Johnnie

My older brother Johnnie could have been a famous animator if he’d really wanted to.  When we were in high school Johnnie would draw on the corners of his history homework instead of learning about the War of 1812 or turn a biology diagram into an entire story.  I know this because his former teachers would often times produce a sample of Johnnie’s work when I was old enough to be in their class and say to me “Miss Ramest, this is how your brother thought a biology report should look,” or “Alanna, your brother had a very interesting idea of what the Battle of the Alamo looked like.”  I would look at the paper to find the members of KISS singing at the Alamo.  I would laugh to myself because that was Johnnie and Johnnie was not meaning to be funny when he drew it.

I begged Johnnie to take me to a varsity football game with him when I was a freshmen and he was senior.  After much complaining, he told me to get in the back of the car and shut up and not to speak to Adam or Chris when he picked them up.  We were to get to the game and I was to find my friends and hightail it out of his way as fast as possible.  Here was ten bucks, go buy some fries or something.  Don’t eat them in my car.  I’ll kill you if you get grease all over.  No.  Really.

The Tigers were getting skinned when we got there and it was only a half an hour into the game.  I met up with Jamie and Kelly and Lauren and I went off to giggle at the varsity boys running about in tight pants merely yards in front of us.  Johnnie went to sit up on the top rows where he could look cool and no one would see him secretly cheering when we came close to scoring a touchdown.  We were the worst team around but varsity football players were people of the Royal Court and the quarterback was Midas.  Except when he was on the field.  But we were Tigers nonetheless.  Roar!

I called my mother from a pay phone with a quarter I’d begged off of Johnnie after I’d spent the ten bucks.  Not so much begging, he’d practically thrown the money at me from thirty feet away when he’d seen me coming.  My mother said that I could go to Jamie’s house and ride there with her parents.  Johnnie would be there to pick me up at eight.  Okay, objective complete.

Johnnie never came at eight.  My mother called me at six thirty to tell me that when Johnnie was driving home Adam had spilled soda in his car and Johnnie turned to see what had happened, ran a red light, and slammed into a garbage truck coming the other way.  He didn’t feel any pain, she said.  I cried for days.

I know that Johnnie loved me and that he couldn’t be seen with a freshman bit was just an act that he’d kept up for the sake of appearances.  He was a straight A student.  A metal god.  He will forever be seventeen in my memory.  Johnnie was the best person I knew.

Johnnie was always such a beautfiul artist.