Joey
written by: James Howard
For Dennis The Menace, The Can Man, The Hermit and The Witch. For all those that have no peace of mind, who barely knew love and compassion. For the outsiders and the lost souls that are looked at with contempt, with disgust, and never offered a helping hand. Considered less than human, they’ve become nothing more than a tool used by others to make themselves feel superior.
The church bells remained silent. They don’t toll for his kind. There were no makeshift memorials and barely any tears were shed. He didn’t own an over-sized house with a well-manicured lawn, drive around in a big SUV, or sit in the donut shop on weekend mornings gossiping and bragging about material possessions.
His home was in the woods near an old railroad bridge that spans a muddy river. He slept on a bed of pine needles and fern fronds under a faded green canvas tarp with his only constant companion, a ratty-looking mutt he called Pepe. Pepe, the pit bull he would call him. It wasn’t a pit bull. He just liked the way it sounded and it made him laugh. He loved that dog.
Nobody knows the circumstances that lead to him living on the streets. Maybe it was drug addiction or alcohol dependance. Perhaps it was a mental affliction or just maybe he didn’t want to be bound by convention, to be dictated to by what society says you have to be in order to fit in – or be considered normal. Nobody knows because nobody asked. Most don’t care. Most people only see him and his dog as a nuisance, a blight on their bucolic paradise. To some, he was just something that lowered their property values.
A quiet, intelligent man, thin and of average height, between the age of 35 and 40, he kept to himself. Not that he didn’t want to talk to others, he did. It was just that most didn’t want to talk with him, only at him. There were the few who took some time out to ask him how he was doing or if he needed anything. He almost always turned them down. He would, on occasion, accept a hot cup of coffee on a frigid winter’s morning, but he never asked for anything. Once in a while, he would do odd jobs for some of the small businesses in town. He mostly worked at a thrift store. The owner, an older woman, took a liking to him. She had him cleaning the backroom and emptying trash, in exchange for used goods like sleeping bags or clothing.
He made whatever money he had from picking up cans and scrap metal along the roadsides. He could be seen pushing his rusted old drug store shopping cart, with the right front wheel that did nothing but spin around, down the side roads leading into town picking up discarded beer cans and booze bottles that he would take over to the local redemption center for some cash he used to buy things like water, canned goods, toothpaste and soap. The money would last him weeks. He didn’t spend it on nonessentials, he couldn’t.
He was always amazed and somewhat saddened at what would be discarded on the side of the road. Old couches and other pieces of furniture, TVs, scrap metal, tires. All kinds of junk that he could turn into cash simply by picking it up and bringing it in.
It was on these walks into town where he would hear the comments. Usually yelled out the windows of passing motorists. Get a fucking job!, junkie!, take a shower or go to a shelter!
He’s had bottles and cans thrown at him. Once, somebody swerved their vehicle towards him and Pepe, causing him to have to scramble over the metal guardrails and tumble down an embankment into a briar patch. On a couple of occasions, people actually pulled over, got out of their vehicles and physically threatened him and his mutt.
He saw and heard a lot walking those backroads. He would pass by OUI arrests, car wrecks, drug deals and domestic disturbances. There was one house where a man, in a drunken jealous rage, shot his wife, then turned the gun on himself while his children watched in horror.
Once, late at night, while walking back from town he was stopped by a man who offered him a decent sum of money and booze for “favors.” He knew who this person was, a well-known, popular man, married with children. A school teacher who is very active in town politics and youth sports. He turned the offer down and after being threatened to never speak about this double timed his way back to his encampment, frequently looking back over his shoulder the entire way. He never told a soul about this encounter.
Still, he was the target of hatred. The stain on the town.
He couldn’t wait to get back to the woods. There he would sit and listen to the sounds of seclusion. The birds singing, crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and the river slowly passing by, rolling over and around rocks and lily pads. He would always tell Pepe how they need to be on guard because the beauty in this world comes from the hand of God, but the deed is owned by the Devil. At night he would fall asleep listening to the low hum and whistle of the wind blowing through the tops of the pine trees that surround his encampment. Nature’s symphony, he called it.
Every couple weeks, under the cover of darkness, he would make the twenty-mile hike to his mother’s house. His father had passed away when he was still in elementary school, killed by a drunk driver early one morning while on his way to work, back to the town he grew up in. He would only go while it was dark out of fear he would be recognized. Whenever he was back in his hometown, he was never comfortable. He loved being with his mother. But the town was a different story. Too many terrible memories or useless memories, as he would call them. He was bullied a lot after his father died.
His old high school was on the way to his mother’s house and every time he passed by there, he was brought back to those days. Back to the beatings, the name calling, the torment. Once he reached his mom’s house, he would always feel better. She fed him and had new clothing laid out for him to change into. She would plead with him through tear-filled eyes to come home, to get off the streets and come home where he would be safe and she would be freed from the heavy weight of worry that sat on her shoulders. He tried his best to ease her fears. He always told her he’ll be home shortly. “I just need to sort some things out, ma,” he would say trying to reassure her.
On the days he didn’t go into town or visit his mom, he would sit on the rocks near the river’s bank, Pepe faithfully laying by his side. These were his favorite times. He would whittle away on sticks and think back on his childhood while humming a song. Now and then, his mind would go back to her. She was his love. He remembered the times they spent together. His favorite memory was a night on the beach. He doesn’t remember the name of the beach. The moon was full. It seemed to take up the entire horizon as it rose. They just stood in the sand amongst the dune grass, arms around each other, watching the waves crash and seeing the light of the moon sparkling off the water. The ripples on the surface bent and distorted the moonlight. It looked electric and added to the romantic ambiance. There was a slight breeze blowing off the water. It was perfect, but it couldn’t last. There was no room for her in his life. The demons didn’t allow her any room. He often wondered whatever happened to her. He had lost touch. His mother told him she had married and moved out of state. He hoped she was happy.
This was one such day where he had no reason to go into town. He had just visited his mother a few days prior. It was a beautiful mild mid October day. A perfect day; he thought to himself. He was sitting in a clearing near the river bank chewing on some Teaberry leaves he picked on the trail leading to his camp. He really enjoyed that wintergreen flavor. Pepe had run off investigating the area. Leaning against a log and watching the water flow by, he dozed off. Pepe was too far downstream to warn him of people approaching. He never knew they were there.
He heard a grotesque THWACK and felt an intense pressure on the back of his head. It took his breath away. He staggered to his feet but couldn’t see anything. The blow to his head had blinded him. Somewhere off in the distance he could faintly hear Pepe yelping. He turned in the direction of the yelps. He wanted to help his dog but his legs gave out on him and he fell forward, face first, into the river. While he lay in the water, a feeling of warmth and comfort overtook him. He saw himself as a young child playing by a brook. He loved that brook. He spent countless hours there catching leopard frogs and salamanders. He saw his mother; she was giving him a nice slice of homemade pie and patting him on the head while he sat at the kitchen table quietly reading. He saw him and his father playing wiffle ball in the backyard. Then he saw her. She was smiling at him. She told him she was worried about him. He heard himself tell her “It’ll all be ok, Wendy.”
He was walking along the waterline on a fog shrouded beach. It was warm. He could only see a few feet in front of him. The water was calm and lightly lapped along the shoreline. He could hear seagulls off in the distance. Looking ahead, he could see the silhouette of someone approaching him. At first he couldn’t make out any facial features, but as he got closer, the fog dissipated, rays of sunshine streamed through. The lone figure walked into one beam of sunlight and he immediately recognized who it was…. “Hi dad, what are you doing here?” “Hi Joey,” his father answered. Lightly putting both hands on Joey’s shoulders, his father looked him straight into his eyes and said, “I’m here to walk with you. I’ll be with you forever. We’re together again and I ain’t going anywhere, son.”
The fog was completely gone now. It had rolled out over the water. It looked like a huge white wall on the horizon. He could see the high sand dunes that were concealed by the fog a few hundreds yards away from the shoreline. The warmth of the sun felt good to him. He took his shoes and socks off, rolled up his pant legs, and walked along the waterline. The warm ocean water lightly washed over his feet. It felt good, refreshing. “This is nice here, dad,” he said, “It’s perfect. This must be what heaven feels like.” “It sure is nice, Joey, and this is exactly what heaven feels like,” his dad replied. Right then, for the first time in a very long time, Joey knew he was safe.
They walked side by side, neither one speaking, toward a path leading up into one of the high dunes. On either side of the path was a thick covering of dune grass, bearberry and rosette leading to a grove of maritime pitch pines that provided a bit of shade. They sat down in the cool sand underneath a pine and began talking.
His lifeless body was found by some kids mountain biking on the trails. The top half of his body was in the water, both arms outstretched above his head, they swayed back and forth with the current. He looked as though he had tried to dive into the river, but only made it halfway. Pepe was found shivering and scared, but unharmed on a sandbar a little ways downstream. His mother was inconsolable when the state police officer showed up at her door to inform her of what had happened to her son. Pepe was left with her.
He was interred in a plot next to his father in a ceremony attended by only his mother and Pepe. For a couple years afterward her and Pepe visited the gravesite daily. Then for several more years, just her. Eventually, the visits stopped.
Officially, it was determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Unofficially, he was killed simply for trying to survive.
Nobody was ever charged.
The river flowed on.
- Joey - March 2, 2025
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