Puddle Of Stars

I sometimes wonder if things would have been different between me and him if it had never happened: because now there is this silence between us, an awkward alienation inside us, as though we don't know each other anymore. Looking back, I am amazed at what I did for him. I no longer love him, I cannot understand the connection we had. It has since faded to only a distant memory.
         Once we were two souls knit together- now we are mysteries onto each other. Maybe, just maybe, there is a strand of the bond we had left in me. Though that may be, I have not the will or the energy to face the past through him: so maybe its better that I say it like this, and lay the cowards cards on the table.
         This is where it all began.

*^*

         A few blocks from my house there was this dusty stop sign, dented and vandalized with graffiti, where almost every morning I stood and waited for that clunky yellow bus to come rollin' down the street. Rather or not, the driver, Marty, was only sober enough to remember how to dive, turn, and shift, and drunk enough to forget the lay of the law. That morning I leaned against  the old geyser of a stop sign, watching the pot heads across the street laugh and throw beer cans at the ducks. Being 15, female, and straight edged, I wasn't amused.
         It was the 20th of November, and as luck had it, the day was seemingly going fine; the reefer hippies hadn't gone on a nude parade, the weather was breezy, and Marty showed up on time laughing or singing or screaming (I honestly couldn't tell which.) I stepped on the bus and gave him a disquieting glance.
         He just roared in laughter and then stepped on the gas pedal. I rocked on my feet as the bus rushed ahead. Then I steadied myself and sat down. The bus was filled with the raucous of twenty plus school children hyped on a new day. There were more kids standing then sitting, and half of them were screaming something unintelligible. I pressed my forehead to the glass trying to ignore the smell of cheap fake leather coming from the upholstery.
         A couple minutes of Marty's bone rattling dart-swerve-spin pattern and the bus pulled up into the school- the driving experience suddenly becoming much more pleasant as Marty acted the part of a wholesome (sober) bus driver. The lumbering yellow beast halted to the side of the old creaking brick building that constituted Howard Jr/Sr. High school.
         And it was there that my orderly pleasant day came to a jarring halt. Ms. Marlin, the thin blond woman who counseled the many troubled students in the school, stepped onto the bus. Her face was poised, but not enough that I couldn't see the grief surrounding her. I knew right then that she carried only bad news.
         “Ahem,” she began.  “I'm sorry to announce that student William Malvoni was found last night, dead, and mutilated. This killing is currently being investigated, but no suspects have been discovered.” Ms Marlin's voice lowered and I caught the muttered words “... malicious bastard...” among others. She continued. “All suspicious behavior is to be reported!” Her voice was tight. “Thank you.” She left the bus.
         We piled out after her, though there was silence among us. This was a small school- a small town- and everyone had known Malvoni, whether for the better or for the worse.
         Yeah, back then we knew everyone.

*~*

         Johnny McTyler was the boy down the street who never wore his baseball hat backwards and always told the truth, like a rambunctious four year old. He was a handsome boy with brown hair, sharp blue eyes,  and an unbreakable trust in himself. Johnny hid nothing; he was all there, every bit of him. As I saw him then, he had no darker side to his happiness. With Johnnie it was always what you see is what you get. He hid nothing, thought constantly, and said anything he thought.
         He's the clearest, cleanest memory in my mind, as though it was just yesterday that I stood outside his window. I can still hear him laughing at my sadist theories of the world. We contrasted each other, we were opposites and we were the same.
         That day, after school, I found myself in Johnny's back yard, throwing a rock at his window. After a second he pulled up the blinds. He saw it was me, and with a smile he lifted up the window pane, threw the screen to the side and extended a hand. I took it and boosted myself into the house. His room was small and plain, and I knew it as well as my own. We sat down on the bed.
         “Grace,” he said.
         “Johnny,” I replied.
         We laughed, and then were silent for a second. Our minds were on William Malvoni, and both of us knew it.
         “How are you?” I asked., trying to fill the silence.
         “Me?” Johnnie paused as though thinking. “I'm the same as yesterday.”
         “Why won't you answer that question? You always say that.”
         “Essentially, people don't change.”
         I laughed. “That sounds different from your usual theories. What happened to 'the world is made of magic dust'?”

         Johnnie sighed. “Children,” he muttered, and I couldn't help but laugh again.
         The silence caught up with us.  “Do you think it will happen again?” I asked.
         “I don't know.”
         “It's terrible.”
         “We can only hope for the best.”
         “And know that the worst will most likely happen?”
         “Shh, Grace. Don't you hear that?” he said.
         “What?” I asked, suddenly paranoid.
         “That.” Johnny paused. I heard only the distant sound of the wind rustling leaves.
         “I hear magic dust.”
         “Shut up Johnny, you scare me!” I said.
         “I can't believe you don't hear it,” he said, feigning disappointment.
         “I have to go now, Johnny. See you tomorrow?”
         “Yeah.” He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.


~*~


         Dawn welcomed me with measured silence, and flashbacks to the news last night, the news, and worse, the pictures, like a death sentence hanging over Howard High school.
         I remembered the thick, serious tone of the news reporter “.. will this monster who calls himself 'silent breath' strike again?” I pulled on my clothes with the solemn memory of William in my mind. I grabbed my book bag and headed out the door. It was 6:30 am and the skies were that classic gray/black of a November morning in Maine. The grass was dewy and my hair was still wet, the chill air sending a shudder up my back. That day I walked to school, not being able to even think about taking the bus and going along with the monotone as though the darkness of “silent breath” had never entered my life. The thought of such a person who could do anything like that... It baffled and terrified me.
         Howard high school was two miles from where I lived, but I had an athletic body and the walk didn't phase me.
         The school, as I've mentioned before, was an old brick building, its 2 story foundation unstable, its air conditioning eternally unworking (as was the heater), the entrance, sloppy and forever recognizable. I was in ninth grade then, and that year was situated in the corner of the second floor. There were four ninth grade teachers, all of which were old school, and on top of that, old. In the morning the schools population of four hundred waited in the cafe until the bell rang.
         I got there early that morning and seated myself in a corner of the room. The one other person in the room was Ralph, the janitor. He made his way over to me with sloppy strides.
         “Hey there, Grace,” he said. Ralph had this silky blond hair and handsome German face, set with light blue eyes, and a quirky, questioning mouth.
         “Hi,” I muttered, uneasy. I'd never liked Ralph, even though his silky voice and graceful conversationalist charmed both students and teachers, making them wander why he was a janitor in the first place.
         As shallow as this may sound, it was Ralph's dull eyes that made me a closed book to him. He smiled , but what crusade his lips took, it did not touch his eyes. A true smile rocks the whole face, creating ripples of emotion.
         “You're here early,” he said. “You should be asleep in bed at this hour.”
         “Mhh,” I mumbled.
         Ralph laughed. “Not a morning person, eh?”
         “I suppose not.”
         “Well I've got to get back to work.” He turned and pushed his rickety cart of chemicals off. My eyes followed him. Something fluttered in my stomach and it wasn't butterflies.

~*~


         A few days later an assembly was called. Johnny laughed when he heard the announcement.
         “Oh boy, another anti-drug comity meeting.”
         Andrew, one of my only other friends said “Man, this blows.”
         I just looked at Johnny. “Well it's not algebra.” He laughed.
         In the gym, where assemblies gathered, Ms. Marlin stood on a small stage. She kept tucking her wispy blond hair behind her ear, a subtle display of her anxiety.
         No, it wasn't just another anti-drug comity meeting. She had no air of confidence, no chatty glow or radiant swing in her step. Anything anti-drug was Ms. Marlin's passion; she clung to the speeches she spit out like shields.  But this- there was something chewing at her, and it wasn't graphite or the local druggie gangs armed with air soft guns and spray paint cans.
         “Good morning students and teachers,” she began. Her voice was tense. The gym quited. The rest of her words boiled down to the fact that Micheal Donovan, track star and straight-A student- a blond haired blue eyed idea of perfection- had disappeared, and was believed to have been taken by the murderer of William. Ms. Marlin looked on the edge of collapse. As i later learned, a lot of pressure was on her, as though it was she kidnapping and killing children. Her speech ended. She nodded off a frivolity about reporting suspicious behavior and stumbled off the stage.
         Me and Johnny exchanged glances.
         Our minds were heavy with disgust.



~*~


         “It's just hard to think that this.. monster... lives in the same world as we do,” I said to Johnny later that same day.
         “Whoever he is, he's got one fucked up mind.”
         I nodded. “I gotta go, Johnny.”
         “Okay.” He took my hand, and as though he knew his fate, he said,“Grace, promise me, that whatever happens, you won't worry. Not about me and not about yourself. Not about death, disease, or tragedy. Just promise me that you'll remember that in the end, there will always be a part of you that none of that can touch. Not the world, and not the universe. Promise me you'll remember. ”
         I tightened my grip on his hand. “I promise.”
         Those were the last words I spoke to him for what seemed like an eternity.

~*~


         Back then I loved two things: Johnny and drawing. Johnny: a fervent love, that passed with time and obstacles. Drawing: an untouchable one, something that no one could stop, hurt or understand. I bring this up, only because that weekend I spent drawing the most beautiful thing I'd ever attempted. That weekend I did not sleep at all: I had to finish that drawing. So by Monday morning the drawing was finished, and in my mind I felt like I could take the world in a sumo match- but physically I was hardly strong enough to tuck my arms into a shirt and walk to the bus stop. I bet a million bucks those hippies thought I was twice as doped as them. They felt it a victory and waved at me in a winking manor. I was too tired to yell something contemptuous.
         Johnny was not at school. My heart sunk an inch and I let fatigue overtake me, disappointed that I had no one to share my conquest of paper with. Andrew would have been too dense to understand, the teacher too busy. Besides, I didn't want their approval nor their comments. I just wanted Johnny to see it.
         Figuring that he had stayed home sick, after school I payed his house a visit. I stood outside his window and tapped on it with my fist. There was a minute's pause. I knocked harder.
         When I finally got a reaction, it was not johnny who pulled up the window, but his father, Mike. And he was furious. His sunburned face was scrunched into a snarl.
         “Where the FUCK is johnny, if he ain't with you???” He screamed.
         Mike had a quick temper, no patience, and a great love of mockery.  I hated him from the minute I met him, mostly because of the casual remark, “What? Couldn't find a prettier slut?” that he'd made to Johnny. It was not the insult to me that I'd hated, but the insult to him.
         “What do you mean?”
         Mike stopped swearing for a second to say, “Johnny told me on Friday that he was going to be spending the weekend with you.”
         “He never came over.”
         “Why the disobedient bastard is prolly running away! Bastard!”
         “That's not Johnny.” I said. “He would never run away with out telling me.”
         “Your just his little slut, bitch.” Mike continued swearing.
         There I was, the center of wrath for the man I hated- and it would have been easy for me to forget the boy I loved.
         But I didn't.
         My mind was a whirl of distress, and I didn't hear mike swearing at me and cursing both my name and Johnny's.
         The realization that Johnny was gone hit me and I turned and walked away from Mike, in a daze.

~*~

         Mine was an easy assumption to make. A serial killer; a missing boyfriend; a high school community in confusion. What else was I to think? What could it have brought, but tears and fears? For his life, and for mine; how could I handle those people without Johnny there, telling me that its okay to believe in myself. That's what he always said. “Its okay to be yourself and believe in yourself. You are, after all, yourself, and you are no one else.”
         I was not an emotional girl then, nor one who cried often, but that was one occasion when my eyes allowed a break of salt strewn water to roll across my cheeks. I lay, curled up in bed, a pessimist of the past, and optimist of th future. I told myself that he'd been kidnapped, and that I'd find him and kill “Silent Breath.”
         Outside, darkness shrouded another day.

~*~

         It wasn't motive that led me to suspect him- but opportunity and dislike. I think if I'd ever voiced my suspicion to the cops they'd have laughed in my face: “Ralphy? The janitor? A killer? Fuck off kid.”
         Ralph knew everyone in the school. He had access to the records- he could have found out where all of us lived- with ease. He could get most kids to say anything- he was everyones best friend- the ultimate “pal”.
         I think a part of me knew how insane it was. Even if Ralph had Johnny he was a serial killer, and dangerous. And if he didn't have Johnny, well then, I was just chasing a loose feather, wasn't I?
         But I wouldn't give it up. If there's one thing I can be sure of, its of the fact that I put everything I had into finding Johnny, even if part of me doubted. I told myself that Ralph was the key to all this. His dull, distant eyes kept reappearing in my mind, boring into me. And then I”d hear johnny, in my  ear, so close, saying, “whatever happens, promise me you won't worry.”
         Worry? About what? Your death? Nahh, There's always another Johnny in the world.
         And thus I began my stalking career, though it was no joke, nor was it a video game to be lost with a roar of irritation, a new game to begin two seconds later- you back to life and evil on the run.
         Within those next five days I don't think I ever realized how close to death I was.

*~*

         I knew I was serious about the whole thing when I bought a gun from one of the gangs that roamed the streets of my town. Andrew wouldn't believe me when I first told him that I needed a gun, a real gun, for shooting stuff, and killing people. He gave me this weird look and then laughed, “It's not like you to joke, Grace.” He stopped laughing when I looked him in the eye and said, “I'm dead serious, you idiot.”
         “Oh.” He got this distant look in his eyes.
         “So?”
         “You gotta pay.”
         “I know.”
         “No, mean pay a LOT. When a girl like you comes to a guy like me asking for a gun it could mean one of two things: a. suicide, or b. murder. People like you don't buy guns to look pretty or threaten people with. And to be honest with you getting involved with giving someone a gun used in murder or suicide just isn't worth it unless there's a lot of cash involved.”
         “So you're talking... Hom much?”
         “Two hundred if its suicide, and one hundred if its assault with intent to kill, one fifty if its straight up murder.”
         “Why so much for suicide?” I asked, trying so hard not to laugh that my gut hurt.
         Andrew took a defensive tone of voice. “I have a conscience you know.”
         “Well, don't worry, its assault with intent to kill,” I said, smiling.
         He looked relieved. “You don't know how glad I am you didn't pick suicide as your final rebellion. I really would miss you.”
         So what if Andrew's logic was severely flawed to the point of not being logic at all? I got my gun, that's all that matter.

~*~

         Somehow I found a way to defy every safety rule I ever learned- and some that were so obvious they did not even bother to voice them, they were just instinct.
         I began following Ralph and it turned out that I was actually pretty good at it. He saw me only once, but we'll get to that later.
         At first his behavior was so ordinary it was bland. Trip to market basket, Wall-Mart, Rite Aid, a news vendor to get the Boston Times. From what I viewed he was an angel. He never even bought  a single skin mag, never went to a strip bar, didn't have a girlfriend, or any friends for that matter.  No parties, no drinking, no vices. He was even a vegan.
         His perfection didn't make me give in though. It only egged me on- because I knew that no one could be that bland and perfect.
         His house.
         Yes. I'd never dared enter it, I only watched it. I decided it was that I do a “B and E”, as Dane Cook so wittingly put it. Breaking and Entering.
         You might be asking what my parents thought of me being out constantly stalking a janitor; why, actually, they didn't care, or didn't know. I told them I was out with some of my girl friends, and they thought it an improvement that I wasn't hanging out with that Johnny McTyler. That he was gone and possibly apprehended by a serial killer didn't seem to hit home with them.
         Ralph's home was a neat, white little trailer in Pines Hollow. It was a quiet neighborhood compared to mine and Johnny's, though most of its inhabitants would be classified as white trash.
         On Tuesdays Ralph went to the Wall-Mart in Salisbury. He didn't come back until a few hours later. Maybe it wasn't the greatest time to sneak in, but I was 15, female and straight-edged-  how was I supposed to know how to break into someones house?
         I needed to get into his house without him finding the evidence of my deeds- or by making it look like I was only a thief by steeling something.
         And so I actually mad a complicated plan to get in and make it look like I was a common thief... But when I got there, I discovered the back door was not locked. If I'd been myself I would have immediately thought that no serial killer would leave his door open- idiot or not, and most serial killers aren't. But since I had no thought except for that of Johnny, well that door being unlocked struck me only as a convenience  not an oddity.
         His house was neater then mine- spotless almost. I opened his fridge. Not a speck of meat or dairy. I laughed to myself , as though it would be such a crackup when I found my dear boyfriend banging on the closet door in the bedroom.
         The rest of the house followed a pattern very unlike any bachelors- tidy and clean. The furniture was very plain.
         There was one thing that seemed out of place- a fine, beautiful Persian rug. It was too... exaggerating for the house. Being a snoop, and a “detective”, I pulled the rug up.
         And there it was.

~*~

         Maybe I wasn't the greatest detective- but I WAS the luckiest.
         It just so happens that I had picked the right rug to lift up. There was a trap door in the wooden floor. I stared at a second, grinned like a monkey, took the discovery for granted and then clasped the metal handle with sweating palm. I took a step backwards and jerked the trap door upwards. Puffs of saw dust drifted up from below.
         What I was staring down at was a huge black hole, with a ladder dangling down into the depths. I took a flash light out of my back pocket, and shined it into the hole. The light was too dull to make a difference.
         I stood thinking for a second, swept my black hair into a pony tail, shrugged, “what's it to me?” and began to step down into the hole. I gripped with my life onto that rope ladder, my mouth clenched down on the flash light which I hadn't thought to stick back in my pocket. As I went down, my head screamed with eternal laughter; somewhere along the way I had gotten this image of me and Nancy Drew, dueling it out for the title of Teen Sleuth.
         A minute passed and The rope swayed with my weight. I swung my fee to the ground and let go of the ladder. I was surrounded by almost total darkness as I gripped the dirt ground with my feet, trying to regain my balance.
         I looked around. My eyes,  unadjusted to the darkness, could see nothing.
         “Johnny?” I whispered.
         Louder: “Johnny?”
         As I twirled in a circle, squinting, something made a huge crash, and what little light that had come from above- vanished. I flashed my light in front of me like a weapon. The trap door had feel closed.
         Idiot, I muttered to my self.
         I climbed back up the ladder and pushed up on the trap door with one hand while the other clung to the rope. My efforts were futile. To this day I have only the faintest idea of how the lock clicked into place. Or why. Had fate destined me to be stuck in that janitors cellar? I've never been one to believe in fate, so I'll just say that when I fell to the floor from the ladder, 20 feet above the trap door locking mechanism feel into place- and when the door fell- there I was trapped in a very dark, damp place. Possibly the lair of a serial killer.
         But fate and destiny sounds so much simpler, doesn't it?

~*~


         When I figured out that I was trapped in, there were no immediate worries on my mind. I mean, sure I wondered how I'd get out, but the thought “I'm going to die” never crossed my mind.
         I climbed down the ladder, and started flashing my light around. Then I saw something in the corner of the room. I crept up to it.
         I suppose it must sound terribly stupid when I say that I found him lying there, his feet and arms tied with rope, his mouth duck taped over.
         But whether it sounds stupid or not, it was Johnny.

~*~

         It's so easy to laugh when somethings in the past- but this time I”m not laughing . Those were five days filled with many lucky coincidences, but it never occurred to me that there was someone looking over my shoulder- now it does. I don't believe in angels, devils, or God. But when I think back to how I found him in a janitors cellar, with a gun in my pocket and a flashlight clenched in my mouth, I say, “Maybe. Just maybe.”
         When I discovered that I was stuck there, I climbed back down the rope ladder, I decided to search the perimeter. I had not looked around very closely.
         What I found in the back of the root cellar neither amazed nor surprised me. At that time I took it for granted that I would find him-
         and yes, there he was- Johnny Mctyler.
         He had duck tape on his mouth, a rag tied over his eyes, his arms and legs tied up with rope. I shook him gently, and when he didn't respond, I checked his pulse.
         It was steady and slow.
         I peeled the duck tape off his mouth, and I started working on this ropes. Johnny's arms began twitching after a few seconds of my hands' prodding on the ropes. Though he moved, he did not wake.
         “Johnny, Johnny,” I muttered. “Wake up.”
         “Please.”
         He was too far deep in his sleep to hear what I said, though my voice probably made an entrance into his far off dreams.
         It never occurred to me that it would be a problem to get out of that cellar, until I actually thought about it. I suppose I could have shot my way out of there- but the back fire of the gun would have knocked me to the floor and I wouldn't have a bullet to protect me and Johnny from Ralph.
         So what was I to do? Sit back and wait for Ralph the alleged- and now proven- serial killer? Well, what else? I kneeled next to Johnny and shook him every ten seconds trying to awaken him. I pulled his eyelids open and shined the flashlight straight into his pupils . His head snapped away. He blinked.
         Almost thirty minutes of prodding passed before Johnny became a coherent being.
         “Grace?” he whispered when he sat up and saw me.
         “Yes.”
         What are you here?  You have to leave. You can't let him see you.”
         “Shhh, shh, Johnny I'm going to get you out of here.”
         “You can't save me.”

         I paused. IN the dimness of the flashlight I saw a look on his face that was unlike anything I'd ever seen on his face.
         Not doom, but something akin to it.
         This haunted glance, boring into me worse then a memory.
         “Johnny, what's wrong? I came to save you.”
         “You shouldn't be here.”
         “I couldn't live with it.”
         “With what?”
         “You dying.”
         “Get used to it.”
         “I can kill him.” I said, and now I was desperate for some shred of the Johnny I had known. I brought out the gun.
         He stared at it for a second, unsurprised.
         “You can't kill him. There will always be more.
         “More??”
         “Of him.” Johnny paused. “Or ones like him.”
         I shook my head. “No, no, you're wrong. We can fight it.”
         Johnny laughed and the sound was bittersweet, only an echo of the laugh I knew as his.
         How naive you are!” the sharp chortling of his laughter continued.  “I don't know why you're here Grace. Don't you see that now it will be harder for us for you especially. In my death you had a chance- to only remember Johnny with the mocking smile and unstoppable confidence. But now? “ His laughter droned on, as though unphased by his grave speech.
         “You're not yourself! Stop this!”
         “Oh but I am myself! Who did you think I was? A saint?”
         All I could hear was his laugh- ringing in my ears, hard cynical, speaking about evil, but not against it.
         I turned away from him.
         His face was stick in my mind- mouth contorted with laughter into a hideous shape- eyes sparkling- his hands clasped to his guy. There was doom in his manner, doom and that cynical resignation that always seems to accompany it.
         My hands were moist against the metallic of the gun. I switched off the safety without realizing it. I fingered the trigger.
         Johnny abruptly stopped laughing. His voice was almost a whisper. “After awhile the darkness with get to you. Eyes opened or closed, you never know whether you're awake or not. And everything is just a shadow in your mind. Things keep coming to you, flashes  of images in your mind, and you ask yourself 'is it real?' because, who knows? Things begin to cross into the surreal. The worse part is the things you begin to think about with a desperate calmness. No no just death. But hell. And what its like. Pretty soon you can't feel the ropes or duck tape- you're just immobilized, with the darkness, and the images in your head, and your thoughts. The shadows of you're past life, they're never far away. But they never do much good. Being here, in this dark place, it brings something to the surface, something you can't deny, only ignore. “ Johnny paused.
         “Stop it,” I whispered, but he didn't hear.
         “If that flashlight went dead you'd see what I mean. Me, whispering in your ear, and the feeling of the damp air on your skin, pressing so tightly in on you, and the darkness.” A beat. “Maybe that gun and that trigger would begin to feel a little too heavy.”
         By then I          was rocking, with the gun in my hand, held tight.
         “Why don't you leave now?” he asked.
         “I can't,” I managed to choke out.
         “Why?”
         “The trapdoor.” I hesitated. “It's locked.”
         He was silent for a second. “Why didn't you tell me sooner?”
         “I thought you'd be angry.”
         “I'm not.” Even now I remember the sound of his voice. It was so much more than a deathly quiet. “You'll never know or under. Not me, and not the way I feel about you. It's best that way.”
         “Johnny don't say that. I love you.” The words felt plastic in my mouth. I was speaking of a memory, and I knew it.
         “No, Grace, you don't know me, and I hope you never do.” Johnny sat back and closed his eyes.

~*~

         Above all I remember the silence, and the way there seemed to be a quiet in my head, even when Johnny was cackling. My thoughts were whispers to me.
         I remember saying, “God don't let me hear him, man don't let this be him,” to myself, while staring at the shadows on his face, his dreary eyes illuminated by the flashlight.
         I remember the creak and rustle of sounds above when the door opened and Ralph was home.
         I remember the white terror, the calm, my fight against a panic I would not allow, and my sweaty palms on the object that was somehow a gun.
         Somewhere in my mind a plan converged.

~*~

I tied Johnny back up, but loosely, hoping that Ralph wouldn't notice, and then I crept into the corner of the root cellar, and waited for his feet to come down the rope ladder, and then his thin hips, and then his blond haired head.
         It wasn't long.

         Ralph came down, his keys jangling in the darkness. He didn't hold a flashlight.
         He crossed the root cellar and then stood over Johnny. I knew that a seconds hesitation would kill me. I crept out of the dark corner, and placed the gun on Ralph's bare neck.
         “Freeze,” I said, trying to sound grownup, and only sounding lame.  Ralph raised his hands slowly, knowing the feel of cold metal. “Now turn around,” I continued, swallowing my spit. “Or else.” I sounded calm to my own ears, but who really knows the true story of that day? For all I know, I could have made this all up. The only thing real in my mind is Johnny, the boy once made me make a promise, most likely the most important promise I've ever made in my life.

~*~

         It is so easy to vow revenge, and so hard to deliver it. Maybe you don't know what I mean, but then again, that's assuming you've never put a gun to a mans head and told yourself it was justice. If you have, then you know that when metal comes to skin and trigger to finger, you find that you can't help but ask yourself “By what right am I ending this mans life? And do I hate him enough to blow his brains to China Town?”
         For me, the answer to the first question was silence, and the answer to the second question no.
         There he was, eyes laughing because he somehow knew I couldn't put a bullet in his head. I held that gun with every once of strength I've ever had the right to command, yet somehow my hands insisted in being clammy, and wanting to shake. I tried to hole my finger tight against the trigger: but I felt like my hand was having an ellipse attack. I tried not to swallow the lump in my throat and give sanction to Ralph's laughing eyes.
         I tried.. but what remnant of my pace and my determination I had carried thus far, it shriveled in the back of my mind and would not present me the sword of courage.
         “You're not going to kill me, are you?” It wasn't a question.
         “I thought I was going to. But now I realize that I don't care if you die or not.”
         “Don't you wish I was dead?” Ralph was smiled.
         “Not by my hand.” I back up a step, and shined the light in his face. To Johnny I said, “Call the cops.”
         “No, Grace, no,” he started but I interrupted and yelled, “Go call the fucking cops before I change my mind and blow this guys brains out!”
         Johnny looked at me and knew that I was serious. He scurried up the rope ladder.
         There was silence for a minute, and then the sound of johnny telling a police officer the story of our last three hours. Then he hung up and called down to me that they would be arriving soon.
         The whole deal confused the cops, who took Ralph down to the station, and called mine and Johnny's parents to lay out the story for them.
         A young cop sat us down on Ralph's couch and began questioning us. He took my gun away and placed it in a plastic bag, staring at me oddly.
         Johnny would not talk at all. He just stared blankly past the cops gaze. When his dad arrived, they sent him off, figuring he was emotionally shocked. Johnny's dad stared at me as he took his kid by the shoulders and led him away. I met his stare. “See now?” I said, though I'm unsure whether I said it loud enough for him to hear. Its irrelevant.

~*~

         I talked very little to Johnny after that, mostly because he was silent around me. We went from trying to talk during classes, to only saying hi when we saw each other in the neighborhood, to only acknowledging each other if it was necessary. It was a mutual parting, I suppose. Back then I thought it was because neither of us wanted to remember the things said in Ralph's basement, but now I think that maybe its a bit different then I assumed.
         Later on in the year I went out with Andrew for a short time, but only because I wanted Johnny to think I'd forgotten him (which I hadn't and never will.) But it wasn't Johnny as I found him to be that I thought of, but the Johnny who never wore his hat backwards and always told me the truth, like a  rambunctious four year old.
         That was the Johnny I wanted but couldn't have.

~*~

         I saw him a few years later, when I went to a college convention in New York City.
         I was standing out in the pouring rain, shielding my textbook with my sweater when I saw him. He'd grown his hair out a little so that it shaded his green eyes. His skin was a golden California brown, and gave me the impression that he was having a great life.  He was standing on the side walk, looking around, as though searching for someone.
         I stood there, staring until he saw me. A shadow passed over his face, and then a smile pushed it away.
         “Grace,” he said, and he gave me one of his brilliant smiles. I walked over to him.
         “Hey, Johnny.”
         “Been a while hasn't it?” His face was solemn as he spoke and I knew he wasn't being casual, I knew that he was talking about that day in Ralph's basement. He took my hand and we walked into the cafe that I'd just come out of.  We sat down in a booth at the back of the room.
         “You look good, Johnny.”
         He nodded. “You too,” But I could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn't want to talk small.
         “What happened to us?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
         “Ralph happened. Or so we can say.”

         “I keep thinking about it, the things you said that day, that look in your eyes when you told me that I couldn't save you.”
         “But you did, didn't you, so why does it matter?”
         “Did I? I don't know anymore.”
         Johnny smiled and shrugged. “I'm alive aren't I?”
         “Are you? In my mind you died in Ralph's basement.” I paused. “I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I don't know why I said it.”
         “Because it's true?” Johnny shrugged again. “Ask yourself who you were trying to save that day.”
         “You-” I stopped. “no. That's not quite right.” I smiled at him.
         “Keep that in mind. When you understand that, then you'll know why are relationship could never work.”
         “Do you think we'd still be together if not for Ralph?”
         Johnny looked grim. “You were always too good for me- and I knew it. I tried to live up to you, but in the end it didn't last. What you're asking is how long that act could have kept with no interference... Forever? I don't know. Its a mystery. Now you see me for what I am- just a mere mortal with soft words and a big blockade against the world. Don't try to chase me, or make it work. Try to realize that I'm just a memory to you, and that I can't be the Johnny McTyler that you thought I was.”
         I laughed, and it was a bitter sound even to my own ears. “Guess that's what they call closure.”
         “I died that day in Ralph's basement,” he said, getting up, and turning around.
         “Johnny!” I called to him.
         He turned and looked at me.
         “Why can't you believe that I could take you as you are?”
         “Because if you could I wouldn't love you, and it wouldn't matter.”
         “You'll always have a place in my mind.”
         “I don't suppose I could ever ask you to forget me.”
         “No.”
         “Good bye, Grace,” he said.
         That was the last I ever saw of him.

~*~

         I don't really understand why I'm writing this down, I know I'm only feeding the fire of an obsession. Yet I still can't help but ponder one question: why did I do it? Who was I trying to save? Was it an act of self preservation or self sacrifice? Was I saving Johnny or in some twisted way, trying to save myself? I don't know why it matters, it just does, like his voice in my ear telling me to not worry, like the way he always kissed me on the forehead as though I was a seven year old, and like the fact that I didn't pull that trigger and kill Ralph.
         But most of all like the day I watched Andrew pour gasoline and chemicals on a huge puddle, to see if he could start a fire on water. I had stared transfixed at the result of soap suds and the shiny liquid of gasoline on watery mud.  I remember saying to myself that it looked like a puddle of stars. Then Andrew set the gas on fire, and when the blaze went out, there was a thick oily layer of grime on the water. I turned away from it, as though it had poisoned my metaphor.
         I don't know if you can see the relation between the two or if you're just confused: but to me its obvious.
         Sometimes the boy you love is just an idea projected in your mind, and sometimes the mud and stars will go up in flames, and the miniature universe you saw is just layers of grime to be scraped away.


THE END