An Account of Johnny Luther by Brandon Hooks

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A short pause and silence invaded the office, and the doctor broke it by saying, “Would you like to talk about what you are feeling in regards to the passing of you’re parents?” “No I don’t really feel well enough right now to discuss what happened to them, or the person that killed them.” “I understand,” the doctor replied.

He released Johnny that day with his homework assignment and began giving it a try. He was to write down all his thoughts every day, and count up all the times that he felt depressed, as opposed to his feelings of joy and happiness. He was also to write down the times that he felt an urge to drink, and to record any new visions or dreams he had. The assignment was weird, but showed promise, and began to cure him to an extent. Chelsea supported him and helped him with the work until both they and the doctor agreed that he was showing enough improvement that he didn’t need the assignment anymore.

The need and the want to drink were non existent and completely done away with. There weren’t anymore visions, and he even began to forgive the drunk driver that took his parents’ lives that night. His life was recovered fully to a healthy status, and the rest of the forty to fifty years were smooth sailing, so he thought.

Chelsea retired from her position at the Graphic Arts firm at age 65, and Johnny was still employed with IT laboratory. To celebrate the retirement, he put in for a months vacation, and both flew out to Niagara Falls for a time of regrouping and relaxation. They had saved up for so long while with their jobs, and had invested so much into an IRA account, that they were a million dollars rich.

When a month on the far eastern side of Canada had expired, they returned home, and began searching for a nicer, more larger home, for when the time was right that they might want to conceive a child. Due to complications with Chelsea’s body, they weren’t able to conceive, so they considered adoption. Well, adoption didn’t play out, but both Luthers found that not having a child, or the responsibility to raise one was the best route to take.

They were 70 years of age and their love was stronger than ever. It was at this stage in life that they were settled into the house they had been searching for. They nestled into a nice, sizeable mansion off the highway and set up shop there. Life was great up until five years later when it went downhill.

They were both 75 when problems struck the Luther household. Chelsea developed a sharp pain in her left breast that demanded medical attention. He took her to the physician, and the doctor did a thorough examination on both bosoms. The news was devastating! She was diagnosed with cancer to the left breast, and that it would unstoppably spread throughout her body over the next few months. There wasn’t a treatment, and there was no way for her body to go into a remission. She was just too weak.

Johnny kept her on bed rest and attended to her every needs, and pains. He prayed over his sleeping beauty night after night. As the days and weeks turned into months, she was looking more and more pale, until she was admitted to the hospital that would ultimately be her death bed. Tragedy struck on October 7, 2007, when she lost her battle to the cancer cells. Johnny grieved for months and at times didn’t know how he would go on without her. He missed her greatly.

It was about ten years later when he fully recovered from the tears, and approximately fifteen years until he realized his life wasn’t what he thought it was. It is like I said earlier in the story; life isn’t always what you think it is or dream to be. Keep moving with me.

Johnny was now an elderly man and living alone. But the strange thing about it is that he was so much more fulfilled than he had ever been. He knew true love, and lived this life with his very best friend. She was still with him in the spirit, and he was up there with his parents watching over him and protecting him. His life was perfect, but also knew that it wasn’t fair all the time. This didn’t stop him. He was still young at heart, so he took advantage of his fairly healthy condition, and took up fishing on Saturdays.

The most enjoyable task of his was not the fishing itself entirely, but the consuming of it for dinner, and the fish fry sales that he made extra money on the side from. He was still with the IT company, but had been demoted due to a younger man straight out of college. He knew he was nearing the time where he would either have to go ahead and retire, or be forced to retire.

This is what happened a year later when he was 86. He was asked to put in his retirement and leave. He had run a good race with the firm, and now devoted all his time to either working around the mansion, or sitting in a chair by the pond catching his dinner. Occasionally he would light a cigarette, mostly for the sense of comfort and refreshment it gave him. He never once found the need to by liquor even though all signs in his life were pointing to his need to drink his sorrows away. He did some reading on occasion, mostly western novels. He enjoyed the gun battles and the dialogue that was so John Wayne that he fancied himself as one of the characters.

He talked on the phone to family every other day, and had lunch at times with his cousin. At nights he ate early dinners, and knocked out early for bed. This routine kept its course until he was 95, when his health began to slightly deteriorate. A rude awakening was just five years away. He visited the doctor repeatedly and every time he said the same thing; cut out the fried foods, and quit sleeping so much. He obeyed the doctor’s orders and threw back the fish once he caught them, and set the alarm for a specific time to wake him up.

He celebrated his 99th birthday with family, and this would be the last one. Did he die you ask? No, he didn’t. Like I said before, life is disappointing for some, and is not what they would expect. Sometimes dreams come true, and sometimes they don’t. People seek all their lives for the one thing that will fulfill them. Some find it, some never do. In Johnny Luther’s case, yes he did dream. It was the life everyone would want. He dreamed up a life of love and friendship with his beauty. He dreamed up a great job, with great salary. He dreamed up tragedy. He dreamed up great retirement benefits. He dreamed it all. Now the time had come a year later into his dream, right before his 100th birthday, for the extraterrestrial medicine to wear off and wake him up.

He remembers hearing a scream billow out from his belly. “MOMMY, DADDY, HELP ME! I WANT TO GO HOME!” He was wrapped violently in a large white cocoon and the alien beings numbered in the dozens as they stood all around him, staring into his terror filled eyes. He stared up at the bright lights and heard the raspy demonic voices speaking to each other. Then one of the beings approached the table he was lying on with a sharp object and an evil look to his face. Johnny screamed until it was drowned out by silence, and he was lying sprawled out on the ground in the woods down the street from his house staring up at the sky as the alien spacecraft or UFO raced up the earth’s sky and disappeared into the heavens.

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Review or comment on An Account of Johnny Luther –

Reviews:

Great story, a good part of it, until the end of page two, Johnny Luther sounds familiar I’m, sure to many of us, I wasn’t expecting the end as it was but it’s great, like it very much. – Liz 1/31/10