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

by Wayne, Jimmy

  It was time to show them what I’d come up with. I sang my heart out, and although the rehearsal didn’t go as well as I had hoped, I got the gig! I was now the lead singer in a rock-and-roll band.

  I couldn’t wait to share this news with Lynn, my first serious girlfriend. I had met Lynn at school in cabinet-making class, and later we went to work at the same textile factory. Lynn and I had established a fun relationship, but for some reason, Bea wasn’t impressed with her. She told me one day, “Jimmy, don’t ever let a girl stand in your way.”

  “What do you mean, Bea?”

  “Just make sure she’s right; make sure the relationship is right.” Bea’s comment almost offended me because I sincerely cared for Lynn. I was in love—as much as I knew of it—and I had even thought that someday we might get married. Before long I was spending half of my time with the band and the other half with Lynn, school, and work. The band rehearsed three to four times each week for several hours at every session, so there wasn’t a lot of extra time for a dating relationship.

  Bea’s intuition and misgivings about Lynn proved accurate. One day I walked into the textile factory and saw her kissing another guy in the nook, where she and I often took our breaks. That ended my relationship with Lynn, but it didn’t end the hurt in my heart.

  I realized that Bea was right; she wasn’t trying to deprive me of a good relationship. But she had a spiritual perception and discernment, and I learned to trust her opinions.

  WITH LYNN OUT OF MY LIFE, I POURED MYSELF INTO THE band. One day Rob and I were together when he said, “I came up with a name for the band,” as he was pumping gas into his white pickup truck.

  “Really? What?”

  “Fantasyche!” he said, as though it were the greatest name for a band since the Beatles.

  “Fanta what?” I asked.

  “Fantasyche, like Queensryche, and the fantasy of the mind,” Rob explained.

  “Oh, yeah, I get it,” I replied, but I really didn’t. I mulled over the words fantasy of the mind as I sat in the passenger seat. I’m still not sure what it means, but it is a cool name for the band, I thought.

  My role with the band was that of lead vocalist, carrying all the loud, screaming lead lines. I didn’t play any instruments, but I sang hard, nearly blowing my vocal cords out on the heavy metal sound we emulated. Most of our lyrics—if anyone could hear them—were about escapism.

  I performed onstage in front of a live audience for the first time at Bessemer City Junior High School, playing for a job fair in the school. The enthusiastic response of the junior high girls, screaming and waving their hands high in the air as we played, was addictive, and I was instantly hooked.

  We soon entered our first “battle of the bands,” hosted by Yesterday’s nightclub in Hickory, another small town nearby. Yesterday’s was a popular rock-and-roll hot spot, so when the woman in charge of the band credentials handed me a laminate, enclosing my name tag, I was so excited I almost didn’t notice the name Fantasyche right above my name. This was big time in a small town. I was so proud of that name tag; I even wore it to school the following week.

  Fantasyche didn’t win the battle of the bands that night, but we did place second, and that just made us hungrier. The band practiced more. We were featured on Local Licks, a radio show where local artists might have an opportunity to have one of their songs played on the station. That was the first time I heard myself on the radio.

  The second battle of the bands was held at Casper’s nightclub in Gastonia. The band played hard rock and roll, and I sang even harder. The competition was stiff, and I will never forget hearing the emcee’s words, “And the first place winner is . . . Fantasyche!”

  As part of our prize package, the band got to record a two-song demo in a professional recording studio in Charlotte. This was my first experience inside a recording studio. I was amazed and impressed by all the records hanging on the wall, and I was somewhat intimidated by the engineer. He’d been in the music business a long time and obviously knew far more than anyone in the room. Or at least he acted as if he did. I was clueless about the recording process, but I was excited to learn.

  ROB WAS IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING. A FEW WEEKS AFTER we did our demo, he called a band meeting at his house in the basement, where we practiced. When we showed up, Rob handed each of us a box of cassettes. On the cassette packaging in bold letters was the name Fantasyche written on the front and back, along with the song titles “Shoulda Known” and “Keep on Dreaming,” two songs written by Rob. We were as excited as little kids on Christmas morning.

  Rob explained to the band that we needed to sell the cassettes for five dollars each so we could pay back the loan his mom and dad had given us to pay for manufacturing the product. We sold the cassettes at school and at shows.

  With our first two-song demo cassette, we dreamed of being rock stars. I thought that wearing purple spandex shorts, a jean trench coat, and sneakers was cool. When I walked onstage dressed like that at Peppers, a popular local club, I quickly realized that the audience was comprised completely of truckers, bikers, and rednecks—and they were all men. There wasn’t a woman in the room! There I stood, without a shirt on, and nearly got booed off the stage. I was glad to get out of that place with my life!

  Fantasyche had a good run; we stayed together as a band for more than a year and a half, not bad for high school kids. But by the time I reached my senior year, things were changing in the band. Parents got involved, reality set in, and the band members began changing their minds about any long-term commitments. But unlike the other band members, I didn’t have anything or anyone to fall back on if this band didn’t work. It was the only thing I really had going on.

  Performing music was my dream. Yet when I looked at the band realistically, I realized that heavy metal “hair” bands were on the decline. I knew in my heart that our band wasn’t going to make it. Any other conclusion was only wishful thinking. I folded up my microphone stand, packed up my Shure SM57 microphone, wrapped up my cord, and said good-bye to Fantasyche.

  SHORTLY AFTER THAT ROB MOVED TO VIRGINIA TO CONTINUE pursuing music. I didn’t know if music was even an option for me anymore. I loved music, but I knew there was no job security in the music business. I decided it would be smart to finish high school and go to college. I tried to put the dream on the back burner, but when you’ve been bitten by the music bug, that desire doesn’t go away so easily.

  Still, I might have found some form of inoculation if a criminal named Jody Lee Hager hadn’t shown up at my high school.

  Twenty-eight

  IT’S NOT WHERE YOU’VE BEEN; IT’S WHERE YOU’RE GOIN’

  FROM THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM IN BESSEMER CITY High School, I listened in awe to Jody Lee Hager as he stood onstage, shared his story, and performed a few original songs on a cheap, brown, dreadnought guitar—a guitar stamped with prison unit number 4515.

  Jody was an incredible motivator. His performance moved an entire auditorium filled with high school students, teachers, and administrators. Adding to the uniqueness of Jody’s performance was the fact that he was a current inmate at the Dallas Correctional Facility and was participating in Think Smart, a program that allowed prisoners to leave the facility under strict supervision to share their stories with schools, churches, and civic groups. The goal was to inspire others to “think smart” and avoid criminal activity.

  Despite Jody telling the students, “Guys, think smart; don’t do drugs, don’t get in trouble, and don’t be like me,” as I listened to him, I thought, I want to be just like him! Not Jody the criminal, but Jody the musician and storyteller.

  Oddly enough, one of the most poignant songs Jody performed was a Christmas song, “For Days Like This,” a song he had written describing the loneliness he felt in prison at Christmastime. I couldn’t believe that he sang a Christmas song in the middle of spring, but Jody communicated the message so powerfully, it reached right into our hearts.

  I had performed with Fan
tasyche and had even sung at a few weddings, but Jody’s performance inspired me. From that moment forward I knew exactly what I wanted to do—I wanted to write songs by putting my poems to music, perform them on an acoustic guitar, and share my story. Maybe I could inspire someone the way Jody influenced me. It was just a kernel of an idea, but it was beginning to take root.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, WHILE ON MY WAY TO WORK AT the textile mill, I spotted a small brown guitar leaning against a table at a yard sale in a gas station parking lot. The traffic light turned green as I slowly drove past the guitar. I alternated between watching the road ahead and glancing back to check out the guitar, all the while slowly changing gears on my pickup truck. I hadn’t shifted past second gear before I turned the truck around and drove back to the yard sale. I got out of the truck, walked directly to the guitar, and picked it up.

  It was a Harmony six-string guitar, an inexpensive instrument similar to the one I had while living with Patricia and Steven. I looked at the neck and the tuning keys, then flipped the guitar over and looked at the back. I examined it from every angle, as though I actually knew something about guitars, which of course, I didn’t. “How much is it?” I asked the woman conducting the sale.

  “Forty dollars,” she replied, as though she were offering a special deal.

  I pondered for a few minutes—forty dollars was a lot of money to me—before handing her two twenty-dollar bills.

  I opened the driver’s side door and gently laid the guitar on the bench seat as though I were placing a sleeping baby in a crib. I slid in beside the guitar and drove on toward the Osage mill, looking over at the guitar’s reddish finish and black pick guard several times as I drove. When I arrived at the mill, I got out of the truck, looked back at the guitar one more time, and then closed and locked the truck door.

  I walked through the gate and raced up the stairwell to the spinning room, where my best friend, Josh Conrad, and our boss, Posey Williams, were waiting on me.

  “Where ya been?” Posey asked, looking at his watch.

  I immediately shared with them the great news about the guitar and my dreams to become a country music singer.

  Josh and Posey stood in the doorway of the spinning room and looked at me with a blank stare. Neither of them said much, but I could guess what they were thinking by the way they grinned.

  “Okay, you’ll see,” I said with a grin to rival theirs.

  For the next six hours, all I could think about was that guitar lying in the front seat of my truck. I didn’t even know enough about guitars to realize that leaving a stringed instrument in a hot vehicle all day is not a good idea. I could already hear myself singing “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” a song written and recorded by Alan Jackson.

  As soon as I finished my shift, I ran back to my truck. There on the front seat of the pickup lay the guitar I had been daydreaming about for the past six hours. I couldn’t wait to play it; except for the few songs I had learned at Patricia’s, I didn’t know where to start.

  I drove to the Music Center in Gastonia and purchased a Mel Bay guitar chord lesson book, a well-known, simplistic instruction manual, then headed home. For several weeks I studied the chord book. I was making fairly good progress when I thought of an idea.

  I APPROACHED MRS. LOVE, THE ATTRACTIVE, YOUNG GUIDANCE counselor at Bessemer City High School, and told her how much Jody Lee Hager had inspired me during his Think Smart school assembly. I asked if she could arrange for me to meet Jody. My hope was that he could teach me a few things on the guitar and share a few tips about songwriting. Mrs. Love’s father, Mr. Charles Mears, was the superintendent at the Dallas prison, where Jody was incarcerated.

  Mrs. Love promised to ask her father about my request. A few weeks later correctional officers greeted Mrs. Love and me at Gate 1, patted us down, and then led us across the prison yard to a concrete picnic table between the lieutenant’s office and the music room.

  Minutes later Jody Hager walked across the graveled midyard, approaching the picnic table. He was wearing green pants, a white T-shirt, and black boots—mandatory prison garb for all inmates at Jody’s honor grade level.

  Jody sat down beside Mrs. Love and began making small talk at the table. She explained to him that I had come to ask him some questions about playing guitar. At the end of the visit, I told Jody that I hoped I could come to see him again. He agreed.

  A second visit went much the same as the first. After that, I continued to visit Jody alone, without Mrs. Love. During the third visit, Jody actually spent time playing the guitar and discussing music with me. He taught me the guitar part to “Anymore,” a popular song by country artist Travis Tritt. We spent a few more minutes practicing the song, and just before I left, he wrote down the lyrics on a piece of paper and handed them to me to learn.

  I visited Jody one more time at the prison. During the visit, superintendent Charlie Mears approached me on the midyard. At first I thought he was going to tell me that I could not visit Jody anymore, but he didn’t. Instead, Mr. Mears said, “I’ve been watching you out here on the prison yard, son. Call me when you graduate from college, and I’ll give you a job.”

  That was the best news I’d heard since the Costners allowed me to move into their home. After working for more than two years in a textile mill, I was ready for another sort of employment. Of course, Mr. Mears may not have known I was still a high school student. It would be at least two more years before I could leave the textile mill.

  I WAS SO EXCITED TO BE LEARNING GUITAR. I WANTED TO expand my repertoire of music and at the same time learn to sing better. As the lead singer with Fantasyche, I had basically been screaming on pitch—or close to it. But I was impressed with Jody’s smooth vocals melding perfectly with his tasteful guitar licks. I said, “I want to learn how to sing like that!”

  I couldn’t find a voice teacher at school, so I sought out the best vocal coach I could find. Becky Hyde Smith was a part-time vocal teacher who had heard me on the Fantasyche demo cassette, and she was willing to help me. The first day I met with her, Becky asked me to sing along with her. She began playing the piano, and I started yelling in tune. She stopped playing and said, “Jimmy, please stop screaming at me!”

  We started from scratch. We began by doing vocal warm-ups. Becky played scales over and over, and she made me match my voice to the notes up and down an octave. “La-la-la-la-la-la-la- laaaaa.” She taught me about volume control and speech-level singing, and she introduced me to great vocalists, teaching me to emulate their diction and vocal control. Becky displayed tremendous patience with me, but she was also firm in her demands for perfection when it came to practicing my vocals. I am indebted to Becky to this day for teaching me to sing, not only with passion but proper diction and intonation.

  I GRADUATED FROM BESSEMER CITY HIGH SCHOOL IN JUNE 1992. The school gave me a special award for three straight years of perfect attendance. Of course, Bea attended the ceremony, and I could tell that she was proud of me.

  Mama was there too. She had bought me a new pair of shoes to wear to my high school graduation, and she purchased my class ring for me. I didn’t expect her to do anything like that, and I appreciated her kindness.

  Receiving my high school diploma was especially meaningful to me. It was more than a piece of parchment with some writing on it. The diploma symbolized all the achievements and positive changes that had taken place in my life since moving in with Bea and Russell three years earlier. The boy living in Uncle Austin’s trailer couldn’t have done that, nor could the kid who had been living from bed to bed, meal to meal. But thanks to Bea, I now believed I could do anything, simply because I had a place to live and some loving encouragement. And now I was even planning to go to college.

  I enrolled at Gaston College, in Dallas, North Carolina, that fall. I decided to major in criminal justice—since I knew a lot about the subject.

  CLASSES STARTED IN SEPTEMBER, AND I THOROUGHLY enjoyed them. I had grown up around crime, so I related to many o
f the lessons taught. I continued practicing my guitar and working on my vocals. In December 1992, with Bea in mind, I wrote my first song, “My Only Friend,” after a close friend’s mom passed away. I wasn’t good at expressing grief, so I gave him the song to help us both deal with his mom’s passing.

  One of my most memorable experiences during my education at Gaston College was a field trip. My criminal justice instructor, Don Lawrence, told the class to wear a collared shirt on Monday morning. We were going to visit the Dallas Detention Center. “This will give you a taste of the real thing,” Professor Lawrence said, “taking criminal justice out of the textbook and letting you see it in real life.”

  I didn’t need to visit the detention center to see what real life inside was like since that was the facility in which I was locked up on my fifteenth birthday. I didn’t tell my professor or any of my fellow students that I knew more than I wanted to know about the detention center.

  When we arrived, we were ushered to a side room to await the officer who would guide us through the facility. I felt uneasy as I stood in the back of that room, behind all the other students, with memories pummeling my mind. A heavyset officer walked through the double doors, and I recognized him immediately. I swallowed hard. It was the same officer who had checked me in the night of my fifteenth birthday.

  He looked right at me, but he didn’t recognize me. The last time he had seen me I had been wearing scruffy clothes, had filthy long hair, and was scared stiff—looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Now I looked much different, with clean clothes, a stylish haircut, and a confident look in my eyes. I stood quietly, my back against the wall, as the officer began his introduction.

  “Good morning, and welcome to the Dallas Detention Center. In here we have all kinds of trash.” The officer practically spat the words from his mouth.