Walk to Beautiful: The Power of Love and a Homeless Kid Who Found the Way

by Wayne, Jimmy

  I stopped playing the guitar altogether whenever Steven was at home. It was strange. I sometimes stayed in my room and simply stared at the guitar lying on the bed beside me. I wanted so badly to pick it up, to touch it, to play it, but I knew that would just cause trouble.

  We moved four times within eight months. During one of those moves, mostly done by pickup truck, my guitar fell off the back of the truck and was crushed. At least, that’s what Steven told me.

  AS MUCH AS I HATED JUNIOR HIGH, IT WAS STILL BETTER than going home and being around Steven. In school my favorite class was art. One day, while working with watercolors, the teacher instructed the class to paint the picture he had displayed in front of us. Once I finished the painting, the teacher surprised me. “Now, turn the canvas upside down,” he said.

  When I turned the canvas from top to bottom, I discovered that I had painted an awesome picture of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, complete with a beach with white sand dunes, blue water, and a clear blue sky. Although I couldn’t take any real credit for it—all I had done was follow my teacher’s instructions—the painting was beautiful.

  That painting somehow gave me a glimmer of hope when so many things in my life were upside down. Maybe one day, I thought, it will all turn around and become a beautiful picture as well.

  STEVEN WORKED AS A GRUNT ON A CONSTRUCTION JOB, AND Patricia worked in a textile mill on the other side of Gastonia. Home life was stressful with the limited space and resources. Adding to the tension, Patricia and I, like many teenage siblings, sometimes argued with each other or said things we didn’t really mean. We weathered most of those storms and laughed about them later. Conditions often got volatile when I saw or heard Steven mistreating my sister. “Leave her alone,” I would say, ready to fight.

  “Look! She’s my wife. If you don’t like it, get out.”

  “Don’t tell my brother to get out!” Patricia would jump between us.

  “Yeah, if you don’t like it, you can get out too,” Steven would rail at her.

  Then one day, while standing at the kitchen sink, Patricia looked at me pensively and said, “Jimmy, I’m pregnant.” She was seventeen, wise for her age, but not much more than a child herself.

  I didn’t know whether to celebrate or to cry. I could tell she was nervous, and I was anxious for her as well. Her life with Steven was a living hell, and now she was about to bring a child into it.

  During the next eight and a half months as she carried her baby, she continued working at the textile mill. I’d hear her vomiting in the bathroom every morning, then getting into an old, burgundy Ford truck she drove to Saunders Thread mill, where she stood on her feet all day long to earn $3.75 per hour. She came home late every evening, wrung out and exhausted. Steven still expected her to cook, do laundry, clean house, and keep up with all the other domestic chores, so I tried to pitch in even more to take any strain off her that I could. Still, there were many prenatal issues about which I knew nothing, and Mama never showed up to help Patricia through her pregnancy. But Patricia and I went through it all together.

  When Patricia stopped working, the finances got even tighter. We moved back to Holland Memorial Church Road (known locally as Bell Road) in Bessemer City, where Steven’s mother, Ruth, a sweet woman, allowed us to live with her. Steven told me I had to get a full-time job and start paying rent, so I finished the ninth grade, but I had no intention of going back to school.

  I probably would have dropped out of school immediately, had it not been for Cindy Ballard, a guidance counselor at Highland Junior High, where I was now attending. I walked into Ms. Ballard’s office, told her I was quitting school because I had to get a job, and I handed her my books.

  “Oh, no, Jimmy, you can’t do that,” she said. I had known Ms. Ballard since I was thirteen, meeting her shortly after I had returned to North Carolina on the bus from Pensacola. She wasn’t about to let me quit school.

  She marched me over to the office of Lee Dedmon, the principal. Mr. Dedmon was a giant of a man, six-foot-eleven inches tall, but he was no match for the godly, gutsy Ms. Ballard. She explained my circumstances to the principal and said, “Jimmy is not going to quit school, but he has to get a job, so he needs some special consideration and help with his homework.”

  Although Ms. Ballard lived in Lincolnton, North Carolina, she drove forty-five minutes out of her way, all the way to Bessemer City, to pick me up and take me to school every morning. She knew that I could refuse to get on the bus, but if she came to get me, I couldn’t blow off going to school so easily—especially when I knew how far out of her way she drove to pick me up. If she could get me into class, I had a chance to learn. After school I rode the bus home, but the next morning Ms. Ballard was right back to pick me up again.

  “Jimmy, you must finish school,” Ms. Ballard continually emphasized to me. I wasn’t a good student, and worse than that, prior to Ms. Ballard’s taxi service, I skipped school so frequently I received several suspensions. Even when I showed up for school, I was a perpetual discipline problem for my teachers. But Cindy Ballard went to bat for me over and over again. When it became obvious that my grades were a disaster and my attendance and behavior at school were not pluses, Ms. Ballard arranged for me to take some classes and tests that summer to make up for my poor grades, and she drove me to the remedial classes. She simply refused to give up on me. Thanks to Ms. Ballard, I didn’t quit school.

  As soon as school was out for the summer, I began working full-time at Hardee’s fast food restaurant as a cook. When I got paid, Steven demanded that I turn over my entire check to him. When I balked about giving him every penny I earned, he countered, “Either that or leave.” Later that summer I quit my job at Hardee’s and picked up another job sweeping floors at Walt Gilreath’s machine shop, near where Steven’s mother’s house was located.

  PATRICIA GAVE BIRTH TO A BABY BOY ON JANUARY 15, 1989. They named my new nephew Brian. Patricia was elated, and even Steven was affected by the birth. When he came home from the hospital after seeing his newborn son, Steven said happily, “That will change your life.” Unfortunately, Steven’s upbeat attitude didn’t remain for long.

  Despite doing my best to pay my way, Steven told me I had to leave. I understood and didn’t blame him. He and Patricia were struggling as it was, we were living with his mom, and having a teenager living with them boosted their expenses and imposed on their privacy. They received only thirty-nine dollars per week in assistance from the state toward my support, so I was an extra burden Steven didn’t want to carry.

  I had been in contact with Mama occasionally over the past few months, and I had found out that she was living back in Reed’s Trailer Park, sharing a trailer with friends. In my naive sixteen-year-old mind, it made sense that since Steven had asked me to leave, the most logical location for me to live would be back with my mom. I knocked on the door of trailer number 5. Mama came to the door, and after a brief conversation I asked if I could move in with her.

  Mama wasn’t too sure she liked that idea.

  “I’ve got a job sweeping floors over at Walt’s machine shop,” I said, nodding toward the building across the way, right behind Ruth’s house, where Patricia, Steven, and the baby lived. “I can help out with the rent and groceries,” I offered.

  That was the clincher. When Mama heard that I had money, she allowed me to move in with her and her friends.

  I had “borrowed” a bicycle—I planned to return it . . . someday—and that was my means of getting back and forth to work. Walt came by every morning to pick me up at Mama’s, and I put my bicycle in the back of his truck so I could ride home by myself each evening. After work I could walk out the back door of the machine shop and go over to Ruth’s house to see Patricia and my nephew, Brian.

  I loved playing with baby Brian and holding him close to my heart. Sometimes I’d run over during my breaks at the machine shop just to spend a few minutes with him. I helped Patricia care for him, cuddling him, feeding him, napping with
him; I almost enjoyed changing Brian’s diapers! Something about seeing Brian and the miracle of new life touched me deeply. Being an uncle was the best gift I had ever received.

  SUMMER WAS JUST GETTING STARTED. I WAS SIXTEEN AND had no clue where I was going to live that winter. I knew that living at Mama’s was temporary. It always was; something always caused her to blow up or get off track somehow. Sure enough, after about a month, I came home from work one early summer evening, walked into the bedroom, and noticed a letter from Mama lying on my bed.

  I picked up the letter, dated June 28, 1989, and discovered that, as she so often did, Mama saw herself as a victim. She wrote:

  Jimmy,

  I know in my heart that you don’t care anything for me, and you know that you and I can’t get along. So just get your s*** and get out. I have been hearing the things you said about me and anyway, you can’t stay here if you ain’t going to help me out. And you told Bill you was not going to do anything else for me.

  But that doesn’t matter to me. I can make it without you. So just do what you said, and get the h*** out. And I’m not mad. . . . I want you to know that I do thank you for what little you have done.

  Get out!

  Mama had allowed a man and a woman to move in with her. None of them had jobs; I was the youngest person living in the trailer and the only one of the four of us who was working. But the three adults shared the same bed, and on more than a few nights, I could hear the three of them having sex.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and confronted my mom. “Mama, please make them leave.”

  “No, I’m not making them leave. They’re my friends.” The discussion grew more heated, and I probably said some things I shouldn’t have, but the situation was ridiculous.

  “Well, Mama, I’m not going to pay any more rent if you are going to let your friends live here for free.”

  The letter on the bed was Mama’s response.

  Oddly enough, I didn’t even hurt when I read it. I was already numb from years of her neglect. Still, I was afraid. I had nowhere to go. I packed up my few belongings, including Mama’s letter, and left Mama’s trailer.

  MAKING MATTERS WORSE, I GOT HURT AT THE MACHINE shop when a shaving of metal ricocheted off the milling machine and lodged in my eye. Walt took me to the hospital, and the doctors were able to remove the fragment, but afterward Walt was nervous that I might be a liability. “Jimmy, I don’t really need you here at the shop anymore.” He let me go.

  Things were looking bleaker by the moment. I couldn’t go back to Patricia’s, Mama had thrown me out, and I had lost my job. I had no place to live, so I slept wherever I could at night, couch-surfing from one place to another, eating wherever I could find food, staying with anyone who would allow me to spend the night. During the day I canvassed the area, looking for work. I was a long-haired, dirty, scruffy, homeless kid, so employers were not exactly lining up to give me a job. I was desperate. I had to get some money—soon—and I needed something far more than an income. I needed a home.

  Part Three

  SAVED BY LOVE

  Twenty-six

  THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD

  EVERY DAY WAS A CHALLENGE, NOT TO SUCCEED BUT TO survive. Nobody wanted me around; I smelled badly because I hadn’t taken a bath in days. I had few job skills, so no one would hire me for serious employment; people didn’t even look me in the eye when they passed me on the street. I took any odd job I could get and was glad to do whatever work was necessary to earn enough money to buy some food. Fortunately, summer evenings in North Carolina are pleasant, and sleeping outside on the ground was something people actually did for fun. For me, it was a necessity.

  One day I was riding down Highway 274 on my borrowed bike, looking for any work somebody might pay me to do, when I passed S&W Woodworks, a mom-and-pop woodshop. The shop had formerly served as a fueling station back in the 1940s. It was the place everyone in the surrounding area went to buy gas for their cars or some milk and bread for dinner. The owners had bought one of the first televisions in town and set it up in the shop, so the store became a popular gathering place.

  As I was about to ride past, I noticed that the garage bay door was open. In years gone by, cars entered those doors and were hoisted up on the hydraulic lift over the work bay so the mechanic could change the oil. Now it seemed that the work bay had been covered over with flooring.

  I looked in and saw an old man standing at a large band saw. He was cutting dashers to be inserted in decorative butter churns he was making.

  A voice inside me said, Go in and ask that old man if he has any work you can do. I had experienced that voice speaking to me several times in my life, and I had learned to recognize the importance of paying attention to it.

  I turned my bike around and headed back across the sawdust-covered parking lot toward the bay door with the paint peeled off. I pulled up close, leaned the bike against the white brick building, and walked inside.

  The old man must have known I was there, but he didn’t even look up from his work. He didn’t acknowledge my presence in any way.

  “Sir, do you have any work I can do?” I asked tentatively.

  Still without looking up, the old man said, “Ask the boss,” and nodded toward a white-haired woman in the back who was manhandling a powerful, loud, radial arm saw. When she saw me, she hit the off switch and walked over to where I was standing.

  She wore a cotton dress coated in sawdust, an apron, and goggles. Her white hair had sawdust blown all through it, and her arms were covered with sawdust as well. I repeated my question, asking if she had any work I could do.

  She slowly looked me up and down, and despite my ratty-looking long hair and faded tattoos, she said, “Come back this afternoon and cut our grass. He’s Russell, honey, and I’m Beatrice Costner, but I’d just as soon you call me Bea.”

  “Okay! Thank you, ma’am, er, I mean, Bea. What time would you like me to be here?” She gave me a time, and I continued down the road, but not too far away.

  I showed up on time and followed the old woman down to a storage shed beside her house. “The yard work is getting too much for Russell,” she said as we walked. Understandably so. I rolled the heavy Snapper riding mower down the two parallel ramps made of boards, checked the oil, and filled the gas tank. The property was large; even with the riding mower, I could tell that it would take me several hours to mow the entire yard. I got busy.

  About midway through the job, I saw Bea walk out the front door of her house, carrying a Coca-Cola and a doughnut. She waved me down, and I drove the mower up the field toward her house and parked under an old apple tree so heavy with apples and the lack of pruning that it looked like an umbrella. A rusty fence ran right through the apple tree, where the tree had grown around each rusty wire over the years.

  Bea handed me the Coca-Cola and doughnut over the fence, and we talked briefly. Actually, she talked, and I listened. She had much to share. And she had such a positive attitude about everything. She even complimented me about the way I was mowing the yard. I wasn’t used to such encouragement, but I appreciated her kind words.

  I finished cutting the grass and did the trim work, which entailed quite a bit of effort since the Costners had a stand-alone swing, several lawn chairs, a birdbath, and nearly every piece of outdoor ceramics known to man. When I finished trimming, I put away the tools and rolled the mower backward, up the boards and into the shed, steering it by the white handlebars. I could see how this might have been a difficult chore for Russell. It wasn’t easy for me.

  Once everything was put away, Bea handed me a twenty-dollar bill. My eyes opened wide. I couldn’t believe that she gave me that much money to cut her grass, especially since I had used her mower and her fuel. I could eat all week long on twenty dollars!

  The old woman looked at me intently. “Can you come back next week and cut the grass again?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Absolutely!”

  I cut the Costners
’ grass every week for the remainder of the summer. Toward the end of August, the grass wasn’t growing as fast, and the yard work was slowing down. Thinking ahead, I worried about where I was going to work through the winter and how I was going to buy food. That week, when I mowed the Costners’ yard, Bea met me during my break, outside under the apple tree, as she had done every week. As always, she handed me a Coca-Cola and a doughnut, and I thanked her sincerely.

  I expected Bea to tell me what a lovely day it was or to make other small talk, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “Jimmy, where do you live?”

  Her question took me by surprise. Oh, no! I thought. I didn’t want to tell her that I was homeless, sleeping wherever I could find a bed or outside on the ground when I couldn’t find a friend willing to take me in. I didn’t want to let her know that the twenty dollars she paid me each week was the major portion of my income, with which I purchased necessary items from one week to another. I felt sure that if she knew I was homeless, she and Russell wouldn’t want me to come around anymore. But looking at her beautiful, beaming face and her bright, honest eyes, I knew I couldn’t lie to her. So I gave her the most general answer I could think of in the moment.

  “Oh, up the road,” I replied.

  Bea nodded slightly. “Well, Russell and I have been talking, and we want to know if you’d be interested in moving into our home. We have a spare bedroom you could use.”

  My first thoughts were not positive. Yeah, sure, I thought. I’ll move in, and they’ll make me leave within a week or a short time after. That’s what everybody else has done.