He Wasn’t Asking for Money

The old man had six dollars in a paper coffee cup and a cardboard sign across his knees that said:

“I’M NOT ASKING FOR MONEY. I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO SIT WITH ME FOR FIVE MINUTES.”

A woman coming out of the pharmacy dropped another dollar into the cup without stopping.

The old man lifted his hand.

“Ma’am, really, I don’t need—”

She was already halfway across the parking lot.

I shut off my Harley.

Seven engines went quiet behind me.

My name is Ray Dawson, although almost nobody in the Iron Saints calls me Ray. I’d been Hammer for twenty-seven years. At fifty-six, six-foot-four and close to 285 pounds, with a shaved head, gray in my beard, tattooed forearms, and a leather vest covered in patches, I was used to people making certain assumptions before I opened my mouth.

That Saturday morning in Knoxville, Tennessee, seven brothers from the club were riding behind me. We had eaten breakfast at a diner off Kingston Pike and were supposed to be at a veterans’ fundraiser before noon.

Instead, I was staring at an old man outside a pharmacy.

Mack pulled up beside me.

“Something wrong?”

I pointed.

He read the sign.

Then he looked at me.

“Five minutes?”

“Five minutes.”

We parked eight motorcycles along the curb.

The old man watched us approach, and I could see him trying to figure out whether we were coming toward him or simply passing through. He wore khaki pants, brown walking shoes, and a blue windbreaker zipped halfway up despite the warm morning. His white hair had been combed neatly to one side.

I stopped in front of him.

“Sir, is this seat taken?”

I pointed to the concrete beside his folding chair.

He stared at me.

Then at the other seven men.

“The sidewalk?”

“Best seat I can afford.”

That got the smallest smile out of him.

I sat down.

Mack lowered himself beside me. Boone sat on the curb. Curtis leaned against the bus shelter until I looked at him, and then he laughed and sat too. Within thirty seconds, eight men in leather were lined up outside a Walgreens like we were waiting for a parade.

The old man looked down at his sign.

His fingers tightened around the cardboard.

“You fellows don’t have to do this.”

“We’re not doing anything,” I said. “We’re sitting.”

He looked at me for several seconds.

“Walter.”

“Ray.”

We shook hands.

His grip was still firm.

I nodded toward the cup.

“Business good?”

Walter gave a dry laugh.

“That’s the problem. Everybody thinks I’m running a business.”

He reached down and picked up the cup.

“Nine dollars now. I started with nothing.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I have money.”

He said it almost defensively.

“I’ve got a house. I’ve got a pension. Refrigerator’s full. Mortgage was paid off years ago. I’m not out here because I need nine dollars.”

He tapped the sign with one finger.

“Nobody reads the whole thing.”

That quieted us.

People were still walking around us. Some stared at the motorcycles. Others stared at eight bikers sitting beside an eighty-year-old man holding a cardboard sign.

I asked Walter how long he’d been there.

He checked his watch.

“Today? About three hours.”

“Three hours?”

“Since a little after eight.”

Boone frowned.

“And nobody sat down?”

Walter shook his head.

Then he looked across the parking lot rather than at us.

“Eleven months.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him.

“What?”

He rubbed his thumb along the bent edge of the cardboard.

“It’s been eleven months since somebody sat beside me just because they wanted to be there.”

Nobody had a joke for that.

Eleven Months of Quiet

Walter’s wife had been named June.

They’d been married fifty-three years.

She had died eleven months earlier.

Walter didn’t tell us that in one big speech. It came out slowly while we sat there. First he mentioned that June used to complain about his coffee. Then he said she had been the one who remembered everybody’s birthdays. A few minutes later, he admitted he still bought the same brand of tea she liked even though he never drank it.

“First few weeks after the funeral, people were everywhere,” he said. “Neighbors brought casseroles. Church people called. My niece stayed three nights. Couldn’t get five minutes alone.”

Mack smiled.

“Sounds about right.”

“Then everybody goes back to work. Kids have soccer. Grandkids have school. People have appointments. That’s normal.”

Walter folded his hands.

“Nobody did anything wrong.”

That part mattered to him.

He wasn’t angry.

His niece called every Sunday. A neighbor brought his trash can up from the curb when she remembered. Someone from church checked on him now and then.

But checking on someone and spending time with them were different things.

“People ask, ‘You doing okay, Walter?’” he said. “You learn the correct answer is yes.”

Curtis shifted beside me.

“Even when it isn’t?”

Walter shrugged.

“What am I supposed to say? ‘No, come sit in my living room for two hours because the house is so quiet I’m starting conversations with the weather man?’”

A couple of us laughed.

Walter did too.

Then he said, “I really do talk to the weather man.”

We laughed harder.

He told us he sometimes left the television running from breakfast until bedtime because hearing voices changed the feel of the house. He’d started taking longer trips to the grocery store. He knew which cashier had a daughter in college and which pharmacy technician was saving for a car.

Not because Walter was nosy.

Because those were sometimes the only conversations he had all week.

“Yesterday I bought toothpaste I didn’t need,” he said.

Boone looked over.

“Why?”

“Fellow at the register likes the Vols. We talked football last time.”

Boone lowered his head and rubbed his beard.

Walter noticed.

“Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some sad old dog somebody left beside the highway.”

That made Boone look up.

Walter pointed at all of us.

“I don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me. I wanted somebody to talk to. There’s a difference.”

I liked him immediately after that.

Maybe I already had.

Five minutes became twenty.

Then forty.

Somebody from the pharmacy came outside and asked if we needed anything. Mack bought bottled water for everybody. Walter refused to let him pay for his.

By the time an hour had passed, Walter had told us more about June than he had told us about Vietnam.

June loved crossword puzzles but cheated when she got stuck. She watched old detective shows and always figured out the ending before Walter did. She made terrible biscuits when they first got married and spent the next fifty years denying it.

Then Walter told us about her cookies.

“Peanut butter,” he said. “Hardest objects ever produced in the state of Tennessee.”

Curtis laughed.

“That bad?”

Walter nodded solemnly.