He was a good guy. I’m not even Heidi.

Birth certificate says Haidée, not Heidi. My mother was a fool, taking in Johnny and Gypsy all those years ago. Gypsy’s dead and Johnny’s gone. Mom too. Wish it was different. You don’t know what you have till it’s gone. He was way older than me but I thought of him as my old man and he just thought he was my old man. You know. Different interpretations. I wanted to think he was being loyal to my mother, who took care of him all those years, but it wasn’t that either. It was always her.

When he left he took the Chrysler, the good one, and the truck and a lock of her hair. How I know they didn’t get him. He also put a wad of money in my purse. $100,000 in beat-up hundreds. And a note. “Take care of My Dog Jip. You have what it takes. Be good.”

He took Harry with him, that huge lugubrious hound who always groaned on the couch. Jip missed him. I missed Johnny. I guess we both missed both.

Johnny never said he was there for me. He just was, all the time before he left. My mother always said, “It’s not for us to judge him. He was never even here.” She died because she had that opinion. Not Johnny. The guys in suits who took her away. They found her body in the Barrens. I had to identify her. Johnny was away on “business.”

I had to identify her body. Shot.

He smoothly took over caring for me. Not a great cook but a decent one. Never tried to catch me naked. I was the one who got a thing for him. You know. It was the danger that trailed him. You could smell it.

I took over caring for him and his dogs after my mother died. The big dog, Harry, was very protective, not growly just you know, always between you and him.

He called himself Johnny Dealey. The Old-Timers called him either Sammy or Johnny Dodge like it was one word, JohnnyDodge. 

So after he left I kept on keeping on keeping on. It’s the Barrens. Jip needed me. And that Shuteye Town trailer attracted me.

And now I know more than any of you.