For Memorial Day.

Johnny Moore

“Hot Banana Cocoa.”

The first time I encountered Johnny Moore, he was standing outside of Bert’s Market wearing basketball shorts that reached down to the middle of his calves. He had on knee-high black socks that reached up damn near to his thighs and a pair of dirty white running sneakers. He adorned himself with a brown, oversized Gatsby cap, an oversized baby-blue North Carolina Tar Heels basketball jersey worn over a dirty white t-shirt. He was standing near the entrance doors. He stood about 5’6”. Frail and lanky, his hair was a tussled salt and pepper gray and he always featured an unshaven stubble across his face. He lacked a good number of teeth and usually gummed what he ate. His blue eyes constantly squinting, if not blinking non-stop, behind a pair of thin framed glasses. It was 4 o’clock in the morning and most of Folly Beach was asleep. In fact, the only sound heard as I continued to sweep the parking lot in front of the store, as part of my 3^rd shift ritual, was the music coming from inside the store and the violent cursing and spitting coming from Johnny Moore as he stood there pacing, gesturing and arguing with himself just outside the entry door to Bert’s. He obviously forgot to take his medication again.

 Johnny Moore was a Folly Beach staple. Most remember him as being a strange character. Some even considered him to be a nuisance. Perhaps a thief. A possible drug addict and a borrower of money never to be repaid. He was frequently seen riding around the streets of our community on his beach cruiser dangerously dodging in and out of the Center Street traffic as if they it was his personal bike park and everyone should oblige to his maneuverings.  

But what most people didn’t know about Johnny, or simply didn’t’ care to learn about him was that he served his country. While the country was in turmoil and going thru one of its most violent era’s, while it debated and protested our involvement in a skirmish a country and a continent away, Johnny Moore, straight out of high school and moved only by his over-whelming sense of duty and immense pride for his country, volunteered to take up arms for her cause. He wasn’t sure what the cause was. He wasn’t sure why we were there in the first place. He just knew his country was in turmoil of some sort and he answered her call and while he didn’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country and while doing what he thought was his patriotic duty didn’t cost him his life, it did cost Johnny Moore 'The Life'. The life many of us lead and cherish. The Life many of us take for granted on a daily basis. The Life Johnny Moore would never know because when he was done settlling his obligations to his country after putting his life's aspirations and pursuits on hold and to the side so he could do so, his country, when done with his service’s, returned Johnny back to his community but with only half of his mental capacity intact, dependent on prescription drugs and poor resources or assistance to help him regain the life he once had and one day hoped to lead again.

            While most people would shun Johnny or ask him to move on whenever he showed up, working the graveyard shift at a 24 hour beachside convenient store could get quite boring and slow so rather than chase him away, whenever Johnny would suddenly show up at all hours of the morning, I would tradewith Johnny. In return for all the free coffee he could consume as well as a free pastry which I would purchase for him, he would share with me one of his stories from his time in Vietnam. Though I introduced myself to him more times than I care to recount, as Joel, Johnny Moore, through our entire acquaintance, continued to refer to me as No-ell. One morning, as I found myself restacking the cigarettes, Johnny Moore entered, excited; “Noel! Noel! Guess what? I invented Hot Banana Cocoa! I invented Hot Banana Cocoa!” Intrigued, I turned, pointed to the coffee dispenser indicating to Johnny to help himself. Then, setting the last pack of cigarettes into its slot, I got comfortable on the stool behind the counter, took a sip from my bottled water, looked at over at my excited friend and asked him “Johnny. What in the hell are you talking about?” Stirring his cup of coffee, Johnny looked up smiling and began to speak.

 

Johnny set his coffee down to the side. Then, with his hands clasped and shoulders positioned forward, Johnny rested his elbows on the counter and began his anecdote regarding his brilliant discovery of hot banana cocoa.

“I thought of it when I was in Vietnam.” he explained.  “Ya’ see I was on patrol with my corporal, Hambone. We called him that cause he was from North Carolina and the boy loved him some ham hocks. Well, we was taking a break and we was tired and hungry so we stopped to drink us some water and take a bite from our C-rations.  I got me some frank and beans and I hate frank and beans so I opened the can and dumped ‘em out.  Then, I dug me a little hole in the ground and I burned me some C4 in it. Just a little bit cuz C4 burns real, real hot and a lil’ bit will burn hotter than hell. So, I makes me my hot cocoa from my C-rations and I pour it into my canteen cup. So, I’s sittin’ there in the middle of the banana grove with Hambone just stirrin’ my hot cocoa waitin’ for it to cool down when Hambone and me…we hear us a noise. Like, leaves movin’. So we look at each other and we picks up our rifles real, real slow like.”

Johnny Moore is no longer standing just a couple of feet from the counter of an empty 24-hour beachside convenience store. He is now in the late 1960’s in the dank, dark jungles of Vietnam gesturing to, what would seem to anyone else, a freezer filled with pints of ice cream but to Johnny Moore, however, and now myself as I find myself surprisingly ensnared by the passion of his delivery, a stand up freezer no longer exists. Instead there are two squads of Vietcong, hiking down a slope headed our way.

“We get’s up real slow like and we can see ‘em now. About 30-40 yards away from us. Two flanks coming right towards us. So, Hambone goes to the right and I go to the left and they getting real close now. And we ain’t tryin’ to be no hero’s. We just hopin’ they pass us right on by without seeing either one of us when all a sudden I hear me a loud... SNAP! I look to the Viet Cong and they stop like they statues. They freeze. Then I look over to Hambone and put my finger up to my mouth to tell ‘em to “Be quiet, man!” But when I look over to Hambone, he’s already lookin’ over ta’ me. And all I see is the white of his eyes. And he’s looking right at me. Now, I’d already seen two soldiers die in my arms by that time and they both had this...uh, look...in they eyes like they was surprised to be dyin’.  They eyes was wide open but they mouths was kind’a smilin’. Like it wasn’t for real what was happenin’ to them. When I heard that branch snap and Iooked over to Hambone, he had that look except it was so dark, I couldn’t tell to see if he was smilin’. But, I knew he was. He looked at me and then he slowly turned his head, just starin’ straight ahead till BOOM!!! A big explosion blew his head clean off.  And then they was two more big explosions. Boom. BOOM!! And all I could make out was the shadow of his body with no head folding forward, then backward and then on the third explosion he just went all over the place. And that’s all I seen cause after that third explosion, I got blown away too. Waaay back. It threw me so far back I ended up in the middle of some deep bush buried undah’ some big ol’ leaves and fallen trees and other shit that it took me about a half hour the next morning,  just to dig myself out. I tried to walk but I was so dizzy I was stumblin’ and trippin’ over everything. I couldn’t find my rifle or anything. There was a goddamn ringing in my ear that wouldn’t stop and my body still felt like, real numb all over. Smoke was still hanging all over the place from the explosion the night ba’foe and I started to remember what happen. I dragged myself back to where me and Hambone had stopped the night ba’foe and that’s when I figured it out. Hambone done set off a boobie trap. The Viet Cong they would set up these trip wires, ya’ see, about ankle high off the ground. It was like fishin’ wire so they was kinda’ hard to spot. So, then, they would run the wire along the ground and up along a tree about eye-ball high and they would attach the wire to the rings of three grenades one about three inches above the other. When the wire on the ground got tripped it would pull on the wire all the way up along the tree and pull off the rings of the grenades making them live. Hambone done tripped the wire.

After I realized what had happened, I began to wonder how come nuttin’ didn’t happen to me. I mean, I got blown away too! Them grenades blew up in front o’ me too and they didn’t do nuttin’ to me. I looked down at my chest right, cause I had this vest right? This homemade vest I made myself out of M-60 machine gun shells. I sewed them into my vest and it covered me everywhere from my chest down to my crotch area. I looked down and all I seen was pieces…lots and lots of pieces of shrapnel all over my vest. I had foe’ grenades on my vest and they had shrapnel coming out of them, too! I don’t know why they didn’t explode. They should’a exploded! Foe’ grenades covered in nothin’ but shrapnel but not a one exploded.  If I didn’t have that vest on I would’a ended up just like Hambone. Man, Noel, I was so happy I made that vest I was huggin’ it and rubbin’ it I was so happy. So, I start comin’ to, and not so dizzy and so I start lookin’ all over myself to make sure I ain’t cut or nuthin’. I’m still feelin’ kind’a numb so I’s  look over here to my left and I couldn’t see my arm and I start screamin’ “My arm! My arm! Oh shit where’s my arm?!” and I start reaching over spinnin’ in a circle trying to feel foe’ my arm like a damn dog chasin’ his tail and I’s yellin’ “Where’s my goddamn arm?!” and I’s just getting ready to start crying like a little baby when I see that my sleeve done got caught on my ammunition belt towards the backside of my waist and that’s why I couldn’t see my arm. So, I unhook my sleeve and I look around. It’s morning, the sun’s up and they flies everywhere. They’s birds cawin’ and busted trees and big banana leaves everywhere. I start walkin’ around lookin’ for my rifle when I stop, I look down and I start laughin’. You know why I’m laughin’ Noel? Cause them explosions that killed Hambone knocked a whole mess a banana’s from the trees and right there in front o’me, on the ground, is my canteen cup filled with hot cocoa just the way I left it the night before.  And right there in the middle of my cup of cocoa is a banana stickin’ out of it and that’s when it hit me Noel; Hot banana cocoa!”

NOTE: For the record, this blogger has tried Hot Banana Cocoa and I must say; the man was on to something. But, then of course, I also engage in drinking pints of Guinness after dropping a shot-glass of tequila into it.
One summer afternoon, Johnny Moore was seen having one of his bouts with himself, once again, neglecting to take his medications. Frightened tourists called the police who in turn, put Johnny into the back of one of their vehicles and drove him somewhere off  of Folly Beach, never to be seen on the island again.
The last time I saw Johnny Moore, I was stuck in traffic on Folly Road in James Island and there, about four horn-blowing cars in front of me, was Johnny Moore zig-zagging on his bike in and out between idle vehicles, turning back and laughing as he continued to move on, while we sat there waiting for the light to turn green.