A week after the incident, people forgot his name. If you were to mention the name Johnny Cade in public, people would stare at you like you were insane.

I didn't forget him. I would walk down the street with my brothers, and if I felt like talking about him, I would. I don't care who thinks I'm crazy.

But that isn't the important part. I knew that he wouldn't be written down in history books. The saddest part of it all, was how they did remember him. Yeah, they got the hero part right. But people never remembered him.

I never once heard about a boy who appreciated golden sunsets, or loved to hear stories. Nobody spoke about Johnny, who sat on a train and looked out for me while I slept on his legs. Or the one who still loved his parents after they beat him inside and out.

Everybody would talk about the church fire hero.

No one talked about Jonathan Cade.

His gravestone says 'Hero'. Soon after his death, the police went and inspected his house, and figured out that it was an unstable living environment. Them saying that made me sick. I wanted to scream at them, that it was a little too late for that… but I kept my mouth shut. The social workers decided that his body no longer belonged to his father, and that it belonged to the state. And the state put the word 'Hero' on his grave.

I never go and visit the cemetery where he's buried. I know that he isn't there. Johnny is in the vacant lot, or at the cinema.

It's not like I'm holding onto the past. I am not in denial about his death.

It's just… his body is in the graveyard… he isn't in the graveyard.

Huh. Maybe I am crazy.

If I am; I don't care. As long as I live, I will remember Jonathan Cade as he was his entire life. When he was eleven years old, and he slept over at my house… I'll always remember him crying in his sleep. I'll always remember him, when he was thirteen and we were racing and I fell and broke my ankle, how he wrapped his slender arms around me and helped me home. I'll never forget how when my parents died, and I needed to get out of the house to get my mind off things, I went to the vacant lot and Johnny held me in his arms as I cried.

I don't care what they say. They aren't going to make me forget. They say that all he is was a greaser who decided one day to leave his life of crime and save a few kids.

I'll remember him being wonderful from the beginning.

Oh, god. My best friend.

As I make my way through the vacant lot, I stop at a huge tree on the outskirts. That was where Johnny and I fell asleep the night before we ran away. I laughed a little bit, smiling at the memory of him.

His grave is only a quarter mile away. But I feel so much closer to him here.

From my back pocket, I take out a switchblade. I don't carry one or anything… I just brought one for this occasion.

Sighing, I put the blade to the tree, trying not to make the letters too big or deep. He wouldn't have needed huge, noticeable writing.

Gently, feeling less and less remorse as I went on, I carved in the bark of the tree…

'Jonathan Cade. Born gold. Died gold.'