Little Johnny Hartmann was told not to touch the concrete at all while it was still setting. At. All. Little Johnny Hartmann had a history of not doing what he was told to do, though, or of doing those things that most kids wouldn’t do because they knew better. Like the time he ignored the “Beware of Dog” signs on the outskirts of Farmer McKinnon’s and had to run all the way home with the seat of his jeans and underwear ripped open, all the neighbors and classmates seeing his behind. Or the time he was told not to play near the big hickory tree in the back of the yard, the tree that separated his parents’ yard and the woods beyond, because there was a giant bees’ nest in it. So, while playing catch with himself, he threw the ball as high as he could and it ended up drifting into the hickory tree. He climbed up thinking he could reach it, not wanting his momma and pa to know that he had been playing near the tree. He dislodged the ball from the leaves it was stuck in, but on the way down, it rattled the beehive. He wasn’t able to open his right eye for two weeks; and that happened one week before school had started.
If they told Little Johnny the only thing he wasn’t to do, or told him the only thing he wasn’t to ask or talk about due to sensitivity and respect, that was the one thing he would do, the one thing he would ask about.
So his parents really had no one to blame but themselves for the inscription in the concrete of the storage shed.
Little Johnny was the smallest in his grade by half a foot, thus creating the second reason for his name, the first being that his pa was Big Johnny. Being that small led to obvious difficulties, but also had some advantages. Anytime a ball was trapped in a hard to reach spot, or a tiny crevice needed to be explored, Johnny was always the first volunteered by the other students, and sometimes by the teachers themselves. One day after school, a kickball was sent careening down the edge of the field and rolled into a sewer drain, lying about ten feet inside. The hole was too small for anyone to squeeze down except Johnny. The only options were to retrieve the ball, or to stop playing the game altogether, the second option not being realistic at all. As such, Johnny was called upon. He was on the far side of the field, trying to coax a squirrel out of a tree with a stick and a rock when the other students came to find him. He threw on an invisible cape, and followed the other kids, running with his arms outstretched and bent backwards as wings, for better wind resistance, and jumping over the crocodile pits and dodging the gunfire that somehow the other students never saw. He arrived to the sewer drain to the encouragement of his fellow students, and mortal beings.
“What a weirdo.”
“Freak.”
“Just get the ball, Hartmann.”
Johnny whipped his invisible cape behind him, like the women on momma’s programs whisking luxurious hair out of their faces, and dove into the sewer drain. The drain was mostly parallel to the ground, and he crawled his way down until he reached the ball. With the ball tucked under his arm, he began crawling his way backwards when his jeans got caught on one of the jagged edges and ripped halfway up his pants leg to his knee, scraping and cutting his knee. He screamed out in frustration, but kept moving, eager to be done with his expedition. He turned his head backwards to see how far he had to go, scraping his head against the top of the drain. Dust and some black gunk dripped down onto his face and, before he could see what it looked like, he wiped at his face with his arm, smearing the black in a smudged line across it. Moments later he came out, jeans ripped, face blackened with grime, to the applause and eternal gratitude of his students.
“Nice jeans, Hartmann.”
“Nice face.”
“Why don’t you guys thank him?” This from Sue Lovely, who was walking home with a friend; Sue Lovely who sat two seats in front of him in most classes, who lived two doors down from him; Sue Lovely who, when he was not out saving the world in his head, Johnny was saving from imminent danger and she repaying him with the eternal gratitude only shown through kissing.
Johnny smiled at Sue, and handed the ball over to the players. He ran back to his tree, face red, to get his book bag.
When he got home, he ran inside to his room, changed his pants, and scampered into the bathroom to wash his face. Once done, he jetted back to his room to grab from his bag the stick and rock that he had been using to coax the squirrel, and went to run outside.
“Johnny!” his mother implored from the din of the television set.
His feet screeched in a thud into the door. “Oh. Hi, mom.”
She greeted him with the usual eyeball roll, reserved for when he tripped or clattered into the furniture. He was convinced her eyes would freeze in that position. She took a deep breath, and stated, slowly with a measured beat after each word, “Your father poured the concrete for the storage shed today. It hasn’t set yet. So don’t go playing over there.”
“Okay. No problem.” His hand reached up and pushed the door open.
“Johnny!” His mother implored again, head checking to see if her programs had returned. “Now, what did I just tell you?”
Johnny answered in the same measured, word by word manner as his mother. “Don’t play by the concrete of the storage shed.”
His mother looked at him, eyes unblinking, the swooning violins of the end of a commercial break in the background, then smiled. “Okay.”
And off Johnny went outside.
During the walk home from school, Little Johnny had been convincing himself that Sue Lovely now saw him as the superhero he knew himself to be, that she dreamed of Johnny swooping in from the sky, picking her up, one arm under her shoulders, the other under the crook of her knees, and flying off into the sky, burying his mouth into hers as they flew into and out of the clouds. He was convinced of this. He had been trying to keep his thoughts of her to himself, not telling anyone, despite his wide-eyed stares in class, his playing catch with himself in front of their house, how he always went around the block toward the Lovely’s house when momma sent him to the store, even though the store was in the other direction. And despite his increasingly angry and repeated denials to this fact when classmates accused him of liking her, their accusations persisted. But now, in light of her stance for justice, her assertion of gratitude for his rescuing of the kickball, he was convinced of it. What better way to show the world how he truly felt, too, than to write it, scroll it, inscribe it on a tree, sidewalk, under a bridge. He would carve their initials somewhere for the world to see, since there was no more denying her feelings.
At that moment, he looked down. His rambling walk had taken him around the yard, and to the edge of the storage shed, the liquid concrete floor. The concrete had appeared just at the moment that he needed a medium for his masterpiece, his avowal of love to the Lovely. With a dramatic twirl of the stick, he plunged it into murky mold of concrete, sketching a heart with initials J.H. and S.L. emblazoned inside, and a flourish of curved lines beneath the initials, coming to stop just above the point of the heart. Now everyone would know that he and Sue Lovely were meant to be one.
As he looked down at his handiwork, the smitten smile on his face faded quickly into terror as his mother’s voice punched him in the stomach.
“Johnny! What are you doing?! What did I just tell you?”
But he hadn’t touched the concrete; the stick had.
