CHAPTER 3 - JOEY'S STORY

            Michael reminded me of my Uncle Joey in ways that are difficult to put into words. The resemblance certainly wasn't physical. The two men didn't look anything alike. Michael was lean and wiry while Joey had been broad-shouldered and muscular. No, the similarities they shared were of the soul. I sensed a kindness in Michael that touched me because it was the same kindness that I had seen demonstrated by Joey. In my life there have been a precious few people whom I would call gentle souls, those people who possess a genuine goodness that the ugliness of the world around them cannot touch or diminish. Michael was one of those gentle souls, and Joey was another.

            Joey was the proverbial All-American-Boy-Next-Door; tall, well built, and more handsome than a young man had any right to be. He had inherited his father's coloring, dark-brown hair and midnight-blue eyes. Though his strong jaw gave his face a somewhat truculent look, it was mitigated by the solar-brilliance of his sweet smile. And Joey always seemed to be smiling. Every little girl on our street was madly in love with him.

            I don't mean to imply that Joey was some kind of plaster saint. He could be stubborn and downright surly if pushed far enough. He had, after all, inherited his fair share of the Shannon Attitude, but it required a Herculean amount of pushing for him to reach his limit. Unfortunately, the person who tended to do the most successful pushing was my father.

            Joey was my father's youngest brother and the baby of the family. He was also as different from my father as chalk from cheese. My father was the oldest of four surviving brothers and 15 years Joey's senior. There had been a sister, Melissa, and another brother, Eugene, who had not survived infancy.

            I wasn't really close to my other two uncles, my father's middle brothers, because I'd never spent much time with them. They both lived out of state, having moved away as soon as they'd finished school. Dan went to California with some friends after graduation, and decided to stay. He became a policeman in Los Angeles. Gary, the younger of the two, met a girl and followed her to New Orleans where he ended up tending bar on Bourbon Street. Personally, I think they just wanted to get as far away from my father as possible. I can't really say that I blamed them much. Put bluntly, my father was not a lot of fun.

            Perhaps because he was the oldest, my father thought that he knew best how his brothers ought to live their lives. He also thought they ought to be thrilled to have him constantly telling them so. Of course he was less than pleased with the life paths chosen by his younger brothers. It was impossible to live up to my father's standards, even for my father who never let a little detail like that concern him. I certainly didn't blame my uncles for not even bothering to try or for wanting to get away as soon as they could.

            Both of my paternal grandparents died very suddenly in an automobile accident when Joey was just 14 years old. Their car went off the Lake Worth Bridge on a stormy night, and Joey came to live with us. I can still remember the look on Joey's face at the funeral. I had never in my short life seen anyone look so sad and lost. My own heart was broken for him as I sat there trying to imagine what it would be like to lose both my parents at the same time.

            I wondered what would happen to me if my mom and dad both died suddenly the way Gramma and Grampa Shannon had. When you're only seven years old, that's the sort of thing that can really prey your mind. Even though my folks might never win Parents of the Year, they were still the only ones I had, and I wasn't particularly anxious to lose them. If they were suddenly gone, though, I supposed that I'd get sent to live with Uncle Dan in California where all the movie stars were, so I guessed that wouldn't be too awful. I tended to be practical, even at the age of seven.

            The memories I had of my grandparents were fond but few. Even though they'd lived relatively nearby, our visits had been seldom, consisting mainly of birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Though I'd only been a small child, I had always felt a sense of unpleasant duty attached to these occasions, especially Father's Day. Any trip to my grandparents' house always seemed to make my father vaguely upset, as if there was some unspoken grudge between him and my grandfather. Grampa Shannon had never done anything to my father that I could see. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to be pleasant, and that only somehow served to displease my father even more.

            I'd rather liked my grandfather, both my grandparents as a matter of fact, and I'd never been able to figure out what my father had against them. They'd spoiled me as much as they were allowed, which wasn't very much, but I'd always enjoyed visiting them. I was going to miss them, but the sadness I felt was really more for Joey's sake than my own. Even at this tender age, I felt empathy for the young man who, from my earliest memories, had always treated me with kindness and affection.

            Joey was twice my age when he came to live with us. To a seven-year-old, 14 might have seemed like an adult, but Joey was still just a hurt and unhappy little boy. He was quiet in those first few weeks after he came to us, and understandably so. My father has always been a reserved man. He dealt with grief on his own and in private. Naturally, he expected everyone else to do the same. Unfortunately, Joey wasn't made that way.

            Neither of my parents were overly demonstrative people. Quite the contrary, I'd call them emotionally constipated. They never seemed to have any difficulty expressing negative feelings, but tender emotions left them embarrassed and tongue-tied, resorting to jokes and sarcasm to cover their discomfort. That sort of atmosphere must have been purgatory for an affectionate kid like Joey. He seemed so sad and lost that I made it my personal mission to cheer him up.

            I passed Joey's bedroom one evening, a couple of weeks after the funeral. He was just lying on his bed, lost in thought, staring up at the ceiling with that haunted look in his deep blue eyes. "Whatcha doin'?" I asked, pausing in the doorway of his room.

            He raised himself on his elbows and regarded me with a half-smile that did little to alleviate the sadness of his expression. "Nuthin' much," he replied. "C'mon in, Squirt."

            "Thinkin' ‘bout Gramma and Grampa?" I asked as I climbed up beside him. He scooted closer to the wall to make room.

            "Yeah," he admitted with a brief nod. Most teenage boys wouldn't have appreciated having a pre-adolescent girl around, but Joey always had time for me.

            "You still miss ‘em a lot, dontcha?"

            "Yeah. I guess I always will." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the carved oak headboard.

            "Me too."

            We sat in silence for a few moments, then I piped up again, "I heard a joke at school today. Wanna hear it?"

            He smiled indulgently as he opened his eyes and looked at me. "Okay." He probably wished that I'd just go away and leave him alone, but Joey would've taken a beating before he'd let me know it.

            "Why do elephants wear red tennies?"

            "I don't know, Squirt. Why do elephants wear red tennies?"

            "Because nineies are too little and elevenies are too big!" I explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, and then I dissolved into giggles at the punch line of my own joke.

            Joey's smile broadened slightly as he rolled his eyes and chuckled with me. "Okay, Mag-pie, I have one for you. What's invisible and smells like worms?"

            My brow furrowed in concentration as I did my best to imagine what the answer could be. "I dunno," I said at last.

            "Bird farts!" He announced triumphantly, breaking into the puckish grin that had been too long absent from his sweet face.

            I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt. The idea of flatulent fowl is hysterical to a second grader. "Okay, okay," I gasped when I was able to catch my breath. "My turn. Knock. Knock."

            "Uh, who's there?" He asked, dutifully pretending to care.

            "Olive."

            "Olive, who?"

            I was deadly serious, as only a child of that age can be, when I looked up into those bottomless blue eyes. "Olive you."

            He was touched by my declaration, and the right side of his mouth lifted slightly in the shadow of a smile. Putting his arm around my shoulders, he kissed me softly on the cheek and regarded me with an expression of tender affection on his 14-year-old face. "I love you, too, Squirt."

            I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged tightly. "An' I'm glad you're here."

            He hugged me back. "Me, too, Maggie," he whispered. "Me, too."