Johnny boy: this one is too looong

Johnny boy and I quickly became friends. We lived next to each other and were together almost all the time. In the mornings, I would knock on his door to wake him up. If it wasn't for me, he'd be late for all his classes. I felt shy knocking on his door because I thought his roommate would think I was in love with him. He probably did. But I cared too much for him to care about the roommate.
Then we'd walk to campus.
He would skip and sing with almost a childish melody:
Gooooooood morning Mr. Sunshine
Gooooooood morning Mr. Plante
Gooooooood morning Mr. Fungus.
Every time he said “gooooood”, I would laugh out loud. It was a game. We were walking among the trees and he sang to them all. He explained words such as “plante” and “fungus” to me. He was very animated.
And then he would say: Come on Negster, sing along.
I was too shy.
Once, he told me he would not speak to me if I didn't sing! He hummed a tune and said, talk on this melody.. Say whatever you want, just with this melody!
I was too shy.
I liked him so much and felt so comfortable I wanted to let my clown out. It would not come out. It was an even more uncomfortable clown back then.
We almost always ate together without ever having agreed upon it. There was a lovely anxiety around each meal, waiting for his melodic knock on my door. It almost never failed. He'd be at the door, with his usual smile and the brown wooden necklace around his neck, looking sharp.
We had very long conversations, very emotional or philosophical at times, and I tried hard to sound intelligent in English. Sometimes I'd go to my room at nights frustrated, with tears in my eyes because I felt like I sounded like an 8 year old. My thoughts were mature, my language was not; but Johnny boy didn't seem to care.
He wrote a poem in Greek for his dad’s birthday. I secretly suspected it was crap(!) and thought how estranged his dad probably felt that his son couldn’t speak his native language. He loved his mom and his mom would come and take him home every weekend. His mom reminded me of Iranian moms. I never met her. Her name,I knew, was Vanessa.
For me, Johnny boy was a window into a new world. One day he came to my room and announced: "this room needs music". We started some sort of pop- musical education: He taught me who Dave Mathew’s band and Sara McLaughlin were. He blushed at the lyrics of Adia because he said it was about Lesbian love. He had “sharm”. That was what I loved about him.
He wanted to convince me that Jesus was right. We had never ending conversations about god and Christianity, and that was the only thing I didn't like much about being with him.
I was too unaware to have formed anything sexual for him. I think he may have "liked" me though. I remember his heart beat really fast one time when we took a picture, just the two of us.
As for me, I remember one evening, when I walked to the lab and saw him passing a notebook to another girl. Just that, and my heart stopped beating for a moment and I was upset that entire night. I couldn't believe he could have a friend, especially a girl, without my knowing. I never told him that. I just imagined that whole night away. I was 19.
He knew maman gorgani, all my Sara's, and all my family, or my tribe, as he would call them.
The night before one of our finals, he came to my room and wanted to stay up all night to study. I never stayed up at nights, so at some point I told him, you continue, I'll sleep.
When I woke up, he was still there, in my room. He told me I slept with my eyes open and talked and scared the shit out of him.
I had never felt so close to anyone in America.
He almost carried me home one day when I had taken one too many shot of DayQuill in the morning on an empty stomach and was about to faint."Negster is drunk on DayQuill " he sang all the way home from class.
Everyone thought we were “dating”. We were not.
It was a beautiful friendship; maybe a start to a series of undefined relationships with men for me; something between friendship, love, crush, becoming one, or even becoming like family. It was, for sure the most pure of them all.We were kids; we lived and sang together; we even showered next door to one another in the dorms and occasionally passed along a bar of soap or something to one another while in the shower.
He wanted to become a doctor. He was a good Christian. He was half Yugoslavian, half Greek and was born and raised in the US. He played the saxophone. His handwriting was flawless, his room, clean and spotless.
He used to visit me years after we moved out of the dorms and he left berkeley.He would bring me cherries from the tree in their backyard in Saratoga.
One day he called me. He was at my door and said he had a surprise for me.
I screamed OH GREAT, you finally brought your dog so I'd meet her! It’s about time!!
He said, no, no, don't guess anymore; just come down.
It turned out he wanted to "introduce" his "bible study friend" to me; a nice girl with long hair. I don’t remember much about her. She was American looking; that’s as much as I remember.
Somehow, I never heard from him after that day.
I don't know how it happened that he just disappeared. I want to know about his dad, his mom,his Greek grandma with a goat in her backyard in Menlo Park,his dog(I can't believe I forgot her name)... I want to know about his life.
I want him to see how I have grown into this new person that I am. I want him to see I am not as shy anymore; that I'm trying.
I fancy that I run into him one day in streets of San Francisco. I pat him on the shoulder and say: Johnny boy, it's negster!!!
And I will finally sing in the melodic, funny way he used to sing for me:
Goooooood morning Mr. Sunshine...