![]() ![]() He drove Hannah to a mortuary and told him if he didn’t agree to join the program, he would buy him a casket and wash his hands of him. When he said he’d think about it, Soper snapped. Medical evaluation led to his being offered treatment at the Veterans Administration hospital if he could stay sober for 72 hours. The connection between Soper and Hannah would be life-changing again when Hannah suffered a grand mal seizure during one of their meetings with lawyers. Soper dedicated his part of the project to the late journalist. Once back in San Diego, Soper put the pair up in a motel, provided their meals, retained high-profile attorneys for them and helped them navigate the ensuing deluge of media that led to appearances on such TV programs as “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show” and “The Abrams Report.” It was while they were taping a segment for “60 Minutes” that Ed Bradley told Soper he should write a book. By a stroke of good fortune they arrived while the man guarding them had gone out to buy more alcohol, so the rescue was easier than it might have been. The two men drove to the apartment where Hannah and Brennan were being held prisoner. Soper flew to Las Vegas, where he joined a cousin who was attending a conference there. They remembered that Soper had told them if they ever needed help they could call him, and they did. The nightmare finally ended in Las Vegas, where McPherson and his friends had taken the men for more exotic adventures. ![]() Rufus Hannah as seen in the infamous “Bumfights” videos, when he was known as Rufus the Stunt Bum. Both men had “Bumfights” tattooed on their bodies so they could be human billboards. Hannah, known in the videos as “Rufus the Stunt Bum,” still suffers from injuries he received from his numerous beatings and exploits, such as being pushed down a flight of concrete stairs in a grocery cart. ![]() The men were required to beat each other up and harass other homeless people. A team of wealthy San Diego teenagers led by Ryan McPherson plied them with alcohol all day and then at night urged them to do violent, dangerous and depraved acts that they recorded on video and sold. “Their work ethic was great.”īy the next time he saw them five months later, however, they had gotten involved with the “Bumfights” project. “I got to know them as human beings with a heart rather than bums or homeless people,” Soper said. Collecting cans is not easy work, let alone nasty, so I thought great, we’ll do it.” “All I wanted to do was make some money and get something to drink. “Alcohol was medicine for me,” said Hannah, 55. To appease Hawkins, he offered the pair the opportunity to build a fence at his complex, not really believing they would show up. To his surprise, Hawkins shook a finger at him and said, “Jesus wouldn’t like you. That all changed when Soper bragged to his 90-year-old neighbor, Orlando Hawkins, that he had chased away Hannah and his “canning” partner, Donnie Brennan. “I was a well-to-do La Jollan, I sat on boards and wrote checks,” Soper, 65, said in an interview, “but I’d never really touched the homeless.” The story has a happy ending, but the path between that first encounter and the relationship the two enjoy today was rocky, full of pain and unlikely, indeed. The memoir chronicles the bad breaks that led to Hannah’s descent into alcoholism and homelessness-failed marriages, a deadly hunting accident, an Army career derailed by an injury, a vocational training program abruptly ended-as well as Hannah’s involvement in the infamous “Bumfights” videos. Today Hannah manages that very apartment complex, and the two men are celebrating the publication of the book they have co-authored, “A Bum Deal: An Unlikely Journey From Hopeless to Humanitarian” (Sourcebooks). Soper recalls Hannah as the homeless bum who was digging around in the trash bin outside the apartment complex he owns, and Hannah remembers Soper as the jerk who interrupted his search for recyclables he could sell in order to buy beer. Barry Soper (left) and Rufus Hannah collaborated on the story of Hannah's rise from homelessness, with Soper's help, in the book "A Bum Deal: An Unlikely Journey From Hopeless to Humanitarian."īarry Soper and Rufus Hannah didn’t get off to a very good start when they first met in 1999. ![]()
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