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John Boy
by Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16

John Boy was slick and smooth, always. The kid never seemed to care about anything but the sticks of nicotine he kept laced and lit between his lips. There was a certain nobility in that; he may not give a damn about anyone or anything, but he was a stark figure of silence and honesty, and I respected that. He worked on my daddy’s farm, John Boy did, but no one knew where he came from. He simply appeared one day, and life changed itself just enough for everyone to forget he had not always been a part of it.

We spent many an afternoon together, watching the sunset or talking—though I did most of that, him being so silent and all—or just sharing a smoke. I remember one night in particular; I was in a bit of a mood, and we got on to talking about, of all things, courage. I told him I heard about a man who stood up to an armed robber once, in a convenience store, and I said I thought that was pretty much a real act of courage, right there. But he shook his head and quietly disagreed.

“No,” he said, slowly but intensely. “That’s not courage; that’s life. You gotta do things like that to maintain yourself, and what’s important to you, but it’s not bravery if you’re risking death to save yourself some cash. That’s just greed, and I am very scornful of greed.” He shrugged.

I thought about that for a moment. It made a sort of sense, but it felt wrong at the same time. So I asked him what he thought courage was then, if it wasn’t that. He laughed harshly, inhaling the smoke of his cigarette almost desperately, like maybe he was hoping it would understand, like maybe he already gave up on me. The silence dragged.

“World peace,” he finally said, articulating the separate words distinctly and deliberately. He spoke liquidly and repeated himself because it sounded so good. “World peace.” It echoed in my skull, that phrase, reverberating, repeating, over and over. World peace, world peace, world peace; then nothing. Silence again.

I shook my head and broke the spell. “No,” I countered, thoughtfully, deductively. Peace isn’t courage, John. It…it’s just peace.” I shook my head again, unable to explain, the concept too obvious.

“Sure it is, kid. It takes guts standing up for something like that, because you know,” he continued in a torrent of animation, “you know it’s a lost cause, because you gotta know. You can’t care enough if you don’t. But because you know when you start that no matter what, you’re going to fail, you got to have guts. It’s horrible scary to see you might be wasting your whole life, but if you’re brave enough you can see that it’s alright because you’re sacrificing yourself for humanity. But even when you know that’s the truth, it’s hard to make yourself believe it. You see that, George?” He asked the question distractedly, forgetting until that moment that I was sitting with him.
I nodded thoughtfully. “I never thought about it like that before,” I admitted,” but I reckon it’s true all the same.”

I could see in his eyes he approved of that. “You’re a good kid, George. I thought you would see that.” A silence fell over us then, just as the clouds were pulled across the dying sun. Suddenly John turned back to me and asked, “Are you in, George?”

I didn’t know what he meant. “In what?” I asked.
“In…,” he trailed off, searching for words. “In,” he repeated, decisively this time. “In for world peace.”

And as I sat there with him watching the sun bleed out its last traces of life and light, I absorbed his words on a different plane of being, and I felt them moving about deep inside of me: volatile catalysts shifting the foundations of my soul.
And I said yes.