Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed

by Robert Herold

Mrs. Leighton, the playground monitor, flinched upon seeing a small boy pitch face-first to the ground. She noticed him a moment before, staggering around (his name was Johnny Brodeur), but she could not tell at first if he was acting. The loner kids often did attention-seeking behaviors. It was pathetic, really, but it made recess supervision that much harder. Now she berated herself for not responding sooner and ran down the incline to where the boy struggled to pick himself up from the sawdust and dirt.

“Are you all right?” she asked. She helped him stand then bushed the debris from his cherubic face.

Johnny looked up at her and gulped. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t seem okay. I think we’d better let the school nurse have a look at you.”

“No!”

“But—”

“No, I won’t go!” Johnny turned to run but fell to his knees.

“What’s the problem here?” asked Arthur Stimpson as he approached. Stimpson was the only male teacher in the elementary school—a large, burly man, who struck fear into the hearts of youths who crossed him.

Johnny gulped again.

“Art, I think there’s something wrong with this boy, but he’s refusing to go to the nurse.”

Mr. Stimpson crouched to retrieve Johnny and set him upright. He stayed down to be on the boy’s level. “What seems to be the problem, son?”

“Nothing,” Johnny grumbled, averting his eyes.

“Then how about you let Mrs. Leighton take you to the nurse, so she can quit worrying about nothing?”

After a pause, the boy mumbled, “All right.”

Mrs. Leighton took Johnny’s hand, and they started heading for the office. After several steps, Johnny stumbled and fell, nearly pulling her down on top of him.

Mr. Stimpson swept in and scooped up the child. The boy’s eyes were moving independently of each other. “Christ,” she heard him mutter under his breath as he began to run.

#

One week earlier, Johnny sat in his second-grade room finishing lunch with his classmates. He wasn’t sure why he put the seed in his ear. After eating the most delicious apple he ever tasted, it seemed like a good thing to do. The smooth, hard seed fit right in as though meant to be there. He suddenly felt as if he had a secret companion.

“Johnny Brodeur, what are you putting in your ear?”

It was Amy Irwin, who shared the other half of his duplex desk. He and the girl had been at odds all week, ever since he broke off their wedding engagement.

“Ms. Bok! Ms. Bok! Johnny put something in his ear!”

“Shut up, Amy!” Johnny hissed before emptying his carton of milk over Amy’s head. The recipient looked around the room for a moment in shock then began to scream.

Ms. Bok, their teacher, got up from behind her desk to end the fray. She demanded to know what was going on.

“Johnny put something in his ear,” Amy sobbed through the milk, tears, and snot. She pointed a wet accusatory finger at Johnny. “I saw him.”

Ms. Bok picked up a napkin off the desk and wiped the girl’s face while glancing over at Johnny. “Is this true?”

At that moment, Johnny heard something whisper, “Don’t let them take me out!”

A funny look came over the boy’s face. “Huh?” he asked the voice.

“Did you put something in your ear?” the teacher repeated, almost yelling.

“No,” Johnny lied and then shoved his little finger into his ear, pushing the seed as far in as it would go.

“Stop that!” The teacher grabbed the boy’s arm and yanked the hand away. “What did you put in your ear?”

“Nothing.” After a pause, he confessed, “Just a little seed.”

“A seed?”

“Yeah, from my apple.”

“Oh, no.” Ms. Bok tried looking into his ear, but he had pushed the seed out of sight. She gave up and turned his head to meet hers. “Is it still in there?”

“Yeah.”

Ms. Bok sighed. She stood then gasped as she surveyed the room. Johnny looked around and saw that his stunt with the milk had sparked a full-fledged food fight. “Class!” yelled Ms. Bok. “Class, stop it!”

No one listened.

Ms. Bok grabbed Johnny by the shoulders and steered him to the door. She told him to go straight to the office and have the nurse tend to his ear. She pushed him out into the hall and then turned to confront the madhouse that had become her second-grade class.

Out in the hall, Johnny took off in the direction opposite the office. He left the school grounds and made his way through the backyards and winding streets of various suburban housing developments until at last he reached his neighborhood.

As he neared his home, Mrs. Circe Thanos waved hello from the yard next door. The old woman had been nurturing her tulip bed with a trowel and fertilizer, and she’d been whistling a little five-tone song she once heard back in Greece. Mrs. Thanos lived alone. Her husband died many years ago, shortly after they came to America, and she never remarried.

“Hello, Johnny,” she called. “You’re home early.” Mrs. Thanos spoke with a Greek accent. She had bobbed gray hair with a long bang in front, which she was forever pushing back from her face. Her olive skin was smooth and remarkably wrinkle-free, though the crow’s feet on either side of her eyes betrayed something of her years.

Johnny smiled as he approached the woman, hoping that she would make her frequent offer of milk and cookies. “Yeah, a half-day for conferences,” he lied.

“If that were so, why didn’t you ride the bus as you usually do? And where are the other children? You don’t have to lie to me, Johnny. You’re playing hockey, aren’t you?”

“You mean hooky.”

“Yes, hockey.”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny conceded, accepting the pronunciation.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just got mad.”

“At who?”

“Everyone.”

Mrs. Thanos wagged a finger at the boy. “If you do not go to school, your mother and father will not be pleased with your grades.”

“I don’t care about them. Dad took off last week, and all Mom does is work.”

“They are having a difficult time.”

“Me too.” The boy looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Oh, Johnny, Johnny.” Mrs. Thanos stood, bushing the lock of hair from her face with a dirty gardening glove. The glove left a brown smear across her forehead. She then reached out and hugged the boy for a long time, gently rocking from side to side as he began to cry. Eventually, the tears subsided, and Johnny raised his head to look at Mrs. Thanos. She smiled down at the boy. “Well,” she pointed at her tulips, “what do you think of my new friends?”

Johnny looked where indicated and then around the yard at the hundreds of different plants the woman tended. He then shot a glance over at his own unkempt yard. In the middle of the scabby lawn, a neighbor’s dog dug a hole two weeks ago, perhaps in anticipation of a bone. Johnny looked up again at the old woman. “Mrs. Thanos, I wish I could live with you.”

Again, the two hugged each other. After a while, Mrs. Thanos stepped back to arm’s length, brushed back her lock of hair, leaving another smudge on her forehead, and smiled. “A compliment like that deserves a treat. So, instead of chasing you back to school today, how about if I race you into the kitchen?”

“Sure!”

“All right then.”  Mrs. Thanos slipped an arm around the boy’s shoulders, and the two of them headed for the front door. “Oh, by the way,” the woman stopped and regarded her small friend, “did you enjoy the apple I gave you this morning?”

#

A week after Johnny put the seed in his ear, he collapsed at school, causing the nurse to call 911. He was taken to Providence Hospital, and there he underwent a battery of tests.  Dr. Lawrence Martin, head of pediatrics, introduced himself to Johnny the next day and tried to ask him a lot of questions, but Johnny remained mute.

“What are you doing here?” Johnny’s mother confronted her son as soon as she arrived. “Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost me? How dare you—”

“Hello, Mrs. Brodeur,” Dr. Martin interrupted the verbal barrage. “We were wondering when we’d get to meet one of Johnny’s parents.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Unaccustomed to being challenged, the doctor stood with his mouth agape. Finally, he found his voice. “Your son has been here since yesterday.”

“I don’t need to account for myself with you.”

“No, but you may need to before a judge. We contacted CPS.”

“You’re not going to be taking away my boy.” She growled, suddenly a momma grizzly protecting her cub.

The doctor put his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Your son is not going anywhere for a while.” He gestured toward the door. “May we go out into the hall to discuss things?”

The mother glanced back at her son for a moment and then shrugged. She wordlessly left the room, not bothering to hold the door for the doctor who followed.

Out in the hall, the doctor asked, “And the boy’s father?”

“Hell if I know. He started drugging again, so I kicked him out. He’s probably camped along the freeway somewhere.”

The doctor nodded. He glanced at his tablet and then gave the boy’s mother a patronizing smile. “You don’t have a family physician, is that correct?”

“No, I mean yes, that’s correct. We don’t have insurance either. I have to work at my job for six months before qualifying, and I—”

“Any medical records, aside from birth and school immunizations?”

“No. He’s a healthy kid. What’s going on with him?”

“No one has told you?” asked the doctor, incredulous.

“No.”

“Here,” he held up the tablet. “Let me show you.” The doctor called forth a series of images. “These are composites of MRIs and other scans we’ve done.” He pointed. “Notice these here? How they extend from the boy’s right ear into the cerebellum, the cerebrum, and the prefrontal lobe—parts of the brain,” he added, thinking that he should make that clear. “They even extend down into the spinal canal.”

“What are they?”

“They’re roots.”

“Roots?”

“Johnny put a seed in his right ear, and it’s taken root. In fact, if you look closely, you can even see a small green leaf emerging from the ear canal.”

“This some sort of joke?”

“No joke. He never complained? The pain must’ve been tremendous.”

“No.”

“Amazing. Even now, he seems comfortable, almost serene, but then the damage may have altered his ability to perceive pain. He has been uncommunicative since his admission. We can’t get him to relate any of his subjective experiences. The boy is unable to hold a pencil, and we’re afraid he may lose the ability to speak at any moment. If that happens, his thoughts will be beyond our reach. Do you think you could get him to talk?”

“What is this?” said Johnny’s mother. She stepped back and scowled at Dr. Martin. “It sounds like you want to sit back and let this happen. Why aren’t you operating to get that—that thing out of his body?”

“We can’t. The growth is so far advanced, it’s inoperable. We’re lucky the school’s nurse didn’t try to pull it out. The result could’ve left your son a vegetable.” Doctor Martin winced after his word choice.  “You see,” he continued, “Johnny has become symbiotically linked with the plant. If we tried to remove it, we would surely kill your son in the process.”

The fight seemed to go out of the boy’s mother. “So, what are you planning to do?”

“Well, undoubtedly, this will be fatal. It is only a matter of time before the growth impairs more essential body functions. Until that time, we would like to keep your son here under observation and as comfortable as possible.”

The boy’s mother shook her head. “I can’t afford—”

“There’s been an emergency reallocation of research funds. With your consent, Johnny would become a ward of the facility, and no charge would be made for any of the services rendered.” He touched the screen several times and then held the tablet toward her. “If that’s agreeable, we’ll need you to sign right here.”

#

“Johnny?” whispered Mrs. Thanos as she stroked the boy’s rough cheek. “Johnny?”

Johnny stirred. He looked up at the dark form above his hospital bed.

Mrs. Thanos turned on the light and smiled down at the boy. Johnny’s skin now looked lumpy, rutted, and gnarled as roots had spread throughout his body.

“Are you OK, Johnny? I would’ve come sooner, but I couldn’t locate your mother to find out what had become of you. And then the hospital wouldn’t let me in. I had to sneak up; that’s why I came at night. I missed you, Johnny.”

Johnny raised his arms off the mattress, but the stiff, heavy limbs would only move a few inches.

Mrs. Thanos bent down and kissed the upturned hands. “Are you in pain?” she asked.

Johnny shook his head almost imperceptibly back and forth, indicating that he was not.

“I missed you,” the woman repeated. “My tulips missed you too. In fact, my whole yard does. They always enjoyed your compliments and have often appreciated your help—as I have—pulling weeds.”

A tear rolled from Johnny’s left eye, and Mrs. Thanos reached down and wiped it from the boy’s cheek. She then looked around the room, making doubly sure no one was near. Lowering her head, she spoke with excitement into Johnny’s left ear.

“You know what is happening to you, don’t you, Johnny?”

The boy again nodded.

“It’s a strange and wonderful thing, isn’t it?” she continued. “—A miracle perhaps. But you shouldn’t be here, in this place, trapped in a building for their experiments. It’ll kill you if you stay much longer, Johnny. You know that, don’t you?”

The boy again nodded his head a fraction of an inch up and down. Tears were now streaming from both his eyes.

“I can save you, Johnny. Will you come with me?”

Johnny opened his mouth, and through the tangle of growth that filled the cavity came the word, “Yesssss!”

“Good,” said Mrs. Thanos. “Now, stop your tears. I don’t want you to dry out before getting you home.” Mrs. Thanos retrieved the wheelchair from across the room.  “Here goes.” She reached over and removed the I.V., the blood pressure cuff from around his arm, and the plastic oxygen monitoring clip over his left index finger. The machines started to beep until Mrs. Thanos unplugged them from the wall.

She threw back the blankets and brought the child’s legs over the side of the bed. They stuck out, refusing to bend at the knees.

“Do you think you can sit?” she asked.

The boy shook his head slightly, no.

“Then I’ll have to carry you.”

Mrs. Thanos went to the door and looked out. The only nurse Mrs. Thanos could see on the hall just entered a room at the other end, answering a call light. Mrs. Thanos ran back and took up the small boy in her arms. Exiting the room, they managed to enter the stairwell without being seen.

By the time the two reached the ground floor, sweat poured off the old woman, and she needed to lay the boy on the concrete landing until she caught her breath. After a minute or two, Mrs. Thanos recovered and collected Johnny. She cautiously peeked out the door into the hospital lobby, seeing a room filled with folks facing late-night maladies and injuries. The woman doing intake at the desk had her back to Mrs. Thanos.

With Johnny in her arms, Mrs. Thanos made a mad dash for the exit. Her SUV waited just outside. She opened the rear door and set Johnny on the carpeted cargo area before running around to the driver’s door. She got behind the wheel and drove off.

#

It was nearing dawn when Mrs. Thanos and the boy reached her suburban home. She parked the car in the garage and took Johnny through the house and then out into the backyard, laying him on a chaise lounge. Mrs. Thanos then went into the tool shed, emerged with a shovel, and proceeded to dig a hole.

As she worked, the sky blossomed into an array of pink and orange hues, giving way to the morning sun. The sunlight seemed to rejuvenate the old woman, and she dug faster.

Johnny lay in the shade when Mrs. Thanos retrieved him. His gnarled face showed no sign of emotion until she moved him into the direct light. At that moment, he began to smile.

Mrs. Thanos set the boy’s bare feet in the hole and began covering them with the rich soil.  She tamped down the earth around Johnny’s shins and then stood back to admire her work, brushing the lock of hair back from her eyes with a dirty hand.

Turning upward, the boy’s face filled with joy. As she watched, Johnny slowly raised his arms above his head and spread his hands wide. Out of each finger, there appeared first one leaf and then many. Little shoots began growing out of the boy’s arms, sending out leaves of their own. Small branches also emerged from the boy’s nose, ears, and even mouth—which was now open in an expression of ecstasy.

Mrs. Thanos raced into the house and returned with a pair of scissors to cut away the vestiges of the hospital gown. The boy’s body had by now become a sturdy trunk with green foliage above. As the metamorphosis neared completion, the tree gave a little shake. From somewhere deep within the wood, there seemed to come a sigh of contentment.

“You’re a beautiful tree, Johnny. I’ve wanted a Winesap for some time now. Soon you’ll be bearing enough fruit for me to be making pies. I’ll always set aside a wedge and a glass of milk for you, too. I know how much you like my baking.”

“Boys and girls,” Mrs. Thanos turned to face the rest of her backyard orchard. “I want you all to welcome Johnny. He’ll be staying with us from now on.”

Mrs. Thanos moved to get the garden hose. It was time to water her friends.

The End