Joe
December 28, 19-something or another.
3AM - or so - EST
I lost my best friend Joe last night so many, many decades ago. It's been longer now than he was alive.
I say last night but officialdom dictates that it was early this morning since TOD was declared sometime after midnight. They found him in a stairway of some ghetto ruin with a noose around his neck. Suicide? Murder? A bit of both I think now.
Some kind of drug deal gone bad. His "girlfriend" was a whore; his roommate a ghetto black drug addict.
Other than just the past few days, it had been quite a while since we had been together.
Was he killed or was he deeply depressed and in a hole he couldn't get free of?
I heard both ...
We lived in a small town - maybe 7500 people including the "suburbs" - mostly folks living on farmland. Grew great sweet-corn in the area. Fields and fields of it. The land was so rich that it eventually sprouted high-end developments. Population now past 100k, still growing (>the< place to be), and lost within the suburbs of a major metropolitan area. That there 2-lane dirt road I used to walk along with the beef farm on one side and cornfields on the other? It's now seven lanes wide, full of traffic and road rage. Can't tell where the railroad once crossed. Creek's still there though. Polluted now- shouldn't be swimming in it.
We had known each other since childhood. There was that time he was walking down a back rural road when some guys in a truck stopped him and asked if he knew where they could bury an elephant. He said yes - his backyard. So they did.
Until his father found out. Made the news, that did. Turned out some fly-by-night carnival passed through town when their elephant died - of neglect. They were looking for a secret place to get rid of the evidence ... and there was Joe. They didn't bury it very deep. Joe was 12 or 13 at the time.
As I look back, that story kind of applied to his entire life - he just fall into situations … and would often - maybe most always - make the wrong but colorful decision.
During our teenage years, he was one of the most intelligent people I knew. The things we'd discuss were not typical topics for teenage boys but … we were teenage boys. Sex, drugs, rock&roll. And cars. It was those times.
As young teenagers, we made plans to get together "when we were old in our 50s" and talk of these times. Never happened. And 50s doesn't seem old now. "60's the new 40, 9PM's the new midnight. And I don't stay up til midnight."
Joe could do two things extremely well: play pool and fish. I'd say three things but "do" isn't what he did with the girls - he didn't have to. He had the charm and bedroom eyes - even as a youngster - that's said Bill Clinton had in his best days. Joe didn't have to pick up girls; he drew them like flies to honey. We'd be out some place and the girls would come up to me wanting to know how to get together with him (but, but … what about me?). I didn't have the whatever it was. He had it in spades.
We lived in Michigan. At that time, you had to be 21 to go into a bar (snicker! small town) but we were also close to Canada where the drinking age was 18. There was this little semi-dive bar in Sarnia directly under the Bluewater Bridge that we'd head up to every so often. Joe played pool well enough that not only were our drinks covered but also a tank of gas … gas only being around 25¢/gallon at the time. Imperial gallons at that (5 qts/gal). We didn't get run off every time we went there ...
Looking back, maybe he had it too easy. The charm oozed off him - even those wise to the antics of teenagers would fall under his spell; he got away with most anything, including by police (small town) - and that likely led to his downfall.
He left home early - 17 I think, given the events of the time. Dropped out of school. He lived in a place closer into town. I recall sitting around his kitchen with some friends one time - one of the friends was a weight lifting contender for the Olympics. We're sitting around BS'ing as was wont to do while John kept monotonously working 75lb hand-squeezers. 1 minute quick reps with one hand, then switch. Kept it up the entire time we were there. Don't recall him making it to the Olympic trials though. Don't know why that memory sticks (now where did I put my keys?)
But that's not Joe; just a stray memory from Joe's place.
It was the late 60s and we were doing things typical of that time. Not quite draft age but close, real close. It was on our minds. As we got older, Joe came to the conclusion he could get away with most anything - and for a time, that seemed true. Damn - that sparkle in his eyes ...
Then it got serious.
To put it bluntly, Joe became a world-class fuck-up.
Joe - for some reason I never understood - loved to steal. He was a damn good horse-trader … and he discovered his profits were better if he only sold rather than include "buy". I was immune - and naive. Blinded by his light I suppose. Many a time I held his trade goods without realizing they weren't his to allow me to hold.
He'd have made one hell of a holy man ...
His charm eventually stopped working so well on the police. I was too close to see but Joe was getting a reputation - and being close, I was getting one too. Didn't realize it - couldn't figure why so much was coming down on me.
I forget what the charge was - probably marijuana - but he got a "jail or army" sentence applied to him. I went off to college, he went to basic. I wasted a few years in college, he got a dishonorable and spent time in Leavenworth. Never told me why though I have my suspicions.
We didn't really lose touch with each other but it grew distant; I moved far west, ended up with respectable job. He stayed home. He wasn't employee material.
He was still my friend; I was still his.
Some woman convinced him to marry her - she probably got pregnant though that may have come not much later. The baby came; they barely got by. Joe didn't have the ability to keep his pants on (but then, neither did she). Divorce came - she got custody. Last I heard, she became a Jehovah's Witness. That was long, long ago. Her problem, not mine.
Sometime in the 80s, I convinced Joe to come out to where I was in California … maybe get him in a new environment, get his act together. Outwardly he was still "Joe" - still charming to this new group of people that didn't know him. The charm was still there but no longer worked at home. People had fallen for it too many times.
He wasn't in his early 20s anymore but spent too much time acting like it. The girls were older and wiser as well now and didn't fall under his spell as easily. Except some women ...
He didn't show it much on the outside but I knew him well enough to see the anguish behind that grin. He got to drinking too much. Not quite an alcoholic yet but headed that way. Too many drugs but not yet an addict. No real education, not really employable. But he got by without being homeless.
I lived in Santa Cruz just a few doors down from a guy I worked with. We commuted to Sunnyvale together. Anyone in the Bay area has an idea of what the Santa Cruz/Sunnyvale commute was like, even then. We worked in the same department. That worked out well; company policy was car-poolers were exempt from meetings if the meeting occurred outside carpool hours. Took at least two people to form a carpool. Gary and I left home in the morning to get to work at the earliest allowed time - 6AM as I recall - therefore we left work "in a carpool" at 2:30-ish. Got out of a lot of late afternoon meetings that way … and avoided the bulk of the never-ending traffic of Silicon Valley.
Point being that Joe and Gary's wife knew our schedule and took advantage of that knowledge. Gary and Jodi were already headed for a divorce. We had the type of jobs that tolerated no nonsense. Joe and Jodi enjoyed the types of things that would have cost Gary and I our jobs.
Sigh ...
Nothing much more came of that. Joe got involved with some other woman who convinced him to move to Portland - he was a sucker for women with kids. I had taken a new job in Seattle and went down to visit him one time. Headed down the coast - out in the boonies "hunting" deer. Just practicing for Joe. I never obtained the ability to be quiet in the woods; I can't be a hunter whether I wanted to or not - I tromp heavy. Joe would whisper to me to look at some buck he saw - I'd go "Where?" in a normal voice. There went the buck.
Along that trip, we went fishing. Joe was at peace fishing - more so than most any time I remember. He'd probably still be around if he could have just fished …
I'm not a fisherman either, but I enjoy "fishing" … don't need a pole. I guess Joe left some kind of info back home in Michigan - we were out in the middle of nowhere on the Rogue River at some little general store - the type where the payphone was mounted on a tree. He had gotten a message that there was an emergency back home so he called. It was his ex he talked to. I was sitting in the truck but I could still hear her. Irate would put it mildly. Apparently Joe's 7 or 8yo son had come out to visit and Joe forgot to pack the kid's tennis shoes when he went back home to mom. That was the emergency.
He missed his son; that ... ugly ... phone call took another little piece out of Joe's soul. Damn that woman ... and in later years, I believe she was.
Joe moved back to Michigan to be closer to his son; I went back to work in Seattle.
I went back home for Christmas one year and both Joe and his son joined my family for Christmas - his family had scattered. Mom had fallen under Joe's spell when we were just kids; he was just another of the boys. It was one of my best Christmases that I remember. Christmas was on a weekend that year as I recall. I wasn't aware of Joe's situation at that time; he didn't say much on Christmas and I hadn't been home long enough to catch up.
We got together Tuesday following. Joe was still Joe; we headed out to our old drinking hole. Patty was the bartender, Jim was there (Jim is a different story) and a few other old friends.
Funny that I remember: some guy sitting down the bar a bit heard me talking about being "out west". He popped up and started bitching at me coming to "his" town and ruining the place. I told him I went to that elementary school up the street, this junior high school over that way, and the high school - but I didn't recall him; which schools did he go to?
None of them ...
We drank a bit of beer. Laughed at a few jokes. Talked of times growing up and had anyone heard from him, or her, or did these two get married; did those two break up?
We played pool. I won.
I never beat Joe at pool.
A woman came on to Joe.
Normally, he'd say good night and head off with her.
He stayed behind.
The night eventually came to an end.
I never saw him again.
I never noticed what was behind his eyes that week - I was blind. But I see it in his eyes now when I now look at the Christmas pictures from just a few days before. There is a haunted look there ...
Survivor's guilt? Naw - I don't think so.
A different guilt though lingers on. Had I known, had I seen, I'd have kidnapped him.
Maybe.
Got a call about 3AM.
"Who the hell is calling me at this time of day? I'll call them tomorrow."
Then I fully woke up and realized good news never calls early morning.
It was Joe's mother.
The funeral was one of the largest ever held at that cemetery. About 75 vehicles; maybe 200 people. Not bad for a fuck-up.
Myself? I don't know 200 people. I doubt 200 people know me.
The scars run deep; they're thick and hardened now but I don't visit the grave anymore.
I don't really ever go home anymore.
