, ‘we’re gonna kill you all,”
‘cause they’re not certain that it was Afghanistan and
Osama Bin Ladin that did this, ya know?...The rich people started
this stuff. I don’t think we should be over there at all.
I think, ya know, it’s over. Let them rebuild their own place.
Do you support President Bush?
President Bush—I ain’t got nothing against the fella.
I don’t think he’s that bad of a guy, but I just think
he’s trying to finish what his father started. Ya know? That’s
all he’s trying to do.
Is the area where you grew up conservative,
or is it liberal?
It is country, hick town. [Laughs] We got a rodeo. Yeah, I rode
bulls once. That’s why I got a hump in my back now. I got
threw. Landing right on my back, oww! Messed me up, still hurts.
Did you ever notice any drug problems in
your hometown?
The only drugs I ever noticed was marijuana. I don’t think
that’s a bad drug. I know I haven’t done it in awhile.
I used to smoke it everyday, but really I don’t see why the
government can’t see it. They can tax it just like they do
tobacco. Ya know? You see alcohol out on the streets. Alcohol kills
more people than marijuana and natural drugs ‘cause people,
when they smoke marijuana, they tend to concentrate on it a little
harder and when they drunk it’s just they act stupid. It’s
like they don’t really care. That’s when you hear about
people getting 20, 30 years for vehicular manslaughter ‘cause
they was drunk, and they hit somebody—messed their life up.
That’s what drinking is good for, messing your life up. Drugs
really ain’t a problem. It’s all in your head, how you
do it. It’s like, ya know, you hear about these people going
and getting that cocaine. The high goes away so quick, that’s
why they keep going back. And you hear about these crack people!
They keep going and you hear about robberies and stuff. Its ‘cause
people smoking that crack running out of money ‘cause they
need that stuff to keep that buzz going…It’s pretty
senseless.
In all of your travels, have you ever noticed
crystal meth?
Nah. [Laughs] The only drug I’ve ever done was smoke weed.
No no. I meant have you seen it or heard about it?
I’ve heard about it, and I have seen it. Ya know, in Panama
City, FL, they got a special task force just for meth. Buncha weird
stuff. When people smoke it, it eats holes in their teeth and holes
in their face. And they so busy goin’ at er’ you see
all these little, bitty, skinny people ‘cause they keep on
running after it, ya know. Always hitting the streets so they can
get that hit, ya know, get all wired.
Do you feel trapped or liberated by technology?
Technology…trapped. I don’t mess with that technology
too much. Ya know, growing up in the mountains, I’d rather
just take a shotgun, go out and kill a turkey instead of going to
the store and having to skin it by myself and trying to figure out
how to do something. And these computer things—I don’t
mess with them either. Computers are confusing!
Do you have email?
Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah I do.
What kind of account?
A Yahoo.
I thought you don’t like computers?
That was simple. All I did was put in all this stuff and a credit
card number.
Do you check it?
No. [Laughs]
When was the last you checked it?
About six months ago. Last time I checked it there was like 2,000
emails on it…It’s senseless to have computers, ya know?
It’s confusing. Its like everything’s all technical.
The one thing ya know, you see the canons out on the battery and
you see the market—they used to sell slaves at the market…They
didn’t have technology back then. The first computer was little
beads on this little box that they slid over and that was a calculator,
ya know? There’s no sense to just go to all this high-tech
stuff and destroy your own country ‘cause that’s what’s
eventually gonna happen. Look, we’re what, the most well industrialized
country in the world, right? Well how come Japan is more technical
than us? Why should we even really care about it when we can go
about things the old-fashioned way? They’re really confusing.
Really bad. I don’t mess with them too much.
You don’t mess with what?
Computers. The last time I did, the police come knocking at my door.
What do you mean?
I dunno, I was looking up how to make a hydrogen bomb. [Laughs]
Just learnin’.
When you were younger?
Ohh yeah. I remember how to make it too. A small hydrogen bomb,
yup.
So, you looked that up on the Internet?
Ah huh. Yep.
Why did the cops come to your house?
‘Cause they had found my email address. And they like came
to check it out…I had nothing printed and nothing like that,
so I got off. They couldn’t do nothin’; no evidence
except the email address. I just told ‘em I gave my email
address to somebody else, and they must have went on there. Weird
police huh?
Did your friends get in trouble?
Ohh no. Nobody got in trouble. They just came to the house to see
what we was doing. It’s very simple to make—you can
make a bomb out of just anything. [Laughs]
Why did you do all of that?
I was curious …We just wanted to blow a few craters in the
field. Ya know, we wanted to see if we could do it. It was a rebelliousness,
really. But we never took anything near anybody. We kept it on our
farm. So, really nobody knew about it, except the police that one
day. Which they ain’t found nuttin’. They’re really
simple to make, ya know. Like just different stuff like ammonia,
an aluminum pole and a plastic bottle and you got a hydrogen bomb.
That’s it. [Laughs] Cut that one out. [Laughs]
Did you ever want to do anything with the
bombs or were you just making them for fun?
We was just making them for fun. We never thought of doing anything
stupid, ‘cause we aren’t. We just wanna have a little
fun, ya know?...It was fun for awhile—blowing up small, toy
cars and stuff. We used to take lawnmowers and send ‘em off
into a field. And they’d get like fifty yards away from us,
and we’d be running the other way and still get knocked off
our feet. We made some pretty powerful stuff. We took like a fifty-pound
bag of fertilizer one time and a whole bunch of drano and gasoline
and a huge fuse. And we blew a big ol’ hole in the ground.
Weren’t those the same bombs that
they used for Oklahoma City?
Ahh, somethin’ like it. Except he used more of, ahh, sulfuric
acid in his bombs. [Laughs] I study up on stuff. They say it’s
better not to know than to know, but I’d rather know than
not to know, so I know what I’m getting into. I mean if you
ain’t gonna hurt nobody then I reckon you all right. But if
you planning on saying, ‘Well, I’m gonna blow up something
today! I’m going downtown and I’m going stand in the
middle of the street and blow myself up.’ Then you’re
some crazy fool, ya know? I think you should be shot on the spot
instead of giving it time to blow yourself up, taking your anger
out on yourself and everybody else. That’s pretty much senseless.
It’s just crazy. You see people now—like Fullujah and
all them over there with car bombs—blowing hummers up and
everything. People dying. And the war’s over and it’s
been over for a couple years really. I don’t even see why
we’re still over there. Really it wasn’t a war. He just
wanted to finish his father’s dirty deeds, ya know? Only reason
he did it.
Do you remember Columbine?
Yes, I do. Yup, Columbine. And the Oklahoma City bombing and, ya
know, Eric Robert Rudolph when he blew up the abortion clinic.
Why does that happen?
Ahh, those kinda people they just get made fun of their whole life.
And they like to take their pain and anger out on other people.
Ya know, make other people what they’ve been feeling—sick-minded
people. They say, ‘Ohh, this guy made fun of me, let’s
get these ten back.’ They might not get the same person that
made fun of ‘em, but it kinda makes them happy when they put
that pain and anguish on other people’s family.
How do you stop that cycle? How do you
fix that in America?
Put ‘em in prison. Get ‘em off the street, ya know?
You hear certain people, you hear singers and stuff, ya know, too
many gangsters doing dirty deeds. Take ‘em all off the streets.
You gotta have police take action and start doing their job. And
to me the police is a Communist. ‘Cause that’s pretty
much what it is, Communism—they like to tell you what to do,
but they don’t enforce it.
If you could name our generation, what
would you name it?
XYZ. [Laughs] ‘Cause we’re not generation X, we’re
XYZ.
Why XYZ?
I don’ know. Cause generation X was a long time ago, so I
figured XYZ was appropriate. Just somethin’ I thought of.
What decade are we in? 70, 80s, 90s…What
is this decade called?
The 80s. [Laughs] I reckon I don’t know. I was born in the
‘80s, so I reckon I’m one of those flower child’s
child, ya know? The hippies back in the ‘60s had us little
‘80s kids, ya know. We grew up listening to Michael Jackson
and all this other good stuff. But I don’t know what you’d
call it. XYZ’s good enough for me.
Looking back on your lifetime, what are
some events in history that you can remember?
Ahh, graduating military school and traveling. Like just certain
other things, ya know?
How about events in the world and America?
9/11. 9/11’s about it—that’s all I ever paid any
attention to.
How did that affect you?
Let’s see. Really it didn’t bother me all that much
‘cause, ya know, I believe our own government did it. It affects
you in a certain way but, ya know, different people have different
ways of expressing their feelings. And I’m not the kinda person
to be all emotional and stuff, ya know? I’m the kinda person
who’s more laid back. You hear about it, and then you don’t
think about it any more. Ya know, you see all these people going
to church after that…‘Ohh, I love jesus and all this
stuff.’ And then like ten months later you see the same people
out on the road, carrying a pistol, getting ready to rob this guy,
ya know? So really, that stuff really don’t get to me ‘cause
I know it’s going to get everybody all stirred up and everybody’s
gonna go crazy. And everybody’s gonna run to God, and then
they’ll finally figure out with their weak, little minds that
nothin’ else is gonna happen, ya know, not for a while. And
then when somethin’ else does happen, the same people, who
had went to God and then back to the streets, are going right back
to God. It makes no sense. It makes no sense at all.
Can you look into the camera, and this
is your chance to say whatever you want to America.
Peace. [Laughs] And rock on! You rock! [Laughs] That’s it.
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