26
Driving home from Jimmy’s in the last hours before dawn, the horizon is sweeping. The thing about Johnston at night is you can see for miles through the clear atmosphere. There’s nothing out here to disturb it. Every star that ever burned throughout the ages flashes and speckles in the vast blanket of black.
Somehow in the grand infinite universe, here I am, driving my Saturn through the empty Johnston streets at three a.m.. The Mexican joint AzTeca is shut off for the night on the corner of Elm, underneath a bent streetlamp, light flickering. The reliable Shell station is still lit, though halfheartedly, open only if necessary. On nights like these, sometimes I’ll tour through the whole town, visiting my old haunts and checking up on everything. Someone had to make sure it was all alive and well.
Johnston can be plotted out in a series of small squares, backroads, and blocks. It’s a neat little grid with every section distinct. It’s filled almost entirely with middle- to low-income homes apart from the old palace on Green Street that is held up by these heaven’s gate pillars that are about a hundred feet high and nearly the width of silos. There’s also the ivy laced mansion on Main Street where nobody ever lived. Everyone I knew growing up wanted to break into it for parties and such, but it was protected fiercely by the city. The ivy mansion is the one I love most, and I’ve always believed that one day a mustached bureaucrat would buy it for no damn reason at all and take it off the grid forever. For now at least, nobody had it. Maybe one day I’ll hack some lucrative racket or write a book good enough to sell and rake in enough paper to buy it myself. Can you imagine?
I’d be cigar mouthed and glorious looking out the high attic window like all my midnight childhood fantasies, casting ideas down and around the street looking over everything in Johnston, my town. Maybe with a whiskey too. And a good woman who loved me. One day down the line.
Until then, I’ll wind my way up Factory Street and pass by Ben Vandenheuval’s old house. I’ll reminisce on friends long past and distant. Ben moved away when we were fifteen, following his pops out to a military base in New Mexico. Ben was a good sort. Braced teeth and sporty and strong. A real up and comer with good discipline and a solid family. I miss him just as I miss the others who are long gone. I could tell you a story about nearly every home that lines these blocks of Johnston. Generations of families have taken root here, committed to carrying the flag, rooting down, and continuing on in the tradition of those that came before. As a kid I used to memorize the streets according to who lived there. On Factory there’s Ben, Elly’s house on Hillsdale, and yes, the Finchers’s—if you asked—are still right on the corner, where Country Road VV meets French before carrying on to endless farmland. I dedicated myself then to knowing every crack in the sidewalk, every secret passage, every route for every place possible.
I’m past Factory now and making a right on Ivy which winds its narrow way all up and around through the back of town and to Johnston Park which has stood there all my life. Pavilioned and swing-setted, it looks over the baseball diamond of my childhood. In the distance is Johnston Hill, a looming grass mountain set proud on the very edge of the town, ancient and my favorite landmark. As kids, we would always go up there. It was one hell of a meeting spot, to plan and get away. To laugh and share hidden smokes. To make out on that tall green bit of planet while getting close to the stars was about as good as it got back then. God, I hadn’t gone up there in sometime. Funny what habits you leave behind. In the winter it gets blanketed in elegant diamond snow and all the Johnston kids sled down it until their faces turn blue. I was probably around twelve when everyone became too cool for sledding. Years later, I realized that nobody was too cool for anything.
I’m driving past Johnston Park and dreaming about those days. The days of holding hands and making dares on the playground. I remember Jenna Ollie, and smile. There was one night where we slipped away from our friends and families and had the whole place to ourselves. We climbed all the way to the top of the playground and sat on the flat roof of the slide. She told me all about her parents getting divorced and her mentally challenged little brother. She had sandy hair and giant baby-blue eyes, innocent and kind.
I told her I was someone she could trust because I was sure that I loved her. That summer night, after we told one another secrets, we kissed on the roof of the slide. I thought maybe I’d found that fairytale feeling all the movies went in for. That same year though, Jenna had to pack her bags and follow her family out east to Pennsylvania and we lost touch, just like that. Our romance was just a taste, as it goes, but if she ever showed face around Johnston again, I might marry her still . Oh, to be young. Johnston Park.
I drive on past and take a left on French to swing by where it all happened long ago—Johnston High. It was built right on the edge of a corn field and was connected to both the middle and elementary schools. The buildings are made with deep auburn brick and thick concrete rooftops, longer than they are wide. Out back by the track is the football field where the youth were helmeted and strapped like gladiators. I never fully went in for that sort of thing, but I did go to games back when Leon played. Johnston is one of those prideful athletic communities. I still remember the smell of the field and the sound of pounding feet in the bleachers on those chilled fall Friday evenings. I remember the lights, how they were bright and shined for miles. When the city stopped everything and came together for those battles it was almost religious, like an ancient tradition. I admit it felt spiritual.
I let Johnston High fade in my rearview and continue on. A few miles through the country and I’ll be home. God. My whole life in this town. An eternity, right here. I’ll be thirty soon, three decades. Three decades of childhood sidewalks, parks, schools, longing, and hills.
Every hidden beautiful corner of Johnston I knew and loved so well. My heart beats and belongs to these simple times, the nostalgia and the undeniable hope of these country roads and the wind on the inside of my Saturn, swirling. My hair moves in the wind and there are no clouds or smoke in the sky. It’s clear as always, running straight up to Heaven. The road feels smooth and familiar. It beckons. It begs me to drive. I smile and breathe. I bet I can ride on through morning. I know the road will take me wherever I please. It’s that kind of feeling, that number on the dial. And it almost happens. I almost grip the fading leather wheel and go after it. I almost fetch me a spot somewhere in Montana or Colorado, somewhere new and promising. Somewhere waiting. Another night. I’ll leave some other time. When the stars aren’t burning so bright. When Johnston isn’t so silent and nice.