by Jim Bradford
“Hey, buddy,” I said softly as I reached his table.
“What’s your name?” he replied.
“My name is Jim. What’s your name?”
“I’m HK.”
“What does HK stand for?”
“Nothing, just HK.”
“HK, it’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too. Where do you live?”
“In Brentwood.”
“What street do you live on?”
“Harpeth River Drive.”
“What’s that off of?”
“Old Hickory Boulevard,” I answered.
“What time did you get up this morning?” HK inquired.
“Six o’clock,” I replied.
“What did you do when you got up?”
“I took a shower.”
“What did you do next?”
“I got dressed.”
“What did you do next?”
“I drove to McDonald’s to meet my tennis partners.”
He continued this tough line of questioning like a relentless seasoned detective. After a few minutes of his incessant interrogation, I thought to myself, Wow, this is one funny little kid!
He kept pounding me with questions, and I kept responding. During one short pause, he took my hand and gently rubbed it with his fingers as though exploring a delicate art object. Then he brought it to his nose, like a puppy playfully sniffing its owner, committing my unique identifying scent to memory. After about fifteen minutes, I had to leave.
“I enjoyed meeting you, HK. I have errands to run and need to go.”
“I hope I can see you again sometime,” he said hesitantly.
“Me too,” I replied with a sizable lump in my throat.
Turning to leave my newfound friend, I became an innocent victim to the biggest thief in town. Like a pickpocket honing his stealthy craft among the gawking tourists of Nashville’s downtown honky-tonks, HK Derryberry had committed the perfect crime: he stole my heart.
My mind raced through the long list of Saturday chores ahead, mostly honey-dos for Brenda. I walked much slower than when I first arrived. The weather, the traffic, the time of day all seemed like a blur to me. I left Mrs. Winner’s parking lot, but I could not ditch thoughts of this little blind boy. Just thinking about him broke my heart and brought me to tears. I realized my compelling cup of hot coffee remained untouched, but I did not care.
Questions flooded my head the remainder of that day. I chuckled as I replayed his intense interrogation. I even had a few questions of my own: Where were his parents? How bad were his health problems? Where did he live? I found myself driving aimlessly while attempting to complete my weekend errand list. Images of his forlorn face, dirty clothes, and white leg braces became seared into my brain. Since I was without tissues, my warm-up jacket sleeve doubled as a handkerchief for my tear-filled eyes. I knew absolutely nothing about him or his life, except his weekend day care at Mrs. Winner’s.
Eventually I completed my errands and ended up back home. Placing the grocery bags on our kitchen counter, I shared news of the unexpected encounter with my wife. I gushed about the funny little boy, his sad appearance, and his endless questions. She had no response, so I never mentioned him again that weekend. Sunday’s church sermon about meaningful life relationships struck another of my emotional chords, and again I struggled to fight back tears.
CHAPTER 3
Groundhog Day
Tennis season at Belle Meade Country Club’s indoor center ran from October through February. Eight close buddies and I rotated doubles partners most Saturday mornings for an eight thirty, best two-out-of-three match. Each player was scheduled one Saturday off a month, and my next free Saturday greeted me with gray skies and a steady north wind, making it feel colder than my carport thermometer reading. After a late-morning breakfast, I bundled in layers, found my work gloves and a warm stocking cap, and proceeded outside to reclaim my territory from a yard full of orphaned leaves that had invaded my spotless corner lot.
As I was raking, my thoughts drifted back to HK, something they had done every day since we had met. I wondered about his home life, whether he was sitting alone at Mrs. Winner’s, and how many innocent victims he had interrogated that morning. I remembered my daughters at his age and how my expecting them to sit calmly in a room for more than five minutes without television or other distractions would have been inconceivable. They had no more ability to endure that kind of solitude than I had surviving twelve rounds with a heavyweight boxer. Yet that intrepid, or incredibly patient, young boy sat alone in that dreary restaurant for nine excruciating hours every Saturday and Sunday because his grandmother had no other weekend options. My brain simply could not fathom his misery.
By midafternoon I had stuffed forty large contractor’s bags full of leaves and neatly stacked the bags streetside. Errant backyard strays taunted me, but I was cold, tired, and done. I put away my rake, changed jackets, replaced the stocking cap with my favorite blue Auburn ball cap, and told Brenda that I was going out for coffee. I don’t recall mentioning Mrs. Winner’s.
The trip to the restaurant took only ten minutes. As I entered the parking lot, I spied HK sitting alone at the window, exactly where I had left him last week. Just seeing his small head once again stirred my emotions. I felt relief that he was there and was strangely giddy at the thought of seeing him again. What did I expect from this visit? What had I come to do? I really didn’t know for sure; I just knew that the urge to come back and see this boy was overwhelming. But this time I determined I would be the one asking all the questions.
I rushed into the restaurant to escape another blast of cold air, claimed my senior coffee, and ambled into the dining room. As I approached HK, it appeared that he wore the same clothes as last week—a droopy white cotton T-shirt with faded cargo shorts that were a size too small. Rounding out his wardrobe were those white plastic leg braces and odd black shoes that looked as though they came straight out of my grandmother’s closet.
Tiptoeing closer, I detected a moist, three-inch stain in the middle of his soiled T-shirt, no doubt residue from his lunch. He was completely mesmerized by sounds pounding from his dilapidated music box. His upper body strained over the table, his head cocked to one side, struggling to listen with one ear while eavesdropping on nearby table conversations with the other. The volume was low enough that customers weren’t disturbed, but drawing closer, I recognized the pulsating, singsong voice of a Pentecostal preacher. These distinctive sound waves, springing deep from within the bowels of some middle Tennessee basement studio, held the impressionable young boy utterly transfixed. He swayed in perfect rhythm with the rise and fall of the evangelist’s voice, hanging on every “Praise God!” and “Hallelujah!” that came through the speaker.
In a week his hair had grown enough to make his tiny face look even smaller than I remembered. He could have passed easily for a five-year-old, although at our last visit he had revealed to me that his ninth birthday was in July. He heard me approaching, but before I could speak, my chin began to quiver as I valiantly fought torrents of emotion. He raised his head and appeared to look me in the eye.
“What’s your name?” he asked in a high-pitched squeaky voice.
“I’m Jim,” I replied.
“Are you the same man I talked to last Saturday?”
“Yes I am; you sure have a good memory.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Brentwood.”
“What street do you live on?”
“Harpeth River Drive.”
“What’s that off of?”
“Old Hickory Boulevard.” (Eventually I discovered that if he was unfamiliar with a street name, he inquired about adjoining streets until he recognized one. Only then would he proceed to the next set of questions.)
“What time did you get up this morning?”
“Six o’clock.”
“What did you do when you got up?”
“I showered.”
“What did you do next?”
“I got dressed.”
“What did you do next?”
“I worked in my yard raking leaves.”
“What did you do next?”
Any notion that I would assume the interrogator role this time around instantly vanished. He repeated the same basic questions each time we met. I felt like Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog Day, tortuously looping the same twenty-four hours over and over again. Like Phil, I soon anticipated the repetitive drill and became determined to change it. So after my second or third visit, I began responding with something like, “I answered that question last week, and my routine doesn’t change very much. So let’s talk about something else.” I tried drawing him into normal two-way dialogue, but I failed miserably each time.
Finally it dawned on me: HK’s lack of social contact with anyone except Pearl had severely restricted his development of normal communication skills. Simply put, he was a social virgin, unable to converse on any topic except those that Pearl had discussed in his presence or that he had heard from radio or television. It seemed that God was presenting me with a blank canvas, leaving it to me to complete the picture.
Later during that second visit, he gently grasped my hand as he had before and, while holding it close to his face, explored each finger as if committing my scent to memory. His enhanced olfactory ability allowed him to identify me and other acquaintances from quite a distance. Nervously I fully expected a similar exploration of my face, but it never happened.
Within a short time he was able to instantly recognize me when I would walk into the restaurant dining room, greeting me with “Hi, Mr. Bradford!” before I could utter a word. I noticed in particular that since our first meeting, he always referred to me as “Mr. Bradford.” He addressed everyone else by his or her first name, but not me, and I don’t have a clue as to why.
During subsequent visits, I realized I was not the only Mrs. Winner’s customer affected by the little blind boy’s presence at the window table. I occasionally discovered money, usually a ten- or twenty-dollar bill, carefully folded and tucked underneath his battered boom box. Upon my inquiry he would say, “I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t know there was money on my table. How much is it?”
Decent human beings had obviously noticed the little boy hiding in plain sight and wanted to help in some small way. I wondered how many others saw him, walked away, and did nothing. I’ll be the first to admit that my righteous scorecard in that game was next to zero until meeting HK. I could not tally the innumerable times I had looked beyond a downtown homeless man asking for meal money or drove blankly past a disheveled veteran holding a “Will Work for Food” sign in the middle of a busy Nashville intersection. Believe me, I know what it’s like to discount the poor and close my eyes to the marginalized hiding among us. But God had given me a second chance, and I had something to offer this go-round: compassion, care, and lots of time.
HK’s desolate weekends at the restaurant and a monotonous home life disturbed me and upset the comfort I had enjoyed in our peaceful corner of the world. I felt a gentle hand pushing, stirring, and prodding. God had me exactly where He wanted me.
CHAPTER 4
“I’ll Never Forget You for
the Rest of My Life”
My friendship with the young blind boy with disabilities blossomed quickly in spite of our forty-seven-year age difference. Regular sessions at the now-familiar window table made us look and sound like two crusty old farmers holding court in the middle of the restaurant.
Once, HK gently found my right hand with his left and, without warning, quietly uttered, “Mr. Bradford, I love you. You are my best friend. When you die, I will never forget you for the rest of my life.”
I wish I knew what prompted this surprise declaration, but it caught me completely off guard. I was reduced to a river of tears, and after clearing my throat, I responded, “Thank you, HK. I love you too. I hope I live a long time so we can continue to be good friends for many more years.”
He turned, faced me, and broke into the biggest, brightest, most heartwarming smile I had ever witnessed. Perhaps he sensed that for the first time in his life he had found a genuine friend other than his grandmother. From that time on HK spontaneously referred to me as his best friend, sometimes completing this thought with “I love you, Mr. Bradford.”
Soon both days of the weekend found me following the familiar route and returning to the Mrs. Winner’s parking lot. If his face was not visible in the window, I would forgo my coffee purchase, drive around the building, and return home. I understood why HK was sometimes not there—Pearl was not scheduled to work every weekend. These rare occasions left me empty in more ways than one.
But on the days I spotted his usual silhouette, I was euphoric. I always anticipated our time together. Over a cup of senior coffee for me and sweet iced tea for him, we would discuss my job, my travels, and my family while I squeezed out tidbits of personal information about his school, his friends and family, his likes and dislikes. I learned, for example, that his favorite Mrs. Winner’s meal was sausage and gravy dished over a well-done buttered biscuit. It was normally served only during breakfast hours, but thanks to his “inside” connections, he could order his favorite meal anytime. As a result of these developing two-way conversations, I began to notice encouraging signs of his emerging personality. The more we interacted, the more his conversational skills improved.
Weekend visits strengthened my friendship with HK and gave me opportunities to observe the full range of his emotional spectrum. One Saturday afternoon I witnessed a scene that I suspect many working parents have experienced. Saying good-bye and walking out the door on an extended business trip can be brutal, especially for young children. Sometimes these partings result in meltdowns of epic proportions.
Each time I left Mrs. Winner’s, I gave HK a huge bear hug and told him how much I enjoyed our visit. He always returned the favor, but on this particular afternoon he wrapped his small arms around me and tearfully begged for me not to leave. His sudden, frantic response was simply unbearable and brought tears to my eyes. He became inconsolable to the point of disturbing nearby customers and caused such a heartbreaking scene that Pearl had to abandon her cash register and come to my rescue. She calmly reassured him that I was not leaving forever. “Mr. Bradford needs to go now, but he will come back to see you again soon.”
Pearl’s shift was almost over, so I stayed with him until she got off work. I grabbed his left hand on our way out the front door and gently helped him walk to Pearl’s pickup truck parked behind the restaurant. I opened the door, lifted his fifty-three-pound frame into the passenger seat, and securely fastened his seat belt. At that point his distress ceased. It seemed the clicking sound gave him reassurance that not only was his safety firmly intact, but our friendship was as well.
The next week Pearl made it a point to tell me the story behind his meltdown. “Until HK met you, every other person he has encountered at the restaurant—or anyone else for that matter—who has shown him the least bit of affection suddenly disappears and has never returned. That includes both his father and grandfather. Now he considers you his best friend, and I think he’s afraid you’ll do the same thing one day.”
Knowing this sad fact enabled me to understand the traumatic incident, but it did not erase the memory of my fragile emotions when he refused to let me go. Even today the word good-bye is noticeably absent from his vocabulary. Instead, his standard reply to anyone leaving him is “Take care.”
Without question I was now in way over my head, in deep water. To validate my buddy’s abandonment issues by turning away from him was no longer an option. At this point I could no more withdraw from him than I could renounce my American citizenship. But my dilemma was that I already had an adoring, caring family whom I loved. I prayed for divine guidance and fervently searched for answers.
No doubt the casual observer would find this sprouting friendship a bit
unusual. In fact, that was the expressed opinion of one person in particular who was much more than a casual observer. As HK and I grew increasingly close, my wife questioned my sanity and raised more than a few objections. She observed a fifty-six-year-old man and father of two grown daughters eagerly anticipating another encounter with a nine-year-old boy who had several disabilities and who was neither his son nor a family relative. Brenda knew that I thought about him frequently during most waking hours. HK stories spilled out to our circle of friends; no story was too insignificant to share with them. I just could not say enough about him to anyone who would listen. She took full notice of my growing obsession, letting me know that I was quickly becoming overly attached to the cute little youngster.
My constant preoccupation with HK was affecting our marriage and our social life. It left little room for anyone or anything else, including Brenda and our friends. Her outgoing personality yearned for weekends as a couple, card games with friends, boating and social outings. Hearing—but most important, listening to—her concerns, I knew I was guilty as charged. Something had to change. Brenda and I needed time together, including social activity with friends, so we decided to make Friday evenings our special night as a couple.
CHAPTER 5
Precious Pearl and
the Family Tree
Pearl Derryberry—Grammy, as HK called her—occasionally joined my tableside conversations with HK during her breaks. Slowly I began to absorb important bits of family information about HK and his grandmother. They could count on one hand the number of friends and acquaintances they had between the two of them. Their bankrupt social life consisted of incidental talk with the restaurant regulars.
I’m confident Pearl enjoyed our sporadic moments of fellowship as much as HK did. She had a lifetime of heartbreaking stories to share but no one to share them with. She was an excellent storyteller, and I was an attentive listener. Often her stories would drift back in time to her own early years or take a dark turn when she mentioned “the accident”—an event that had obviously changed everything. Growing more comfortable with me, she did most of the talking while I listened and scooped up crumbs of information. She shared painful stories about her parents, a disastrous marriage, and her two sons. I heard about childhood memories on the farm, her previous job, and a heap of stories about HK. Naturally, I wondered what had happened to HK’s parents, and it was midafternoon one Saturday after the lunch crowd had thinned and Pearl was on a long lunch break that the time came for her to drop the bombshell I’d been waiting to hear. The dining room was quiet, and she had a captive audience.
