John Patrick Goham

My buddy Johnny was fast. Faster than a school bus even. Because one day gettin’ outta school the bus driver had a problem with my buddy. And he wouldn’t let him on the bus home.

A few of us guys squawked about Johnny gettin’ the bums rush but it didn’t do no good. The bus driver called the shots. He closed them folding doors and went on his way.

So did Johnny.

Our high school was about a mile-and-a-half away if you were driving the streets to our bus stop. We got off and on Bus 15 in front of the Lincoln Elementary School on Defoe Street in Pittston.

It wasn’t a straight shot from one school to the other. The bus hadda make a few turns and hit a few stop signs before it got to the four-lane bypass where it could get going pretty good before it hit a red light and made a couple more turns.

But there were other ways of getting home.

Once we thought we saw Johnny runnin’ through the woods like a deer. But then he just disappeared.

He could do things like that.

The bus pulled up the street where it let us off every day. And then we saw Johnny for real.

Leanin’ against the wall. Smokin’ a cig.

Johnny didn’t throw the bus driver the finger. He didn’t smile. He just looked at him. In silence. And took another drag off his Newport.

We were goin’ nuts on the bus. When we got off we went over to him and he probably told us something like this, “No, Morgie. Guy wants to gimme a hard time? Okay. Let ‘im. He ain’t gonna bust my balls. He ain’t gettin' one over on me.”

And then he’d laugh that crazy laugh.

Me and Morgie and Smokin’ Joe Dennis were on that bus every day. The three of us were friends with Johnny since Kindergarten in that very same building where Johnny waited for me and Bus 15 every morning before high school.

When we got the news about John Goham’s death last week, me and Morgie had the same thoughts. We couldn’t talk. We wouldn’t have been able to talk right then and there. We had to wait a day and let some pain subside.

That’s how things go after 57 years of friendship. That’s how it is with me and Morgie and Smokin’ Joe.

And was with Johnny Goham.

I sat on my chair for five hours last night trying to think of something to say. I have so many stories about John that it was tough to pick a few and make them paint a nice picture. When Morgie reminded me of the day Johnny outran the bus, it was perfect.

I’ve said goodbye to other friends. None as close to me as John Goham was. We liked to sit out at night by a fire and look for wonder in things we couldn’t see. Because the things we could see, well.. sometimes they weren’t all that wondrous.

He used to sing me this song back in the 80s. The line he liked most was “Vanish in the air, you’ll never find me.”

Because, like I said, he could do things like that.

It’s agonizing for me and everyone who loved Johnny to know that he’s gone. Gone is not a word I favor. I’d rather think of him as vanished, capable of reappearing now and then through spots and signs and puckish spirits.

In parks. Near pine trees. And bus stops.