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

by Wayne, Jimmy

  My second thought was, Yes, but at least it’s a place to sleep tonight, and maybe they’ll let me wash my clothes and take a shower and eat.

  “Okay,” I said. It was as simple as that. The transaction—the invitation and the acceptance of the invitation—that would change my life forever didn’t involve a lease, a contract, or even a handshake. It was a done deal with just Bea’s word. I was moving in with the Costners. I was sixteen; Russell was seventy-nine, and Bea was seventy-five. We had absolutely nothing in common—or so I thought.

  LATER THAT EVENING, I STOOD AT THE DOOR AND RANG the doorbell to Bea and Russell’s house. Bea answered with a big smile. She opened the glass storm door and invited me inside.

  Carrying a plastic bag filled with my dirty clothes, I followed her to a bedroom. The area had formerly been a two-car garage, but it had been completely renovated, converting it into a large bedroom. They had planned to use the room for Bea’s aunt, but the elderly woman had passed away before she ever really got a chance to enjoy it.

  I could not believe my eyes. The room had new carpet, a brand-new bed, a new nightstand with a clock, and a piano against the wall.

  “This will be your room,” Bea said.

  I looked at the room and furniture in awe. There’s no way this old lady and man are going to let me stay here for long, I thought. I set my bag of clothes in the corner but didn’t unpack it. Through my experience in the foster care system, I had learned that not unpacking was a common trait among foster kids. They knew there was a high probability that they would be asked to leave, so why bother to unpack? Even many who stayed did not unpack for several months.

  Four days passed, and I was still there, but I knew that any minute now, the Costners were going to tell me to leave. I just knew it. Bea was wonderful to me those first few days, but Russell barely spoke a word to me. That fourth day, Russell passed me in the hallway, put his hand on my shoulder, and stopped me.

  I cringed. I wasn’t accustomed to having a man touch me. I’d been beaten and abused by Tim Allen, and I’d never known the gentle touch of a father. To me, when a man put his hand on me, that was a threat. I didn’t trust any man. What was Russell going to do?

  “I need to talk to you,” Russell said.

  I knew it! I thought. They’ve found out about my background. Now he’s going to tell me that I have to leave.

  The same gut-wrenching feeling I had felt so many times before filled me again, leaving no room inside, not even to breathe; it felt like emotional asphyxiation.

  Russell was a hard-nosed veteran of World War II. He had been wounded in battle and had earned a Purple Heart; he was about as tough and stern a man as I had ever met. The best way to describe Russell is to imagine combining Andy Griffith with Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Gran Torino, absent the profanity.

  Russell wasn’t the type to say a lot, but when he did speak, it was impossible to misunderstand him. For example, he once told me, “Jimmy, if you blow grass in my tulips again, I’m going to fire your ass.”

  So when Russell said he wanted to talk with me, I knew this conversation wasn’t going to last very long.

  “Sit down in that chair,” he ordered, pointing toward his recliner. I complied and sat in Russell’s chair while he sat in a chair across the room, next to the front door.

  Russell held up three fingers and said to me in very a firm tone, “There’s two things you’ve got to do if you’re going to live in my house.”

  I wanted to correct him and tell him that he was holding up three fingers instead of two, but something told me that this was one of those times when I needed to keep my mouth shut and listen.

  “The first thing you’ve got to do is . . .” Russell paused briefly to make sure he had my attention. Believe me, he had it. “Cut off all your hair. It has to be cut just like mine.” He lowered one finger, and I quickly stole a glance at Russell’s military haircut, straight out of 1945. Oh, boy!

  “Second, we want you to go to church.” Russell lowered the second finger. “And if you don’t do those two things, you’ve got to leave now,” Russell said, with great emphasis on the word now as he lowered the third finger.

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” I heard myself saying out loud. What? Did I say that? Yes, I did!

  I figured that Russell would let the haircut slide for a while, but Russell was a very smart man and always thinking strategically. He nodded and said, “Then get in my truck, now.”

  I dutifully went out to his green Dodge farm truck, and the two of us drove to Dixie Village Shopping Center, where we walked into the barbershop—not the hair-styling salon. We went to a barbershop.

  “Hello, Mr. Cole,” Russell greeted the barber.

  “Hello, Mr. Costner,” the barber said. “What can I do for you?” The barber looked at Russell’s hair. He clearly did not need another wisp of hair cut off.

  “This boy needs a haircut,” Russell replied, nodding in my direction. There was no debate about how I’d like my hair styled. It was definitely a one-style-fits-all sort of shop.

  “Get up here, boy!” the barber said in a tone of voice that made no attempt to conceal how eager he was to plunge those clippers into my long hair.

  I sat down in the large barber’s chair facing an enormous mirror, and the barber wrapped a cape around my neck.

  “How’s business, Mr. Costner?” he asked.

  “Fine, sir,” said Russell.

  The next sound I heard was the buzzing of clippers zipping around my head. Long hair piled up on the floor all around that chair; undoubtedly, it was more hair than Mr. Cole had cut the entire week. Within twenty seconds I was nearly bald. I looked in the same mirror, where my image had been a few seconds earlier, and I now saw some kid with a military haircut. My head without hair resembled a cheap baby doll. I looked like Mr. Peanut.

  Russell paid the barber five dollars and thanked Mr. Cole for his fine work. As we walked outside, I headed toward the farm truck, but Russell veered to the right.

  “Where ya going?” Russell asked in his usual drill sergeant tone. I stopped short, and Russell nodded toward a department store. “We’re going in here to get some school clothes,” he said.

  At the front of the truck, I turned around and followed Russell into the store.

  “Pick out some pants,” Russell said.

  I stood motionless for several moments. “I don’t know how. I’ve never done this before,” I replied.

  “What size do you wear?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I wasn’t joking. In sixteen years of life I had never shopped for new clothes. I simply wore whatever I had or whatever somebody gave to me. I didn’t even know where to start.

  Russell asked the clerk, a young woman, to assist me in finding the right size school clothes, and she was kind and patient, almost stylish in her selections for me. Russell paid for the clothes, and we headed home with my new look.

  One day I called my former guidance counselor, Cindy Ballard. I hadn’t seen her or talked with her in months, not since Mama had kicked me out. I excitedly told her, “Ms. Ballard, I have good news. I have a new place to live.”

  She had good news for me as well. “Jimmy, you passed your summer courses and got good scores on your tests. We need to get you back in school.”

  I enrolled as a sophomore in Bessemer City High School on the first day of the new school year. From the day I set foot in Bea and Russell’s home, I never missed another day of school. I even went to school on Senior Skip Day.

  ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1989, HURRICANE HUGO HIT THE EAST Coast, making landfall at Charleston, South Carolina, with sustained winds of more than 135 miles per hour. The gigantic storm moved north at nearly 30 miles per hour, creating havoc all the way up through Charlotte and into West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Damages were estimated at seven billion dollars! The category 4 hurricane roared directly over Bea and Russell’s house. We all gathered in the basement for hours, waiting and praying for the hurricane to pass
. Thank God for this couple, I kept thinking. Just a few weeks ago, I was living outside.

  That next Sunday I didn’t need Russell to encourage me to go to church. Church attendance was a regular thing for the Costners. Bea was a musician; she played piano for services at Regan Mill Baptist Church, even though she and Russell had literally built the church on Holland Memorial Church Road. But she felt needed at Regan Mill, so that’s where we attended.

  WITHIN TWO MONTHS OF MY MOVING IN WITH THE Costners, Russell was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Neither he nor Bea seemed shaken by the news. They had absolute faith that the moment Russell took his last breath here on earth, he would be with Jesus in heaven, so there was no weepy sentimentality surrounding his illness. He was a soldier awaiting his next assignment.

  Even on good days, Russell never said much to me; he’d just stare at me. Sometimes he stared at me so much that it made me nervous. What was he looking at? What did he expect to see? What was he searching for? His eyes seared into me and pierced me right to the heart. I could feel him scanning every centimeter of my soul.

  He wasn’t trying to intimidate me. I think he was staring at me because he wanted to be absolutely sure that Bea was going to be okay after he was gone.

  One time Russell stared at me so long, I sketched a picture of him. When I showed it to him several hours later, he asked if he could take it to church. I said, “Sure, I drew it for you. You can do whatever you want with it.” Russell showed that drawing to all his friends and bragged on me in front of them. That was the first time in my life that a man acted as though he was proud of me.

  I was accustomed to men who were abusive, so my guard was up constantly. Combine that fear with the arrogance and insecurities of a normal teenager, and it makes for a volatile mix. Russell probably sensed that about me at first and wasn’t about to let some punk street kid get by with anything in his home.

  Although I was only sixteen, I had lived a lot of life in those years. I wasn’t about to let another man put me in my place, so there was bound to be some tension. That drawing changed everything between Russell and me. I didn’t know how to respond to his praise other than try to make him proud of me again. Unfortunately, I didn’t have many more opportunities.

  THE CANCER SPREAD QUICKLY, GOBBLING UP THE LAST healthy cells in Russell’s body. His health declined rapidly, and on November 6, 1989, Russell Costner, the strong American soldier and an even stronger soldier in the army of the Lord, was promoted to glory.

  I like to imagine that when Russell met Jesus, He said, “Russell, there are two things you’ve got to do if you’re going to stay here in my home. First, you’ve got to go to church. The second thing is, you’ve got to grow your hair out long, just like Mine.”

  Bea was sad but not inconsolable. She knew Russell was ready to go, and she knew she would see him again. She missed him terribly, but she understood that she still had some work to do. I didn’t know it at the time, but part of her remaining work involved me.

  Twenty-seven

  MY FIRST BAND

  I DIDN’T THINK I WOULD BE ABLE TO CONTINUE LIVING AT Bea’s after Russell’s death. If for no other reason than appearances, I felt sure Bea might prefer that I move on. Imagine my surprise when within hours after Russell’s funeral service, Bea met me in the front yard by the apple tree. All her family members were inside, congregating in the living room and kitchen the way people do after a funeral.

  Bea said, “Jimmy, I believe you were sent here, and I want you to stay if you want to.”

  I was surprised but relieved. “Yes, ma’am, I do. I will. I would like to stay, Bea.”

  Several months went by, and Bea asked me to move into the bedroom that was next to hers. I assumed having me closer made her feel safer, but looking back, I think she may have had another reason. Every night I could hear Bea through the wall, talking aloud to Jesus. I could hear her bones cracking and the bed springs squeaking as she leaned on the bed to get down on her knees to pray and then slowly pulled herself back up, sometimes as long as an hour later. She prayed for her relatives and a lot of people whose names I didn’t recognize, and every night I heard her praying for me.

  Bea still went to the woodshop every day. She kept the business going by herself for the next two years. For her, it wasn’t about making money, but Bea spent the majority of her time inside the woodshop making butter churns and weaving baskets.

  Her daughter, Sandie, and her husband, James Conrad, lived next door with their son, Josh, who became my best friend all through high school. Josh and I did everything together, and Sandie and James always included me in family activities, even taking me along with them on vacation to the mountains, during my sophomore and junior years in school.

  Meanwhile, Bea continued working, and the family’s concerns grew. We were all afraid that Bea was going to accidentally injure herself. Her concentration seemed lacking since Russell had passed, and we felt it was only a matter of time before she pulled that whirring radial arm saw across her hand.

  But any time someone suggested to Bea that it might be time to close doors on the woodshop, she’d bristle. “No!” she’d insist.

  The woodshop was where she and Russell had spent their life together and where she still felt close to him. Closing the door on the shop would be like saying a final good-bye—and after more than sixty years with him, she still wasn’t ready to say those words.

  One morning I walked into the living room, and there she stood, facing Russell’s and her fiftieth wedding anniversary picture. She was stroking it softly with her hand and telling Russell how much she missed him and loved him. Not wanting to intrude, I slipped away quietly, and she never even knew I was there.

  Bea continued working Mondays through Fridays. Every morning she walked out her front door, across Sandie’s yard, and into the woodshop. By noon, a glow of sawdust was hovering in the air outside the bay door.

  Bea was also a pretty good musician, and she especially enjoyed gospel music. Some mornings Bea turned on the record player, loaded up a bunch of 331/3 rpm gospel albums, and sang every word along with the artists on those vinyl records. One after another, the albums played for hours. And Bea sang. Did she ever sing! She’d reach for those high notes and hold them like an opera singer. Her beautiful vibrato filled the house. Sometimes I couldn’t help but sing along with her.

  The smell of air freshener let me know that it was Saturday. I’d hear the long spray from the can of air freshener and Bea’s pet black mynah bird say, “Hello, hello.” Bea answered, “Hello,” and the bird repeated her words. Bea carried on a conversation with that bird while she laid clean newspapers in the bottom of its cage. Then came more air freshener. When the house smelled like potpourri and everything was exactly the way Bea liked it, then came rehearsal.

  Bea would sit down at the piano and practice each hymn she planned to play at church the following morning. It was her Saturday morning routine, and she did it every week.

  Bea’s love of music and poetry was infectious. She encouraged me to pursue writing poems, and when an opportunity came for me to join a band—even though it was a rock band—Bea was supportive.

  TO HELP BEA, AND TO HAVE A BIT OF SPENDING MONEY OF my own while in high school, I got a part-time job at the Osage textile mill in Bessemer City. One day while taking a break, I overheard two fellow high school students, Rob Daniels and Chad McAllister, talking about music. “I’m looking for a singer to join my rock band,” Rob said. “If you hear of anyone, let me know.”

  “I sing!” I blurted out.

  “Really?” Rob asked, running his hand through his long, curly, blond hair. “Well, come over around five o’clock this afternoon, and I’ll give you a few songs to learn.”

  I showed up at his house on time and met with the other band members: Richard Calhoun, who played drums, and Eric Pruitt, the bass player. Rob played lead guitar and was the leader of the band. Although the band did not yet have a name, he was very serious about it.

&nb
sp; Rob gave me a cassette tape, and I headed back to Bea’s to begin learning the songs. Because I was totally inexperienced, I didn’t realize that the two songs on the tape—“Piece of Mind,” by the band Boston, and “Modern Day Cowboy,” by the group Tesla—were incredibly difficult songs to sing, even for seasoned professionals. I worked on them, nonetheless, and several days later I went back to Rob’s house to audition.

  I was nervous because this was the first time I’d ever sung into a microphone. I was clueless about everything related to music performance. I just knew I had a love for it and dreamed of standing on stage one day, singing to an arena filled with fans.

  Unfortunately, the audition did not go well. The songs were pitched in the same keys that the artists had recorded them. I could barely hit the high notes, so I was turned down for the gig.

  The next day at work I explained to Rob, “Hardly anyone can sing those songs in their original keys. Why don’t you give me one more shot singing something that you’ve written?”

  “Okay,” Rob said, “come by the house again and get a copy of two songs I wrote.” I showed up at Rob’s house, just like before. The band members didn’t say much and gave the impression that Rob was wasting their time by giving me two of his songs to learn.

  I took the songs back to Bea’s house and spent every waking moment working on them until I felt as though I could sing them with my eyes closed.

  Rob saw me at the Osage mill and said, “Rehearsal is Thursday night.”

  “I’ll be there,” I assured him.

  When I showed up for practice again, none of the band members said much. Their attitude was, “We’ll tolerate this guy’s audition, but we know he isn’t ever going to be a singer.”

  Rob plugged in his white Flying V guitar and began warming up along with Richard and Eric. After a few minutes Rob looked at me and asked, “Are you ready?”