In a tall red chair on the side of a busy highway not two blocks from the site of a deadly shooting that left former President Donald Trump injured sits a real-life cowboy who has made it his mission to spread "peace and tranquility" to a community he called a " powder keg " that's barely holding itself together.
As cars pass by on the busy highways that intersect right outside of a local Sheetz gas station and convenience store, near Butler, Pennsylvania , he takes off his white-rimmed hat and waves at them, flashing an encouraging smile before he places the hat back on his head.
"I'm trying to bring some peace and tranquility to a very volatile environment right now," David Bruce Graham told TheMirror.com. "[There’s] a lot of cursing at the media, a lot of flamboyant, very excited Trump people. And I’m trying to keep it from [exploding] — it’s like a power keg. You can feel it."
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The 56-year-old, from Newark, Ohio, a small city about 40 miles east of Columbus, said he goes "all over the nation" bringing positivity and a shoulder to lean on during loss of life or other tragic events. "I put my signs out, and I just try to sit here and greet people," he explained.
He's been to the sites of many major American catastrophes, hauling his signs, a woodfire stove, his red chair and his welcoming personality in his pickup truck, upon which a giant American flag is embossed on the tailgate.
He was there in the days after the Uvalde shooting that left over 20 elementary school children dead in the Texas city. He was also there after the Maui wildfires ravaged the Hawaiian island last year, and in Minnesota after George Floyd was killed. He goes anywhere he feels like the community needs a positive presence.
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Of his current stint in Butler — where he arrived at approximately 7 a.m. on Sunday, just over 12 hours after the shooting — Graham said, "It’s not even two days, so I try to be courteous and not look at ‘em, not stare ‘em down. And in a couple of days — I’ll be here for a couple of weeks — in a couple of days, they’ll wave back, and then, eventually, people will stop and talk."
He called it a "post-traumatic stress thing," adding that he brought a sign that he'll whip out in the coming days that says, "Heart hurt? Stop and talk." He explained, "People can come, and they can say, ‘This is how I feel. I feel crappy. I feel defeated.’”
Seniors in high school in particular are vulnerable to the "volatile environment," he said, because they don't want the experience of telling people where they're from and having those people talk about the tragedy that happened there.
"They feel like, 'I don't want my town to be known as the town that tried to kill Trump when I apply to college,'" he said. "[Those people are] like, ‘Oh, you’re from the town where the Trump assassination [attempt] happened?’ That’s a real issue [for] a senior."
He said he spoke to an aunt-niece duo, and the niece, who is a local high school senior, talked about some of those fears and anxieties as she gets ready to go to college in the coming months.
The memory of what happened is "all around here," he said, talking about the grassy area in front of the Sheetz. And he's trying to help the community move past that.
"I try to just bring a sense of peace. I’m praying. I’m believing. I’m kind. I try to be genuine," Graham said. "My mom called it 'peeing in the pool' — she said, ‘Davey, you never go to someone else’s house and pee in the pool. You pee in our pool.’"
"What she meant was that you don’t leave somebody’s town in worse condition. So, I try to go with integrity and get people’s spirits a little bit raised, to give them a little bit of hope, to give them a chance of 15 seconds of distraction," he explained.
Graham then launched into a personal anecdote about what he learned from his time in Uvalde, relating it to the incident in Butler on Saturday. "You know what I learned in Uvalde? And I don’t speak a word of Spanish — I don’t know a word, and it’s 40 miles from the border and Eagle Pass," Graham began.
"There’s no language to a heart. None. Isn’t that great? Let’s just focus on the heart, not on our political differences, not on ‘I hate you so bad I might kill your leader.’ You and I could be talking about a Biden attempted assassination just as easy in the United States. Therefore, it’s not political — it’s a heart thing," he continued.
He then gestured to the signs he brought with him to Butler, one of which depicts a fractured, broken heart. “My heart’s broken over there — see, it’s painted all red," he said.
"On Wednesday or Thursday, I’ll paint it all red because people don’t want to be looking at a broken heart," he continued, talking about painting over the black "cracks" he had drawn on it. "And then, before I leave, I’ll paint it a real beautiful gold, a shiny gold. The hearts I leave are gold. I feel like that helps people feel like they’re healing."
He said he typically stays in a place for about two or three weeks before moving on. “The American people love the American people,” he said he's learned from his travels. “They roll up their sleeves, people like you, and say, ‘Well, instead of playing ball this Saturday, I’m going to go ahead and hand out water.’”
"The wonderfulness of people isn’t shown in the headlines or in the politics or in the political polls — it’s shown in your eyes," he concluded. "It doesn’t matter how bad the loss is or how politically separated or climate separated the town is — people who are broken-hearted are broken-hearted."
The issue in Butler and across the nation, Graham said, is that there's been an uptick in radicalized individuals who take their political beliefs to the extreme — on both sides, the right and the left.
"People need to continue to have their differences but not kill each other and let the extreme weirdos, whackos, reveal themselves to be whackos," he said. "Get the extremists out of the way in both categories, and let’s just get through this life."
He said people should never have to live in fear of going to the grocery store, like the individuals in Buffalo, New York, where a gunman opened fire inside a Walmart, killing 10. "It's time for people to come together — not because they're American but because they're human," he concluded.
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