Joey

Joey was the kid that flunked the first grade. He was in one of the upper-class families, rich farmer. Dad knew him, when WWII came up the men eligible for conscription were required to register with a local draft board, and Dad being a good citizen did. His kid brother was just under the wire as he wasn't yet 21. Probably he wouldn't have been selected anyway as he had a bit of a physical disabilty that would have caused him to be rejected anyway.

Dad had a wreck just before he got his notice, some people had their car break down on a dark road just over a hill, Dad in his new '41 Mercury came over the hill pretty fast and rear-ended the stationary automobile. Gas tank went up, the two girls with Dad was bruised up a bit and one got a broken nose, Dad got tossed out into the burning gas from the other car, apparently stunned and unable to get out of it quickly, carried the burn scars on his forearms to the grave. Folks in the other car were toast. Extra dark.

Went to the draft board all bandaged up and they told him to come back when he was healed, once he had the bandages off he went even though he wasn't a hundred percent. Several of the other guys in the area had already gone and he didn't figure on being a slacker. So off he went to North Africa and Italy and survived and came back or I wouldn't be here. Or maybe I would have gotten here some other way.

Anyhow when I was younger I'd ask now and then about one fellow or another that Dad knew, what did Mr. Grant to in the war, or what did Mr. Hess do in the war. And he'd tell me, Leonard (Mr. Grant) went to the Pacific, or Ed (Mr. Hess) was in the Pacific too, he was a Seabee. I just figured most men his age went to the war, but once in a while he'd say something like "he didn't go to the war" about one or another. As I got older I learned that if you had the right social status you wouldn't have to go. Dad told me later when he was explaining it that he probably could have avoided going if my grandpa had asked one or two of his friends, but he wouldn't have felt right about it.

Joey's pa didn't go to war. Dad knew him pretty well, said Nathan (Joey's pa) told him, I'm gonna get rich. And he did, stayed home and farmed, raised a lot of cotton, and did all right. So by my generation they were well established financially and socially for people that weren't born into it. Big house in town, didn't do any work on the farm, hired it all done. Dad and his four kids provided a good part of the labor on our farm.

So Joey and his older brother didn't do farm work, didn't work at Kroger after school, just socialize with the other rich kids. Got a new car as soon as he was 16, started getting DWIs right away, his mama would go talk to the police chief and the judge and he never suffered any consequences. Until his mischief was out of town, in the next county, and social influence at that level didn't extend past the county line. One night he was in Woodside, a slightly larger town in the next county, got drunk and the cops stopped him as he was headed home to his safe space, as they call it now.

He was driving his mom's LTD, brand new of course, had the police package with the 429 and those things would get with it. He fled towards the county line but it seems the cop chasing him had one of those special cars too. A lot of cop cars around that time was LTDs and some of them with the 429 which would blow up if you drove it flat out long enough but Joey stopped before he made the county line (the city and county cops would stop there) and they hauled him in.

Pulled his license for thirty or sixty days, don't remember. That's what it usually was for first offenders. A fine of course but only a few hundred back then. He acted like it was no big deal, said the cops were real nice to him while they were arresting him. I knew better (know that place and those cops) and so did everyone else. It didn't change his behavior any. One of his cousins was a friend of mine from the first grade, and Joey didn't like me. Any time Roger and I were together and Joey came around he'd try to stir things up, Roger thought his cousin Joey was something special for some reason, maybe it was being kin. Where was I?

Joey was fat. Maybe an inch taller than average but not enough to make up for the fat. Him and his brother both, but his brother wasn't as obnoxious. That'll happen sometimes, the youngest one is rotten, usually because of the mother. Fact is a kid who flunked the first grade and was at best in the middle of M section (M was a wide range, some of them were close to being as smart as me) and more likely near the bottom. His only value to anyone was his daddy's money.

What there was of it. Seems he old Nathan wasn't all that rich. Big house, lot of farmland, latest equipment, wife a local socialite, and a lot of debt. There were two kinds of farmers as I would learn. One kind had a fair amount of money - sometimes a big fair amount - and some owed the banks a lot of money. Nathan was one of those, expanded faster than he could afford to, and bankers weren't that bright sometimes. Joey's new car and Katherine's fancy clothes and parties were paid for with borrowed money.

One day there were Katherine had some guests, some had children running around playing with the other kids, someone asked "Has any one seen Nathan?" and a search ensued. One of the kids said "He's in the garden, taking a nap." He was dead, at 57. Bigass insurance policy though, debt problem solved for a while. Until the boys tried to run the farm. If the old man who had some sense, coming through the Depression and all, the boys had always had everything given to them. Eventually they were back in the same situation and times were becoming less tolerant of inept farmers. They separated into two operations, one brother owning each, and the older brother eventually went bankrupt and spent his final years selling cars. As far as I know Joey kept at it, but eventually didn't hear much about him.

Joey had him a hot girlfriend, pretty much the only one he ever had. It was pretty obvious they were going to get married nearly from day one. She had serious good looks and not much else and him finding a woman interested in anything other than his money was unlikely. He got fatter all the time, and the few times I was around them I wondered how she could handle it. She was from a lower middle class family and wasn't all that smart and he was a ticket to a better life.

I know more now than I did then about women, obviously. Actually it's more a matter of understanding people better. Women are in a somethat different situation, given the historical circumstances. Even now for a lot of women the best chance they see for a decent life is finding a man who will provide for them and not be too unpleasant to live with. That's the way it was for thousands of years. I came dangerously close to getting married at 21, a nineteen year old girl, I was nowhere near ready but.. anyway it got busted up when a family member of hers figured she had a better deal, a guy who was ready to get married right now. He was pretty chunky and not even as good-looking as me, and I ain't no prize. But his folks had a little business and some farming, raising horses and stuff, and she dumped me right quick and they were married in a couple of months.

A few years later I ran into her at work, she had gone to work at the bank I left and went back to, and we talked a lot. Real nice person, and she admitted she married the first guy that asked because she couldn't be sure there would be another. Good looking woman too, reasonably smart, wouldn't have minded being married to her myself, just not after dating her for a few months.

I seem to have digressed again. Unless I was about finished with Joey. Might as well be, he wasn't that significant a part of my life, just another... nevermind. Some people you wouldn't cross the road to piss on if they were on fire, I know about two or three of them.