Johnny Mac
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Johnny scratched at the weeds around the rows of pea vines. It was starting this morning, and nothing was being done to stop it. Hank had been drinking, and now he was starting on Little Tommy. "Honest Hank, I did what you told me!" Johnny knew the scenario. Hank would find something wrong with what he had told him to do. He would accuse him of being lazy, or just disrespectful. It didn’t matter. Eventually, when he had his reason, he would take off his belt and the exercise on the boy would begin. Johnny scratched at the dirt, and his anger mounted as his brother pleaded not to be hit. "I’m sorry, Hank, please . . . don’t hit me!" Johnny looked to the house. He could see his mother peering through the curtains and crying. They had been home almost a year, and not once had she intervened. Johnny could hear his brother’s pleadings coming from the barn. He knew she could hear them, too. "Please, Hank. I did what you said . . . Don’t Hank! Please!" He watched as Vera shut the window curtain and walked away. ‘It ain’t right,’ he thought to himself. "Why don’t she do something?" Johnny grumbled as he dug into the earth. "He ought to stop it. It ain’t fair!" "Don’t, Hank! . . . Please!" Johnny looked to the barn. As soon as his brother was reduced to bruises, it would be his turn. He looked to the window. "Shit! She’s as scared as we are! It ain’t right!" Johnny gouged at the same hole over and over as he listened to the screams from the barn. Suddenly he stopped. "Why should I wait for it? Why should I let him do this to us if she ain’t goin’ to do nothin’?" He threw down the hoe and ran toward the barn. With each step, he feared for his brother more than for what Hank would do to him. "It ain’t fair," he repeated again and again to give himself courage. When he reached the barn door, the screaming had stopped. Hank stood several feet away. He was panting hard, and he clutched the familiar black belt in his right hand. Sweat poured from him profusely. In front of him lay Little Tommy. His face and shoulders were red with newly drawn blood. Tommy did not move. The scene so upset him that any fear he had of Hank was overwhelmed by hatred. And, to arouse the same hatred in Hank, Johnny screamed, "You bastard! . . . you bastard! . . . I hate you! . . . I hate . . . your bastard guts!" Hank turned toward him and re-gripped the belt as he prepared to put it to use. In self-defense, Johnny picked up the closest object at hand. As Hank came toward him, he raised the stick; and, with eyes closed, ran at Hank waving the stick in front of him. He felt it scrape him here, then there, and, as he opened his eyes, he gave his last effort with a single plunge. Hank fell back, and Johnny realized that he had struck him with a four-pronged, heavy-duty pitchfork. The prongs were lodged in his throat and shoulder. Hank staggered back and forth. First he was down, and then he was up on his knees, always unsuccessfully trying to remove the object from his throat. Johnny watched in horror as the grotesque figure screamed and reeled in pain. He could not take his eyes from the streaks of blood, which ran down the length of his torso and formed a ring around his belt line. While watching his attempt to gain release from the fork, Johnny felt a release of frustration and rallied with excitement at what he saw. Then, as though he had found the source of his misery, Hank turned and came at him, always reaching out, but never able to grasp him. Johnny lurched from him as the freakish thing reached out for him. Then, while attempting to run from it, he tripped over the body of his brother. The hideous form of Hank fell on him. Johnny screamed. He could not bear it, but felt it coming for his throat as he wrestled in the hay with the bloody form of Hank and his brother. Back and forth they rolled until Johnny got a footing and stepped out of Hank’s reach. He looked down and saw that he was standing on his brother’s face. He ran around Hank, who was just getting to his knees, and into the fields of corn which flanked the barn. As he ran, he could feel the cool breeze dry the matted blood and mud on his face. Tall cornstalks beat at his face and cut into him as he ran in and out of the rows of corn. The terror of what he had just been a part of was foremost in his mind. Then the ground angled downward; the cornstalks became fewer and smaller; the earth became soft and slushy, and he knew the river and swamp were close by. When he reached the river’s edge, he stood for a long time feeling his body shake and quiver. The longer he stood, the more apparent it became to him that he was losing control of himself. He bolted his arm straight out in front of him and watched as his bloody hands and fingers trembled uncontrollably before him. He wrapped them around his body to stop the shaking. Then he began to laugh and cry, cry and laugh, and then he fell into the water to cleanse the dirt and filth he felt inside.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
I met Johnny Mac when he was a young man. Over a period of time, we became friends and he began to share his story with me. Johnny Mac’s life exploded against the backdrop of the peaceful Heartland of America. When he was ten years old, his alcoholic mother dropped Johnny and his little brother off at an orphanage shortly after their father had abandoned the family. Years later, she would reappear to snuff out the life they had managed to piece together and return Johnny and his little brother "home" to live with her and her sadistic lover. After witnessing one particularly brutal whipping of his little brother, Johnny struck out at his mother’s lover; that violent act cost Johnny years on the run from the law. Armed only with the name of one relative in California and the wild hunch that somehow he would find his father there, Johnny hitchhiked West working odd jobs and sleeping in Mission flophouses along the way. On the road, he encountered the bizarre, the brutal and the beautiful. He was assaulted by a sexual predator in Arkansas and befriended by a grieving father who maintained a macabre shrine to his dead son. Eventually, Johnny Mac arrived in California where he met his aunt, who helped him put together the shocking pieces of his family puzzle. I have always believed Johnny Mac’s story was too interesting and moving not to be told. Over the years, I retained my notes and had even drafted the outline of his tale. Recently, Johnny gave me the green light to publish a novel based on his story. It tells of the very best and worst that can happen. I hope you find it as compelling as I do. J.K.P.
About the Author
Although this is John Probst’s first novel, he has been a prolific writer and composer throughout his life. John has composed numerous choral compositions and has recently authored a mass based on famous Gregorian chants with varying rhythms. John’s professional life has always been as a teacher. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor and Masters Degrees, John began his teaching career in various parochial high schools throughout the Bay Area. His expertise was in the fields of music, drama and English. In 1980, John became an instructor of fine arts at Feather River College in Quincy, California, where he continues today teaching a wide spectrum of classes in music, drama, English, film and philosophy. As part of his drama instruction, John has directed numerous stage productions ranging from Shakespeare plays, dramatic presentations, to musicals like The Sound of Music. John has also authored and directed two of his own full-length plays, Environmental Alternatives and Abuse. John, who is widowed, has four children, four grandchildren, and resides in Quincy.