There was a young man who lived just a half hour's walk up the holler from my Granny Harbis in the mountains of East Tennessee. He was a tall boy with hair blacker than a crow's blackness and eyes as blue as the sweetest summer sky. His skin color showed the Indian blood that ran strong in the veins of many of the families in that area. His grandma, like mine, was Irish, but I didn't get the pretty blue eyes so valued in that place for their rarity. People worried about him because he was a quiet boy and he always had a book stuck in his overalls. The love of books often ended up with the loss of one of that close knit, however sparsely numbered, community.
I was always quiet when his name was mentioned, listening for clues about what made him tick. I had the book bug, too. I knew the kindly folks around us did not understand about the longing for more and more words; more and more knowledge of the world that lay mostly below us and across far oceans. You seldom saw him hunting or at ballgames or doing any of the things most of the boys around there did. Although his name was J.J. Johnstone, most referred to him as "That Johnstone boy". Even though he had several brothers as well as sisters, everyone knew who was meant when you heard "That Johnstone boy." One midsummer day when I was fifteen and on one of my frequent stays with Granny, I carried my book up to my favorite reading place and settled in on the wide body of a fallen log. I was lost in my book when I heard a soft footfall and raised my eyes to find myself looking directly into those summer sky eyes of "that Johnstone boy". I was only a little afraid, even though something in his look seemed to pierce into me.
After only a moment he said "What's your book?"
"The Caine Mutiny", I answered.
"Funny book for a girl to read," he said.
That flared me up some and I glared into his eyes and demanded, "Why"? He looked at me a minute and then he smiled. In a moment we were both smiling and talking excitedly, "Have you read such and such? "
"YES! I loved that! Did you read........"
We quickly raced from subject to subject both excited by the chance to talk to someone who understood the book hunger.Time went racing by and suddenly, as quickly as it started, the conversation ended. There was a full two minutes of silence before he said, "You're Granny Harbis' grandaughter then. If your name is Amelia?"
"Yes."
Another minute of silence and he stood and said he guessed he'd better be going. I didn't answer. He started away. I had opened my mouth to say bye when suddenly he turned back to me . I felt no fear when he grabbed me and crushed me in his arms because his kiss was as soft and warm as a puppy's belly. He let go just as suddenly and in only moments was deep in the woods out of my sight. People in the holler sometimes still mention how that Johnstone boy went into the army that fall and went to a place called Viet Nam. I remember the day he said he had "no stomach for killin'." He never came back. Yes, here 40 years later they still refer to him as that Johnstone boy.
But by me, he was called, is called, July.






~ Angelia (Artisan4zero@aol.com) ~

© Photograph by Paul (AHikingDude@aol.com)

© June 12, 2003



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