Who Killed Johnny?

          In the waiting area, I noticed her eyes first. They looked vacant as if the soul had been drained out of them. With her black dress and thin figure in it, she was a lone tree branch covered with black fungus.

         I mustn't stare I thought, trying to shift my gaze to the other passengers arriving through the gates and those who were waiting their turn to take their seats inside the plane.

         I had a window seat right over one of the conveyor belts. Closing my paperback, I watched the men toss the bags onto it. After the luggage, a very long box had to be loaded. I watched the two men make some arm signals. Two other men came running to help.

         "I can't believe we'll be sitting on top of a casket," the woman in front of me turned around to comment.

         At that moment, I saw her standing near the empty aisle seat next to me. Grasping onto her too small purse, she whispered indignantly. "That's my son!"

          I turned to her in shock. "I'm so sorry..."

         "I'm taking him to Elmira," she said, settling lightly on the seat. "Finally."

         I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to handle that 'finally' with 'forever' etched in it. Maybe when people talked out of grief, they stated their nameless feelings, and what came out of their lips frightened us.

         "Do you live in Elmira?" I asked, unable to find a path to proper words.

         She nodded. "All my life. I came to Pittsburgh because Johnny's roommate called."

         "Must be very difficult for you."

         "It was more difficult before. I didn't know where he was."

         "Oh..."


         "Are you going to Elmira to live there?" Her sudden question struck me just as much as the eerie conversation.

         "Only for a month. I'll be working at the college."

         "I see. I know they can't afford permanent teachers. They have to do with temps." Her thin face wrinkled as if uttering a curse.

         "That's not it. It works differently..." I stopped, giving up the explanation of my work situation. I realized she wasn't listening to me. Possibly, she didn't even care.

         "My Johnny taught social anthropology there. Then he left."

         "Wasn't he treated well?"

         "I blame them, and I blame Johnny."

         "Both?"

         "He let them get to him."

         Something wasn't right in her reasoning. I didn't question her further. She leaned against the headrest and stayed frozen until the plane took off. I returned to my reading.

         "Although it is a month, be careful." She jolted me out of a Harold Robbins world. "When Johnny was a child, I had worried about accidents and such." She gazed straight ahead as if talking to an invisible wall. "When he was in his teens, it became his friends. His friends did it to him."

         "They did?"

         "Yes, they killed him. They poisoned his mind. They poisoned his body."

"          Was it...drugs?"

         "Yes."

         "I'm so sorry. It must be so hard for you."

         "When he was fifteen, he was arrested while trying to buy something illegal for a friend, but they let him off because of his age."

         "It wasn't for a friend. Was it?"

         "Yes, it was. I believe him there. Why would a top student who took classical guitar lessons and cared for three dogs use such stuff?"

         "Oh!"

         "The school didn't believe him, but I did, and so did his father. We didn't take him to counseling even though they tried to make us. I still think it was the right choice because he graduated with honors and went on to college. Only crazy people go for counseling. Johnny wasn't crazy, then."

         "You think it happened in college?"

         "Must have. He was boarding. He still seemed perfectly healthy to me. It happens when they take the kids away from parents like that. Johnny could have gone to the local college and stayed home. But no. He said he had to go away."

         "Yet, he wasn't a kid then, was he?"

         "He will be a kid to me, always."

         "Sorry. Of course, you're right." At another time, I would have argued the point. Arguing with her now would be absurd and shallow under the circumstances.

         "Still, he graduated with honors. When he was all done with schooling, I told him to come live with me. By that time, his father had died. He took a look at me and just said, 'Okay, Ma!' He is a good boy, I tell you."

         "You loved him..."

         "He's my son. He took a job in that hole and got a girl. Didn't care much for her, but looking back, she was better compared to the others in there."

         "You mean the faculty?"

         "All of them. He would have been a great writer, had they left him alone. He was already published when in college."

         "Such a pity..."

         "The pity's on them for killing Johnny."

         She was quiet the rest of the way. When we were leaving the plane, she just turned around and said, "You just take care, will you!"


         Next day after I went through the orientation of my new job as a visiting lecturer, I went to the cafeteria with Paul, who was showing me around and had sort of appointed himself as my guardian.

         "Tomorrow it will be quiet around here," he said. "There's a funeral that all of the faculty will go to."

         "I'm sorry, who died?"

         "John Stanton. He had worked in Social Anthropology. We all liked him."

         "Did he die in Pittsburgh?"

         "How would you know that?"

         "His mother sat next to me on the plane. She was bringing him here."

         "It is a terrible thing. Poor devil! And the devil she is."

         "Why?"

         "Johnny died of an overdose. She drove him to it. She killed her own son." Paul's voice was impassioned.

         "You knew him well, didn't you?"

         "We grew up together, somewhat. Mrs. Stanton always kept after him, but she never understood or accepted what was happening to Johnny."

         "When did he start getting into drugs? Do you know?"

         "He was in grade school. Someone gave him something during a soccer practice. He liked it. He said that kind of stuff erased his mother's nagging off his mind."

         "Wasn't he ever caught?"

         "Yes, but she never believed it. She refused help for him. She also went after his friends, the better, cleaner ones. Everyone was guilty but her."

         "Here, I'll introduce you to his old girlfriend." He got up and waved at a tall brunette. "Sheila!"


         "I met Johnny when I came to work here," Sheila said later. "Everyone blames his mother in this town. Believe me, I should too, after the way she treated me. The truth is, it wasn't Mrs. Stanton. Mrs. Stanton was just a rotten mother. She thought she owned Johnny and tried to keep him under lock and key, so to speak. There are parents like that. Does that mean the kids have to go kill themselves? This town is just as responsible if you ask me. During the eighties drugs were all over the place, and nobody did anything."

         Upstairs, Paul gave me the faculty yearbook from a year ago. I glanced at John Stanton's photo among its pages. He looked handsome with brown hair and light-colored, woeful eyes. He had to have grinned at the photographer since the shape of his mouth was distorted. A few pages down, a student had jokingly written some words that each faculty member used the most. What John Stanton usually said was, "There's always chaos in the world. So run!"

         Another page... Excerpts of creative writing from the faculty.

         "My heart strings are too tight, but it pulses on.
         Soon with that harsh tremor of silence, I'll die anon. " by John Stanton


         Next day Johnny Stanton was buried in the family plot in Elmira. I didn't attend the funeral. In a way, I didn't want to face Mrs. Stanton, but mostly because I imagined the hair-raising looks everyone would be giving to one another.

         Who had really killed Johnny? I knew I could guess at the answer correctly. I knew it wasn't the girlfriend. It wasn't the school. It wasn't the town. It wasn't even Mrs. Stanton. It was depression, the disease.

         John Stanton's depression was probably always there and nobody saw it. The fierce display of blame and guilt had made a martyr of this man in this small town. I tried to imagine Johnny's sorrow, but I couldn't because this just wouldn't be possible. The deeper the disease, the more private is one's sorrow. It was a depressed John Stanton himself who had killed Johnny.

         The thing was, nobody had done anything about it because nobody noticed.