Cowboy boots and a big heart
A Talawanda student reshuffles life’s rough hand
Lily Bayer
Hannah Potts
He’s completely recognizable. You can’t miss him.
He moseys toward me from the opposite end of the street, carrying two plastic water bottles. I wonder if one is for me.
It’s not.
He has long, curly brown hair tied back in a low ponytail. A signature look, I suppose, because the three times I’ve seen him, it hasn’t changed. Stubble pokes out around his upper lip and chin, but I can tell he never lets it grow out.
His black jeans hang over his brown cowboy boots with a big, silver belt buckle holding them up. His black long-sleeve shirt is tucked in and buttoned to the top.
He takes his black leather cowboy hat off to greet me at the entrance of Kofenya.
****
The first time I saw Josh, I was scurrying around Walmart on my senior year move-in day, snatching anything and everything from the shelves to capitalize on my parents’ credit card one last time.
“You know, it couldn’t hurt to buy four rolls of paper towels,” I tell my mom. “I also need a lamp or two. I forgot how much space I actually have.”
A broom, two lamps, four rolls of paper towels, a case of Diet Coke, multi-cleaner spray and a jelly mat for the repulsive shower floor overflow our cart as we make our way to check out.
We hop in the only lane open behind similar customers: a mom buying groceries and beer for her son.
Josh stands behind the counter, gearing up to scan barcodes and bag items. He grabs the beer and sets it behind his station without scanning it. He continues scanning Cheez-Its, ground beef and Liquid I.V.
“Mom, he’s talking and moving like the sloth from Zootopia,” I whisper between my teeth.
“This is truly insane,” my mom replies. “I can’t have this happening after how long of a day we’ve had.”
Between each beep of the scanner, Josh pauses to strike up a new conversation.
“So, what are you buying all this stuff for,” he asks the lady.
“Oh, just moving my son into college,” she replies. “There’s always so much to get.”
He grabs a container of B-12 and fish oil and holds them both up in front of his face.
“You know I’ve never tried either of this stuff,” he says. “What exactly does it do?”
I laugh, because of course he’s asking. He must’ve stayed on the vitamins for 10 minutes alone.
I take a deep breath and exhale all my negative thoughts about waiting in line and listening to this conversation.
He bags the last item, and my heart skips a beat in preparation for a long-awaited checkout. Yet, instead of going to the register, he turns back and stares at the Bud Light case. A co-worker walks over to his aisle after he gestures for help.
Is a third-party necessary right now?
The coworker scans his credentials and checks out the much-anticipated last item.
I start loading my items onto the conveyor belt and wonder what life is like for a guy working this late at Walmart. Does he have kids at home? Is this his only job? How long has he worked here? Does he get in trouble for talking to customers this much?
“How are you guys?” he says. “Sorry for the hold-up, haha.”
“I’m good,” I say. “I’m very ready to go home. I’ve been moving into my house all day. How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” he shrugs. “I’m ready to go home too. It’s been a really long day. Do you go to Miami?”
I tell him yes, I’m a senior, and I’m moving into a new house, hence the random assortment of purchases.
“Wow, a senior,” he says. “That means you’re almost done. I’m jealous.”
Jealous? There’s no way he goes to Miami.
“Do you go to Miami too?” I ask.
“Oh god, no,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m still in high school.”
My eyes widen, darting to my mom. High school? I thought he was at least 30.
“Oh wow, do you go to Talawanda?” I ask.
“Yep, I’m a junior there,” he answers.
Junior. Not even a senior. What is going on with this person?
After small talk about each of my items, he bags the last one and my mom inserts her credit card to pay.
I think we were in his lane for 25 minutes.
As I push the full shopping cart away, I glance down at his name tag.
“Have a great night, Josh,” I say. “Get some rest! And good luck with junior year!”
He thanks me and waves a hesitant goodbye.
“Well, he was interesting,” I say to my mom.
“I’ll say,” she replies.
****
We walk up to the ordering counter, and I ask him what he wants. He reluctantly glances at the menu and brushes off my offer.
“You’re doing something huge for me Josh,” I say. “The least I can do is buy you a coffee.”
“Well, I only drink blonde roast coffee,” he says, “so, do you think they have that?”
Of course he only drinks blonde roast. What even is blonde roast?
I tell him I’m not sure, but I will ask.
“We have a light roast,” the barista answers. “Is that fine?”
I don’t see why that wouldn’t be fine. Why does he have a preference on roasts?
Josh and I stare at each other for what feels like five minutes. I can’t imagine this decision impacting his life greatly one way or the other.
He finally perks up as the barista’s eyes are pleading at me to come up with an answer.
“Light roast should be fine,” he says.
We grab our coffees and turn towards the seating area. I offer three different tables before Josh finds one he’s comfortable with. We sit and make small talk while I open my laptop and set up the mic.
I press play to the audio recording app and ask if he’s ready. He gives me a slight nod of reassurance as I pull up my first ice-breaker question.
“So, tell me about your family,” I ask.
“Oh, here we go,” he says.
****
His mom works as a surgical tech at a hospital near Oxford.
“Forgive me for not knowing which one,” he tells me as he takes a sip of his light roast.
His dad lives in a small town in Texas and works as a mechanic.
They officially divorced when he was eight. She had married two more times. He had never married again.
“It stemmed from my mom throwing my dad’s leather trench coat down in the basement,” he declares. “And then, you know, he [my dad] probably did something. I mean, I’m not taking sides. I’m just telling you what I’ve been told.”
Josh grew up in rural Texas in a low-income family. His house was isolated, miles from other human connections, forcing him to become a closed-off kid. He didn’t have many friends, so he held on tight to his brothers, Brandon and Tristan.
“It was pretty lonesome,” he reflected.
Josh falls in the middle of his nine siblings: Brandon, Taylor, Thomas [deceased], Alexis, Sophia, Carly, Addison, Tristan and Lily [deceased]. In no particular order, because even he can’t keep them straight.
In Texas, Josh lived with Brandon, with whom he shares a dad, as well as Tristan, with whom he shares a mom, and Lily, with whom he shared both a mom and a dad. Lily tragically passed away from SIDS just before his parents’ divorce.
Confused and forgotten by chaos and grief, Josh tried to navigate his new normal. After school, he remembers playing Monopoly, a gift Tristan received from his dad. Josh still loves board games to this day.
“I only got to play it with [Tristan] a couple of times,” Josh says, “before he happened to vanish one day.”
Josh’s mom moved to Cincinnati to live near his current stepdad following Lily’s funeral. She abandoned Josh and Tristan with Josh’s dad in Texas until, one day, she picked up Tristan and took him to Cincinnati.
She left Josh to believe that his brother, one of his only companions, had disappeared out of thin air.
This disappearance meant there was no one left to splurge on mansions with, send to jail or dance in piles of fake money.
“I realized, when he left,” Josh says, “he never brought the game with him.”
Eventually, his mom came back for him too. He moved to Oxford at age 10 and began attending Talawanda schools. He once again felt isolated because he wasn’t familiar with the area and didn’t know how to make new friends.
“Once I got to middle school,” Josh says, “I mean, I can talk for like an hour about middle school, but the long and short of it is that it was a big turning point because I met my best friend, Ramsey.”
Josh sat back quietly in class as Ramsey held court.
“He had this certain charisma to him,” Josh explains. “He could be anybody's friend. I always admired that.”
They initially bonded over their shared family trauma but found something they both needed: an immature friendship. They ran around the mall pulling innocent pranks on people, played Fortnite in their basements through quarantine and complained about classmates they didn’t like.
Unfortunately, Ramsey had to move away in the eighth grade because his dad went to prison, and his mom was sent to the psych ward.
After grieving a separated friendship, Josh’s childhood home burnt down in Texas. He knows he didn’t have the happiest childhood there, but he still mourns the loss of it because it was his.
Because of the fire, Josh reconnected with his father, who he hadn’t spoken to in years. Through phone calls complaining about Oxford, middle school and his stepdad, they discovered a shared love for engineering and science.
“My dad’s a little bit of an unofficial chemist,” he says. “He liked to mess around with fireworks, chemicals, stuff like that. He should have gotten a degree for it, but he didn't.”
In his freshman year of high school, Josh made the trip down to Texas to visit his dad. With Irish music blaring in the background — a staple from his childhood — they built a Tesla coil together.
I don’t know what that is either!
“It’s a voltage pump,” he explains.
I still don’t know what that means.
He hopes to visit again soon.
****
It was a long first ice-breaker question.
After meeting Josh for the first time in the checkout aisle, I intended to learn about his life at Walmart. Walmart is the largest employer in the U.S. and sees its fair share of characters, whether it be its employees or shoppers.
I wanted to know what it’s like for a high school student to work in that environment.
But here’s what I really learned from my conversations with Josh …
Josh is an extraordinary person. He’s wiser than an 80-year-old, looks like a 30-year-old, but is still only a 16-year-old.
He’s been dealt an interesting hand in life.
But, he loves to learn. Amongst his rigorous course schedule, AP World History is his favorite, because he’s fascinated by other cultures.
He’s in the robotics club at Talawanda High School and creates art for the school’s coffee shop. He started the chess club but is currently struggling with member retention.
He doesn’t play sports and didn’t go to homecoming because he doesn’t have a “romantic interest,” and Ramsey wasn’t there to go with him. He’s almost three months into his new job at Walmart after quitting on his “devil manager” at the local McDonald’s.
He buys his own groceries and cooks all his meals because he can’t stand the “crap” his mom and stepdad eat. He’s extremely hydrated. I watched him put down six water bottles in the few hours I spent with him.
He wears cowboy hats and belt buckles to work and according to his supervisor, he’s started bringing around some sort of cane.
You never know what to expect with him.
He has five gold stars on his Walmart name tag. Two have fallen off, he tells me, so he should really have seven. He gets one from his manager every time he does something good. I remember looking around at the other employees’ badges.
Josh had the most stars.
He uses phrases like “forgive me” unwarranted, and is frequently nervous during our interviews because he doesn’t want to disappoint me or my eventual story.
He’s courageously kind and so damn curious.
He’s saving money from Walmart to sign up for a school trip to Ireland – to bask in a new culture and listen to real Irish tunes.
He knows he’ll go to college, regardless of what his family members have done in the past.
In fact, he’s shooting for MIT.
And if I’m betting on anyone to get there, I’m betting on him.
