What’s Wrong With This Picture?

"At one point, to get his attention, I put him back washing cars for a week," Reynolds says. "He literally took the shirt and tie off, put the uniform on and went back there for a solid week and washed cars...I finally decided this kid's got to hit rock bottom before he's going to be able to bounce back."

In succession, Samples lost his job at Prestige, his wife, his apartment, his 401(k), his Harley, his ability to use one of his eyes and part of his mind. Hero to zero.

The bounce back began in 2000, when it seemed least likely to occur. Samples hadn't eaten in four days. He couldn't see very well because one of his eyes had gotten stuck in its socket, giving him a "lazy eye." His face was puffy and discolored, with luggage under his eyes. He didn't smell very good. Not surprising: The only things in his apartment were a dog, dog shit and fruit flies.

He walked into his apartment one day to find his uncle, Donny Geldert, waiting for him. "It [the apartment] was nasty, disgusting, sickening," Geldert says. He and Samples were more like brothers since they weren't far apart in age; Hal's mother had him when she was 16, and Geldert was her younger brother. Everyone else had disappeared from Samples' life--some because they were only around for the party, some because they just wanted the party to end--but Geldert was still there. Tough love hadn't worked on Samples. Plain love did.

"I want you to live," Geldert told him. Samples decided he did, too.

---

There are at least four categories of homeless: river rats, shelter rats, city dwellers and bridge trolls. Mixed among those groups are people like Duane, professionally homeless. Duane makes the circuit, spending the majority of his year in Dallas but waiting out the winter in California. It's the low-rent version of summering in the Hamptons.

That's where Duane is right now. He's the one who got Samples into his current line of work.

Samples met Duane not long after he bought a camera. He had been taking photographs of buildings downtown, partly as a tourist--he'd always been too messed up to appreciate them before--and partly to see what his new toy could do. He brought them back to the resident artist's community at the South Side on Lamar lofts, where he lives, to get their opinions, their honest critiques. "I knew that they'd be more straightforward than a grandma saying, 'I'll put it on the fridge for you, honey,'" Samples says. "They told me my crap was crap."

Meeting Duane made him want to do more. Duane spotted Samples' shiny black Thunderbird. Whoever was driving that car had to have a few bucks on him, he thought. Wouldn't hurt to ask. So he did. They started talking. And inspiration struck.

Samples had his camera in his lap, so he started taking pictures of Duane. His first homeless shots. He smiles as he recalls it. "I was like, 'Oh, my God.' This guy is an awesome, beautiful man. He's just like--wow!--a beautiful guy. Just for being a man."

That alone was worth a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. They went into Starbucks, and in 10 minutes, everyone had vacated the store. (Duane hadn't bathed in months--"They weren't happy about us being there," Samples says.) Fine with Samples. He just felt the need to talk to this man.

He asked Duane what he would ask for if he could have anything he wanted. A tough question for anybody.

"So I started over," he says. "'If you can be any superhero--Superman, Aquaman--what would you be?' He goes, 'I just want the power to be visible.'"

Hero to Zero was born soon after, with that goal in mind.

What Samples found when he entered their world was that most homeless people don't want to be where they are and haven't given up trying to get out. They just want a job, a little bit of their old life back. Also: "They're likable people, man."

He met Gilbert Bunton, known to most downtown as "Red." He was a staff sergeant in Vietnam and worked at Meletio Electrical Supply for 13 years, making $13.50 an hour, until the company went under in 1990. "First time I heard the word 'downsize,'" Red says. He's been on the street since 1996.

He met Cindy and Shots, "the Lady and the Tramp of Dallas." Shots was a welder working on steel buildings, but he's been out here for a year: "Fella skipped town owing us money," he says. "Owing us all money." His girlfriend Cindy arrived a few months later. They work the corners downtown, trying to sell copies of Street Zine, the thin newspaper that The Stewpot (the Presbyterian Church-run homeless center downtown) puts together. It earns them 70 cents on the dollar. If they hustle, they can raise enough to get a room for the night. Samples calls them the "upper-echelon homeless" because they're presentable and employable. He's trying to find a restaurant that will take Shots on.