I Have One John
I only have one John
This, in itself, seems a mite incredible to me too, after all the years of runnin’ around like a slobbering dog in August. But it’s true. Just one John.
He flips pizza in some Pizza Shack in Florida during the day,
not far from the beach. After “work”, he and buds hit the beach to jump
in the grey Atlantic to wash off the cheesey-sauce odors, play at riding
surf boards in the baby Jacksonville waves, and probably smoke a little
ganga. (I haven’t witnessed this, but I’m also not too old to remember
what being 18 was like.
My one John has a girlfriend. That’s probably a good thing. Maybe not.
On one hand, having a girlfriend at age 18 means running a pretty
substantial risk of becoming a Daddy at 18. On the other, having a
boyfriend would be, while not really frowned upon nowadays, at least
every bit as dangerous, but in other ways, I would think. So I reckon
it’s good that he has a girlfriend. I think.
Kind of a happy-go-lucky, goofball, that kid: with the blonde, brooding
look of Sting, and the build of a heavy-middleweight boxer. He shoots a
handgun fairly well, though they make him nervous, I can tell. He gets a
sheen of sweat on his upper lip. His couple of trips hunting proved to
him that actually shooting a golf ball size hole in the chest of an
animal wasn’t really his idea of a great time. He learned to make a
great pot of beans at camp, and always had a smile on his face, and
lunch ready for us. I suspect he enjoyed this.
A fellow deer hunter shot a coyote once, which is fairly common around
here. John found the carcass two days later and carefully buried it.
My one John spent most of his childhood going to school under the
influence of a narcotic, against my wishes, yet still couldn’t finish
high school. As I stated before: the guy’s a goof. The docs all said
that it “had to be prescribed, for his ADD” doncha know.
Who am I to refute the “authorities”? Especially when there is no
choice.
Especially when I might be hit with lawsuits for neglecting my son?
Yeah. Could’ve happened.
I guess I could have taken him to Canada. Or Mexico. Started over there.
Maybe I should have.
Why I’m thinking of my one John, right now, is this business of Iraq.
There’s every possibility that we are going to war with this country. Or
another tomorrow. Or a different one the day after.
There’s an even chance (50-50: either they do or don’t) there will be a
draft at some point again.
My one John might slip out of that noose, given his background with
years of ADD Class-3 narcotics usage, thanks to the nice people in the
government schools. (This same category includes meth, and there’s some
quibbling about the use of the word ‘narcotic’ alongside Ritalin, but I
think it fits). There is some question whether ADD-kids are draft
eligible. Wouldn’t it just be ironic? The government drugs the kids,
then finds them unfit to use in their military?
Simply hilarious, huh?
Equally knee-slapping is the question of whether he/they should go at
all, even if found qualified to carry a pack and weapon 20 miles a day
and hit center mass.
When I stop and think about war; the real deal, not the occasional
cowardly Beirut hotel bomb blast from some McDonald’s-starved Islamic
Arabs, I for one get the creeps. I wasn’t there in-country in Vietnam,
or Korea, or….? What I’ve seen is relatively limp compared to the wars
others have suffered through. But I still feel like burying a coyote,
quietly, and saying, “Sorry”, and not shooting another one. I find it a
little uncomfortable looking a dead deer in the eye, if I don’t thank
him.
And I think about my one John.
What if he DID “go to war”? Against Iraq. Against N. Korea. Against….the
next Bad Guy. What if he WAS sucked into the bloodbath? Given a healthy
dose of 50,000+ dead Americans in some far-away desert or jungle? Would
he, if a survivor, come back and become the goofy pizza-flipper on the
beach again? Would he come back and shoot holes in animals for reasons
only he suspected but couldn’t explain?
There were more than a few Johns who came back from overseas, and needed
to continue their Class-3 narcotics use. Some were ok. Some were not.
Some were half the size they were when they got on the plane in San
Diego, San Fran, or Pearl. Some came back in three or more boxes or
baggies, and some didn’t come back at all.
And…after all these years? What did we, as a nation, gain from all this?
What did we as a country benefit from these overseas excursions? Are we
freer? Is the Bill of Rights stronger? Is the Constitution being
followed closer and with more eye to detail? Is our country safer? What,
tell me, has been gained from the loss of our Johns?
This is not meant to disrespect those who traveled before me in the
military. I am a vet of 13 years. I volunteered and went and did my job,
not always gladly, but with a sense that I was fulfilling a promise I
made to my country when I held up my right hand.
But when my only John asks me: “Dad? What should I do?” I’m about ready
to tell him that, “What the leaders of this country asks of you is too
great, too precious to squander, for little or no gain in real freedom
for this country. It would be different if Iraq or Afghanistan or
Pakistan or China or the next Bad Guy was actually crossing this moat
around our nation; coming to hurt us, floating into Long Beach or under
the Verrazano Bridge in New York on their muscular Naval rafts.
Maybe that would be different.”
“But… Dad. Al-Qaeda… the terrorists…..”
“I know, my one John. But remember this also: We, you and I, only know
what we hear and see in the media. This isn’t always the same as the
Truth. That’s why we think, instead of believing in-the-blind whatever
we hear.”
In my mind’s eye, I see my one John, my goof, my 18 year-old pizza chef
and boyfriend of that curvy brunette, that blonde haired coyote
grave-digger and sometime surfer wanna-bee, look off in the distance at
the saltwater.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Think I’ll go and walk on the beach awhile.”
I see him go, walking slowly on the sand.
He’s just….my only John.
Long live our Johns.