Sam and Johnny
Uncle Sam has his feet up on his desk when his assistant enters and plops a file in front of him. Uncle Sam straightens his bifocals and his brightly colored stovepipe hat and takes a gander at the file.
“What’s this O’Reilly?”
“Another
murder by your John Doe.
Uncle Sam’s eyes narrow.
“Just one. Get the carriage ready.”
O’Reilly leaves and Uncle Sam pins the latest file on the board behind him, next to clippings and lithographs of other similar murders. He shakes his head, a look of distress in his crinkled wrinkled eyes.
“Oh Johnny, what have you done now?”
000
On
a cold empty dirt road in
“Here comes Johnny Appleseed
If you want to live, take heed
Hide your children, hide your self
Or your head be on his shelf
If you hear that poor man comin’
Then, by God, you best start runnin’
Finish your will and sign your deeds
‘Cause here comes Johnny Appleseed.”
000
Uncle Sam and his assistant O’Reilly burst out of the CIA headquarters parking garage with their carriage and make their way west.
“So how do you know Johnny Appleseed, sir?”
“Oh we go way back, O’Reilly. Long before you were born, long before this great country was born, Johnny and I were grade school buddies. BFF’s.”
“Sir?”
“Best friends forever. You see, Johnny didn’t always used to be a sadistic mass-murdering killer.”
Uncle Sam leans back and strokes his big bushy beard, squinting out the sunroof of his roomy carriage.
“What are you doing sir?”
“I’m flashbacking, shut up.”
000
“The Year was 1776 and our country was in the throes of rebellion and revolution. Johnny and I were mere youths, so we knew nothing of the bloody hell erupting outside the comfortable cocoons of our childhood. Johnny was the dropout/stoner type. Nothing like his father. Johnny was always skipping out early to sneak to the nearest opium den, for a quick fix. I was the straight-laced scholarly one, that’s why I’m head of the CIA today.”
“Yes sir.”
“It was that spring of ’76 that we began to part ways. Johnny wore that saucepot on his head and started spending more time in the orchards. I started wearing a red white and blue stovepipe hat, growing my vibrantly white beard out and marched around town pointing at people and saying I wanted them. For what, I was not quite sure yet. But I knew it was something big. The last time I ever saw Johnny was the day of my high school graduation; it was supposed to be our high school graduation. He came back to congratulate me. But there was something different in his eye. A sinister glint. Little did I know it was that year that he began his trail of terror. From there he began planting trees and killing his way west. An apple tree and a murder a day. For thirty years. That’s nearly eleven thousand deaths.”
“And eleven thousand trees.”
“Yes
O’Reilly, but more importantly eleven thousand deaths. But no more, I shall end
Johnny Appleseed’s reign of murder now, before he kills his way into
“Good backstory sir.”
“Thank you, O’Reilly.”
000
Johnny Appleseed scratches his bare feet as he leans against a tall oak and tries to fall asleep. But the screams of his victims keep shaking him awake. The rain patters down through the branches onto his saucepot hat and with each crack of lightning, another victim flashes before Johnny’s eyes. An older man in a three-piece suit, dragged from his carriage. A housewife in a busy town square, snatched and thrown into a dark alley. A schoolboy walking home, his textbooks strewn across the path behind him. A young girl with pigtails, strangled in her own backyard. All with shocked expressions and an apple in their mouth. Johnny Appleseed begins to cackle loudly into the night and finally falls asleep.
000
The
carriage enters
Uncle Sam smiles.
“You’re new O’Reilly. The apples in the mouth? The apple trees growing adjacent to the bodies? It’s clear as day, my boy.”
O’Reilly thinks for a moment.
“What if it’s a copycat, sir?”
“O’Reilly,
this is the first mass murderer in the history of
“Maybe somebody wants to frame Johnny Appleseed for all these murderers. Did Mr. Appleseed have any enemies, sir?”
Uncle Sam shrugs.
“Perhaps the relatives of all his victims.”
O’Reilly looks sullen, Uncle Sam keeps going.
“But you may be onto something there young man, perhaps Johnny didn’t do these killings at all. Perhaps it was some Loyalist rabblerouser trying to sully the good name of Appleseed.”
O’Reilly perks up.
“You really think so sir?”
Uncle Sam sinks back into the plush carriage seat.
“I’d believe anything at this point, O’Reilly. Perhaps he didn’t do it at all.”
000
Johnny Appleseed is beating a latenight straggler with his sack of apples and the man’s screams are interrupted only by the sick thud of the murderer’s fruit. After finishing the job he plants a seed into the bloody dirt in the middle of the trail and continues on his way, whistling a tune. Once he gets out of earshot, the beaten man opens his eyes and groans.
000
Uncle Sam and O’Reilly pull up at the murder scene where a black man in his twenties is lying dead by a thick apple tree already dropping its fruit. Local constables are on the case when Sam and O’Reilly approach the scene and O’Reilly gasps.
“My God, it’s a hate crime!”
He elbows one of the chubby constables.
“You didn’t tell me he was black!”
The constable squints and turns to his partner, pointing a thumb back at O’Reilly.
“Who’s this goomba?”
Uncle Sam leans down smiling and shakes his hand.
“Detective Uncle Samuel Wilson, CIA. And O’Reilly, this wasn’t a hate crime. Johnny doesn’t see things in terms of color.”
The other constable steps forward.
“Who’s this Johnny character youse guys is talkin’ about?”
O’Reilly rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, sure. I don’t see in terms of color either. Very ahead of my time…but this guy is black.”
The first constable pulls out a notepad.
“You know who killed this moolie there Detective?”
Uncle Sam becomes annoyed.
“No O’Reilly, I mean he’s colorblind. Johnny can’t see color at all. It’s all another shade of gray to him.”
The second constable gets excited.
“Is it Johnny Rockefeller? John Rockefeller’s boy? That’d be pretty sweet.”
O’Reilly looks down at the dead black man.
“Wow, that’s really sad. Can’t see color.”
Uncle Sam nods solemnly.
“Yeah it is. It reminds me of the time I first found out about it when we were still in grade school, when Johnny still was in school. I was the first person Johnny ever told about it, nobody else knew.”
Uncle Sam begins stroking his beard again and gazes up at the falling rising moon. The first constable pulls out a baton and holds it over his head.
“Don’t you go flashing back on me Detective!”
000
“We snuck out late one night, a clear night like tonight, and we made our way to the Old Maid’s mansion on the top of Hughes Hill, lanterns in hand. I’d never dared make it this far, but Johnny wanted to go further; he wanted to go inside, down to the basement where the Old Maid kept children in cages. Supposedly. We found a back window open, climbed in and found our way downstairs; looked around, no kids, just an unusually large collection of multi-colored bottles. Then at the top of the stairs, the Old Maid. I turned to Johnny, shockwhite, and screamed, ‘Throw the green bottle at her!’ He looked down at all the bottles before him and panicked. He just froze until the Old Maid got her hands on us both.”
“Oh my God! What did she do to you?”
“Threw us out. Anyway, it was there at that moment that Johnny came out and told me he was colorblind.”
“Wow, that must’ve been really emotional.”
“It was. We hugged and cried together until the sun came up that morning.”
“Did he hug you like this?”
“Get off me!”
“Will you two knuckleheads stop foolin’ around and fill us in on this Johnny guy?”
Uncle Sam straightens his stovepipe hat.
“That would be Johnny Appleseed.”
One of the constables looks at the other one and back.
“As in Vice President Appleseed?”
Uncle Sam nods.
“Yes, I’m afraid the apple fell far from the seed in this case. Now about this dead black guy…”
000
Johnny
Appleseed’s latest victim gets up and staggers down the path, avoiding the
small sapling rising up from his resting place. He wanders toward the nearest
“I’ve just been beaten savagely by a pothead!”
The clerk shoots up out of his chair.
“Good
lord! Dope fiends in
The victim, Arnie Stang, shakes his head.
“No, he actually had a pot on his head.”
The clerk sits back down and shoots back up again.
“Good
God! Men wearing pots for hats in
Arnie bleeds alittle on the counter.
“It was actually on the outskirts of town.”
The clerk sits and bolts upright one more time.
“Good
gracious! Men wearing pots for hats in the greater
Arnie holds up a finger.
“More importantly, he attempted to beat me to death.”
Before Arnie can finish, the clerk is at the door staring back at him, steely-eyed.
“I’m on the case.”
“Are you even a real police officer?”
“Not yet.”
And he’s gone, out the door with a whoosh.
000
Uncle Sam and O’Reilly are back in their carriage and following Johnny’s trail further west. Careening down a dirt path at 60mph, the horses screech to a halt at the sight of a full-grown apple tree in the middle of the road. Uncle Sam sniffs the air.
“He’s close.”
They get out of the carriage to inspect the crime scene, but only find the tree and a small pool of blood underneath.
“What the devil?”
“What is it, boss?”
“There’s no body here, O’Reilly.”
“Maybe he killed…the tree.”
“The tree isn’t dead, O’Reilly.”
“Maybe it’s dead on the inside.”
“Shut
up, look at these tracks. They go back to the town we just passed through.”
“Let’s investigate!”
“Yeah we’re going to, just don’t be so lame about it.”
000
The clerk, Tommy Thomson, and Arnie Stang make their way through the dark woods, trying to cut Johnny Appleseed off at the pass. Tommy has nothing to protect them besides a lantern and a ‘beating stick’ used by most law enforcement officers and schoolteachers of the day.
“He’s
going to have to head through the
000
“Maybe I can explain, Samuel.”
Uncle Sam looks up, shocked.
“Johnathan, what are you doing here?”
Johnny takes a step out of the shadows.
“I turned back.”
Uncle Sam looks distressed and disappointed as O’Reilly cautiously backs up toward the carriage.
“Why did you do it Johnny? All of it.”
“Well, I love apples, you knew that Sam.”
“No, the killings.”
“Oh riiiight, the killings, the killings. I can’t explain it Sam. I took the wrong path, you took the right one.”
“We still have a chance to correct all this.”
Johnny’s eyes light up.
“Time machine?”
“No, you come with us and turn yourself in.”
“Rats. I was hopin’ you were gonna say time machine.”
Uncle Sam turns around to see the carriage peeling out and heading back east.
“O’Reilly! Where are you going?!”
He yells out the back window, “I’m scared!”
Uncle Sam kicks the dirt as his carriage fades away in the darkness. He turns back to see Johnny Appleseed fleeing but quickly catches up to him with his long lanky legs and tackles him.
“Stop running, Johnny! No more running.”
Just then, Tommy Thomson shines his lantern on the two men and Arnie shouts, “That’s him! And that other man must be his accomplice. Get them!”
Uncle Sam picks up Johnny and pushes him, yelling, “Run!”
000
Arnie and Tommy struggle through the brush of the Sycamore trees and Tommy shines the lantern ahead as he grumbles at Arnie, “Why’d you have to go and yell at them, we had them man! That could’ve been my first perp!”
“You weren’t gonna catch him, all you’ve got is that beating stick.”
“Just shut up. I think I heard something.”
“…you shut up.”
000
Hiding behind a log at Tommy’s feet, in a foxhole are Sam and Johnny huddled together, holding their collective breath until the police clerk and Johnny’s latest victim move on. Johnny sighs and Sam elbows him.
“Now look what you’ve gotten us into. You’ve got the head of the CIA on the run from the police.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Congratulations.”
“Well, thanks. I was so freaked when I got the word, I nearly—No, wait. Look. We’ve gotta turn you in, it’s the only way. I’m sorry Johnny.”
“No, I’m sorry Sam.”
Uncle Sam smiles as they get up out of the mossy mud.
“Well that’s a good start, Johnny. Apologizing is difficult, I know. But it’s important to—wait, what are you doing with that sack? Don’t!”
THUD
000
Uncle Sam opens his eyes, shackled in a small room and Tommy Thomson jumps out of his seat.
“He’s up! He’s up! Get in here!”
Sam is incredulous.
“What are you doing? I’m the head detective for the CIA. I demand you release me at once!”
The two rotund constables from before waddle in and throw up their hands in exasperation.
“Thomson, you moron. This is Uncle Sam. He’s on the case. He’s on our side.”
“I’m above your side. I run your side. I own your side, now release me at once.”
One of the constables unshackles him and Uncle Sam stands up, his knees cracking.
“Sorry about all this, Sammy. I heard we had an Appleseed sighting earlier tonight?”
Sam glares at Tommy.
“Yes, I was lying on top of him. He was detained until somebody showed up, screaming all over the place.”
The other constable looks around.
“Where’d your fruity little lackey boy go?”
Sam smirks.
“He
went screaming, too. Back to
“Do you remember which way Mr. Appleseed went after he hit you?”
“After he knocked me unconscious with a sack of apples? Sorry, can’t recall.”
000
Johnny
Appleseed is shrouded in the back of Uncle Sam’s stagecoach as O’Reilly races
back to
“H-Hello? Who’s there?”
Johnny has a mad look in his eye as he replies, “Nobody here but us apples.”
O’Reilly sighs in relief, “Oh, just apples.”
Then he swerves the carriage off the road and into a gulley as the horses neigh angrily. He fumbles around clumsily in the dark for a blunt object but to no avail as he’s cracked over the head by Johnny’s sack. Johnny gets into the driver’s seat, takes the reins and kicks them into gear, continuing east with O’Reilly in the backseat.
000
Uncle
Sam is wedged in the back of the constables’ considerably smaller carriage,
being pulled by one elderly donkey. Thomson is hunched down on Sam’s right and
the two wide constables both have one cheek on the front seat, the rest hanging
off the sides. The trees rush by as the constables take a little-known shortcut
back east. Hours later they reach
“They’re in my monument!”
Uncle Sam pats the General on the back and bursts into the Monument, bounding to the top three steps at a time. He reaches the peak, where Johnny is holding O’Reilly pressing a sack of apples to the young assistant’s head.
“I’ll do it! Don’t think I won’t do it!”
“Please, Johnny. Don’t make me do this.”
Johnny looks alittle nervous and asks, “Do what Samuel?”
Uncle Sam reaches into his red and white striped pants and pulls out a long black pistol. He points it at a disbelieving Johnny who nearly drops his sack.
“What is that?”
“It’s a weapon the government’s been working on for decades. They call it a glock. And it’s going to end all this. Now it’s not supposed to hurt, it’s just supposed to stun the criminal into submission.”
“Just be careful.”
Uncle Sam fires once and the bullet grazes O’Reilly’s ear and puts a hole in the wooden Monument, which creaks and groans with the blast.
O’Reilly starts to whimper. Uncle Sam looks at the gun and points it again.
“Lemme just try this one more time, I think I got the hang of it now.”
Suddenly the entire Monument shudders, quakes and begins to fall. The crowd screams and scatters as the Monument falls and Johnny Appleseed and Uncle Sam hold each other close.
“I love you Johnathan!”
“I love you Samuel!”
The two constables and Tommy Thomson look up, helpless, as the Monument crashes down on top of them.
000
As the sawdust clears and the bodies are looked over, there is only one survivor. The two constables and Tommy were dead on impact. O’Reilly is crushed underneath Uncle Sam, who is frozen with a single arm pointing at Johnny Appleseed, a stern look on his face. It is this deathstare that has been made famous in millions of posters and advertisements, asking young men to go die for our country. It was his last vain attempt to finger the Apple Tree Killer, as he was the last remaining man who knew the killer’s identity.
Johnny
Appleseed survived the crash, his sack of apples breaking his fall. He was
given a key to the city by a sullen General Washington, who immediately ordered
the construction of a new
Johnny used the key to the city to unlock doors and kill half the citizens of the nation’s capital. His story has been turned into a fable for children, reminding that “an apple a day keeps the serial killers away.”
As
he left the conquered town of
“There goes Johnny Appleseed
The man Uncle Sam could not defeat
Sam took his identity to the grave
And now
There goes Johnny killin’ and
hummin’
His victims never gonna hear him
comin’
They’ll be runnin’ ‘cross the apple
orchards at full speed
‘Cause there goes Johnny Appleseed.”
000
And
thus goes the story of Sam and Johnny.