His Name Was John

HIS NAME WAS JOHN


John was the kind of guy where if you weren’t paying attention to him when he drank, you wouldn’t see him until the next morning, either passed out on the side of the road or at the holding cells at the county police station. He was a damn good guy sober, would give you the shirt off his back and the last dollar in his pocket, but the alcohol made him into a vagabond. He would become angry over the slightest indiscretions and emotional from events that took place years ago. The deaths of his grandparents usually did it, and if it wasn’t that, it was his whole money situation. He had lost every dime at the tables and in friends’ basements. He was a sure think alright, a sure loser when it came to money. If I invited him to the house for drinks, I never expected him to come with anything other than the clothes on his back and the cowboy boots his dad gave him.

This particular night was one of those nights I invited John over along with some of the old boys from high school. It had been about 8 years since then and everybody had gone on their own ways, except John. The night went without incident for the most part, we were all laughing at some of the things we would normally laugh at, anecdotes from school that took us back to a time when life was still out in front of us. Even John had a future back then, he was going to be an engineer, even had a school picked out and all. He just never made it to the bus. And, thus followed a long and sad life of disappointments and false hopes.

I’m not a rich man, not the architect I thought I would be, but cleaning machinery parts at the manufacturing plant pays the bills and gives me time to do the things I always loved. John couldn’t say the same thing. And it was getting to him the more the night went on that he was far from the dreams he had at the end of high school. Everybody else had to some point stayed with their plans and done good for themselves, not John.

I noticed him taking longer breaks in between conversations, disappearing outside alone for smokes until one minute I realized he hadn’t come back. I excused myself from the conversation and made my way outside to find him. A long look in all directions showed no sign of John and I started calling his name to the night with no response.

I enlisted some help from the guys and a plan developed. I lived in the country and the nearest town was some miles away, so he had to have made it at least to the main road. I sent one group to the main road and another to the next town in the rare instance he somehow made it that far. The others were to check the brush around the property. Maybe he had wandered off to piss but passed out. Me on the other hand had the road to nowhere. A long, dirt road into the night where I had never seen any cars go down. It was the opposite direction you would want to go if you wanted to go anywhere. I might have gone down it in curiosity once or twice, but always turned around after so many miles of nothingness. But I had never seen it at night.

I started the truck up and went on my way down nowhere lane. The headlights of the truck were only enough to dimly light the road, but the dust kicked up far and made visibility even worse. I drove maybe ten minutes and the dust was as thick as the heaviest fog. It was at this instance a figure in the street jumped across. I was so startled I ran my truck into the thick brush on the side of the road slamming hard into the lower bank of the road before finding a nice tree to settle on. I hadn’t been driving very fast, but I was sure it was John that had caught my attention. I tried starting the truck but it wouldn’t turn. I got down from my seat and it was dark again. I slammed the door hard in anger and frustration over the wreck.  The crash had broken the headlights of the truck and there was a burning smell of rubber and whatever else had leaked onto the hot engine. The air was thick with smoke now, more so than the dust, which was now settling. I called out to John but nothing again.

After collecting myself for a few minutes, I started walking back to my house. The road was as endless as it was going the other way, but I knew at some point I would be home. I was maybe about halfway back to the house when I heard a voice. It was not John’s voice. It came from everywhere around me. It said my name.

The voice called out to me three times before I mustered the nerve to look for it. It was a dark voice, and it seemed to come from behind the tree line. It called out a few more times, each time telling more and more where it originated from. It drew me to my right. I climbed down the bank of the road and navigated through the brush and trees and grass. I moved toward the voice and it became louder and louder before I felt it was behind me. I fell to the floor it was so close, but I turned around and there was nothing. As I moved in the direction toward it, the closer behind me it seemed until I was running away from it. I ran until there was no more brush, no more trees, no more grass. There was a light pole in the empty field.

It dimly lit the figure of the man underneath it. It was not John. The voice now seemed to come from this figure. I walked closer to the man, who only moved to smoke the cigarette in his hand. He stood leaning with his back to the pole and looking down. He had on an old style Stetson hat that covered his face in complete darkness. He spoke frankly  and with a politeness that told me he was an intelligent gentleman. I said nothing, I answered him with silence. I was scared and my heart pounded my chest hard, I thought my legs were going to give out. I thought it was from the crash, but I felt dizzy and blurred in front of the man.

I was able to mutter the word “John,” when the figure lifted its head. Underneath the shadow of his hat, the head of a horse emerged. His body was of man, but his head-

I immediately ran in the opposite direction and his voice again surrounded me, it laughed and it several times knocked me to the ground. Each time I raised up I ran harder and faster through the brush and trees and grass.

Before I knew it I was back home, but I was alone. I sat in my house throwing up and sick to my stomach with what had happened to me. Some of the men came back with no luck of finding John. Hours passed and some of the boys left home as the next day slowly came. I said nothing from the time I got back to the time the last guy left. Who would believe me? Nobody cared that my truck was crashed in a tree or that I hadn’t spoken word. They only cared about their drinks and their smokes.
I waited until almost noon before I left the house the next day. This time I brought with me a 12 gauge shotgun fully loaded with lead buckshot. I followed down the long road for miles before I came across the truck. There it was in the same condition I had left it. Still on the tree and still crashed, I hadn’t imagined that part.
         
I jumped into the truck and after playing with the starter a bit, got it to turn. I turned the truck around slowly to head back home and questioned everything that had happened. What had I seen and did any of it actually happen? After a few minutes driving back home I noticed something in the middle of the road.

I didn’t see them earlier when I walked, but as clear as day there they were. I stopped the truck only yards away from them and stared for a while. I grabbed my shotgun as I exited the broken truck and walked slowly looking in all directions. My finger stayed on the trigger of my gun as I crept forward. I picked up the boots in one hand and knew they were John’s. I ran back to the truck and drove off faster than I have ever driven.

I drove passed my house. I drove on the main road. I drove passed the next town. I drove passed the next town after that one. I didn’t stop driving until I was out of Texas. I parked the broken truck at a motel in Louisiana and never saw John again. I haven’t been home in quite some time.