Fiction: Holey Joe

By D. M. Clarke

 

They called him Holey Joe. Not because he was a man of the cloth or learned in the ways of the soul. No, it was because of the ragged hole in his left cheek. It was a cruel play on words inspired by who raised him. Holey—Holy? Get it? Ah, I’m sure I don’t need to explain it to you.

There was once a time when you’d see Joe at the bar every night. He’d sit alone in the far corner there, where the light was dimmest. I’d been a regular far longer than Joe and had my spot on the other end of the bar. I was closer to the hustle and bustle of the entrance, where I could catch pieces of conversations floating through the air as patrons came in to relieve their woes at the end of a hard day. There were complaints of bosses and customers, scandalous partners and nagging spouses, all tempered by the unbridled excitement for a night of drunkenness.

Unlike Joe, I was rarely alone for long. One-by-one my cohort would trickle in. Some I’d known since childhood; Others I picked up along the way. My buddies and I did the usual, y’know? Have a few beers, shoot the shit, and give our not so expert opinions on whatever game is on the TV. But we don’t need to concern ourselves with my friends. They aren’t who you asked about. I know you just want to know how Joe’s cheek got the way it did. Y’know, he tilted his head to the side as he drank to stop the beer spilling. But if you ask me—and you clearly are—you need to know a bit more about who Joe was to appreciate how he got that way.

He was younger than me by a good fifteen years. Back when it happened, he must have been in his late thirties. He had a pleasant face; a trustworthy face. He kept himself to himself, but he was always willing to lend a hand. He helped me with a flat tire once. One time I saw him step in when a young lady was receiving some unwanted attention on her way home.

Joe had an interesting dress sense, mind. He always wore this old purple corduroy jacket that made him look like some professor from the 70s. If you’ve heard tale of Holey Joe before then I’d wager, you’re picturing him draped in black with matted hair and unshaven chin, like some kind of gothic fisherman. But that’s all talk. Joe was pretty normal looking in the grand scheme of things.

All that said, I always figured Joe may be a little sad. We all get sad sometimes, don’t we? But people said his father died when he was four, and his mother was a wacko. I know about his mother for sure because I installed a new gas line for her one time. I didn’t even realize it was her until Joe came into the house after work. We shared a brief hello and then he disappeared upstairs, leaving me with his mother. She was yapping away while I worked; had an awful lot to say about the world and all the people in it. Had it in her head that Revelations was right around the corner. I’m not one to judge people’s beliefs. “You believe whatever works for you,” is what I say. But she was one of those hellbound types who won’t let up on telling you that you need saving.

That wasn’t even the half of it. She must’ve had fifty crucifixes mounted on the living room wall. All different sizes, some ornate… delicate, others large and modest. I could tell she wasn’t a simple dilettante. In her mind, each was there for her protection and therefore they adorned every wall in the house.

She was an interesting lady. But her place is gone now—burned down. Awful, I know, but at least she wasn’t in it. She’d passed three months earlier. Something related to untreated diabetes. Joe had actually gone and moved out a month before she passed. Got his own place. But I guess he ended up feeling pretty bad having that happen to his mom right after he’d up and left. Maybe he even felt like if he’d been there, she’d still be around. I’m just guessing, but I figure most of us would feel that way. Joe certainly seemed perpetually sadder after that day.

Ah, but I’m jumping ahead, and I need another beer. You want one? No? You sure? OK, suit yourself. Robert, another one for me, please.

So, like I was saying. Joe had moved out and his mother had passed. I’m not sure what had taken him so long to go it alone. Whether he felt bound to his mother given how his father had unexpectedly left them all those years prior. But whatever it was, that was when we all began to notice some changes in Joe. A buddy of mine said he saw him on the east side of town in the old warehouse district. It’s the kind of place you can get a game of poker and other… entertainments. But I didn’t buy it. I didn’t take Joe for the gambling type nor anything illegal. But who knows? We did start seeing less of him.

Then one day, we saw something we couldn’t believe. Me and the guys arrived here at the bar and caught sight of Joe sat at one of the tables talking with someone! We couldn’t see who it was exactly because they were wearing a hood, and a gray knit cap. It was a cold, wet day, so not all that surprising. But we were pretty sure it was a woman.

They were talking for about an hour and then she was gone. We didn’t see her leave, but Joe took his regular spot, which had stayed empty, as it always did. We all smiled in unison as he sat down and one of the guys asked if she was his girlfriend. Joe turned red, and I told him to pay them no mind.

The next night was when his mom’s house burned down. Joe wasn’t at the bar then, but we heard the sirens come screaming by. We’re all kinda close around here. You know how it is in the mid-west. Well, we try to look out for one another. We heard the sirens pull up a few blocks away, and we ran out to see if we could lend a hand. By that point the whole place was a damned inferno. The heat was immense, even from across the street. The roar was like nothing I’d heard before. And the crackling! These old, wood-framed homes we have around here are easy to go like that. And who’s to say, maybe all those wooden crucifixes helped it burn up quicker.

I’d panicked for a moment, wondering if I’d done a bad job on the gas line. Thankfully, it turned out that the fire started in the living room. Most likely from faulty electrics or some degenerates using it as a squat house to smoke up in.

No one had a number for Joe so we couldn’t call and tell him to get his ass over there. As far as I could tell, he didn’t know until the next day. I’d figured I’d take the long route to the bar, past Joe’s old place, just to check in. I found Joe staring at the charred remains. I told him how sorry I was to see the place go, and that I’d happily lend a hand should he need anything. He seemed distracted; peering like he was searching for something in there. But he eventually told me thanks but no, in his usual, quiet way.

After that day, Joe seemed different. Not in a way that expressed relief or great depression. It was something else entirely that he began to embody. Joe was never a picture of perfect health before all this, but who is? Now, though, it seemed like something was draining from him. His skin got grayer and grayer until he resembled a walking corpse more than the quiet man I’d half-known for two decades.

The most unsettling thing was that Joe had started to laugh. If it wasn’t clear before, then I’ll tell you now: Joe didn’t express himself verbally and his face was pretty darn stoic. But now, deathly gray, he was guffawing at the most dumbass ads on TV and asinine quips of baseball commentators. Somehow though, it didn’t seem like Joe was the one laughing.

What do I mean? Well, people say the smile is in the eyes, right? Same with laughter, I’m guessing. You know how people scrunch up their eyes when they’re real belly laughing? Well, Joe’s eyes were always wide open. One time, I looked up from my beer while he was chuckling over an insurance ad, and his eyes were just zipping from side-to-side. It was like he was trying to get someone’s attention without being noticed. But no sooner had the laughter started, it stopped. Joe was back to Joe. Although his head drooped; he looked exhausted.

This went on for a few weeks. Most of us presumed Joe was sick and on some kind of treatment that made him look so gray. We put the laughing down as an attempt to raise his own spirits, and we respected his privacy. That was until Joe stopped showing up altogether. After the third day I began to worry.

I’d asked Joe where his new place was that morning after the fire. So, I decided I’d check in on him. It was a small place. Perfectly normal and bland. Two stories; red brick. Same as all the others on the street.

I tapped out a friendly rhythm on the front door, but no one answered. I took a look around back, just for the hell of it. The yard was small. Not unkempt, but certainly unloved. The small patch of grass was overgrown, and someone had left the grill open, so it was now filled with brown water. But it was the crackling sound of glass underfoot that provided the first sign something was off. Sure enough, one of the upstairs windows was smashed. I called out to Joe a couple times, wondering what in the heck could’ve smashed the window. I heard nothing for a long while, but then there was a groan. A weary and pained groan.

Then it was just one of them things, y’know? I threw open the storm door, and with a few good kicks I had the back door open. These old places aren’t up to much.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. That I found a dark home with drawn curtains. Dirty dishes piled in the sink. The thick, musty smell of stale air and stale people. The home of a recluse who’d spent too long living with his mother. But, no. I’m sorry to disappoint but it was a normal home. The home of a bachelor, yes, but clean and tidy for the most part. The only untidy thing was the mountain of books piled atop one another on the kitchen table. Some laid open and were marked up. The overflow piled on the chairs of would-be guests. I went looking for Joe.

Now you really might want that second drink for this next part. Oh, you’ve barely touched your first? Well, I need another. Robert?

I carried on calling out to Joe as I climbed the stairs. I hadn’t heard a sound since that first groan. The bathroom was the first place I checked, but that was all in order. Opposite that was a small study. There must’ve been a power outage because Joe had a bunch of candles set up in there. The wax had dripped and dried hard on the desk like old blood.

It was the bedroom where I found Joe. Him and his shotgun. The room surely was a sight to behold. A storm had rolled through the night previous, and the floor was soaked and matted with soggy leaves from the neighbor’s oak. A chill breeze crept through the window, turning the room icy. Joe was laid on the bed, curled up in a fetal position. The rain had soaked the bed.

The scene was becoming clear to me. Buckshot peppered the walls around the shattered window. The old 12-gauge was still in Joe’s hands. I gently removed it from his grasp without resistance. I still couldn’t see his face, but he whimpered a little as I took the gun and placed it on the floor.

I started talking to him softly. Asking what had happened. Although I had a damned good idea. My uncle did the same thing when I was a kid. Only thing was, he was successful in his endeavor. That always stuck with me, y’know?

The wind whistled through the window as I rolled Joe over and got a look at his new face for the first time. What had been his left cheek was a tattered mess. A thick, black crust bordered the wound. The flesh around it was swollen and infected, all fiery red and dingy yellow. I glimpsed what remained of his jaw through the hole. His teeth on that side were splintered or gone entirely. Above this the white of his cheekbone was laid bare. The flesh gone, peeled back like bedsheets.

Despite all this, Joe was alive, but in a hell of a lot of pain. I couldn’t make out the words he was saying in his delirium. Eventually he must’ve realized I was there because his eyes opened wide and locked on to me, then he started crying. Not bawling. Just a silent weep. I’d never seen Joe cry before, but his quietness in the act was exactly how I would have imagined it if I’d cared to.

Not knowing quite what to do in that moment—I’ve never been good at that kind of stuff—I told him that everything would be OK, and we’d have him patched up in no time. I stood up to go call the ambulance and picked up the shotgun on my way, popping the barrel and emptying the shells. One was unspent, so Joe must’ve only fired one barrel. Both barrels and he may have succeeded. After a brief trip downstairs to call the ambulance, I headed back upstairs. I began to wonder what drove him to do it. Was it his mother’s passing? It couldn’t be the burning of his childhood home, surely? Honestly, I knew little else of Joe’s personal life so couldn’t speculate further. My mind turned to figuring out how he’d ended up in the state he did. He’d had both barrels in his mouth, pointed up, I figured. Maybe he flinched; changed his mind at the last possible moment. It could also be he tensed up. I used to do that when I was learning to shoot as a kid. It’s the anticipation of the kick that does it. Tense just a little too much and your aim is all off.

Joe was where I’d left him. I sat back down beside him and put a consoling hand on his shoulder, letting him know the ambulance was on the way.

What’s that? I seemed calm through all this? Well, no. My heart was pounding the whole time! Anyway, you’re interrupting again, and this is the most important part.

Joe started mumbling, mostly nonsense. But what I heard was “I tried,” and “stopped me.” I got no more out of him because at that moment the ambulance arrived, and I got up to let them in.

They came bustling in with all their gear and were upstairs in a heartbeat. I left them to it, and they came down with Joe on a stretcher a few minutes later. He and I made eye contact only briefly. His eyes seemed to plead with me. Somehow, they said “get out.” Perhaps he was embarrassed or angry at being found and not being left to die? I couldn’t know for sure, but regardless, the police were on their way, and someone had to stick around.

They arrived thirty minutes after the ambulance departed. I guess I’d left out the bit about the shotgun when I called, otherwise they’d’ve been there sooner. I answered their questions as best I could. They took the gun and photographed the bedroom. They swiftly convinced themselves it was a cut and dry case and told me I could tidy the place up if I wanted to.

I set about clearing the glass inside the bedroom. The soiled sheets got trashed and replaced with a garish floral number which I guessed Joe had inherited from his mother. Forgivingly, the bedroom floor was laminate, so the leaves and blood came up easy. I taped a trash bag over the window, intending to have one of my buddies install a new pane.

I wondered what people would say. They’d say he must have had a screw loose or become depressed without his mother, no doubt. But they didn’t know my uncle. The life of the party. Happily married with three kids. Always smiling when you saw him. Still blew his brains out. No matter what anyone says, no one can truly know why people do these things.

I did my best not to snoop, and it wasn’t until I was downstairs that the urge took me. First it was the four glasses laid out on the coffee table next to corresponding seats. It seemed that Joe did, in fact, keep company. But of what kind, I can’t tell you.

Now I looked over the stacked books. Joe seemed to have quite the interest in ancient runes and other stuff I could only describe as “occult stuff.” There were pages on rites and rituals, but I didn’t really take it in. We all have our interests. My nephew plays these board games I don’t understand and the books he keeps are indistinguishable from the ones I found at Joe’s house. Perhaps the four glasses were for friends who’d visited to play a game.

I left the books where they were and locked up. It wasn’t until much later that evening that I took up my regular spot at the bar and relayed the day’s events to my pals. My eyes were on Joe’s empty seat the whole time, which, despite it being a busy night, remain unclaimed. My friends were shocked but not surprised, given their assertions of how “weird” Joe was. They commended me for helping Joe, but I could tell more than one thought I’d have been better off staying out of it.

You might think I visited Joe in hospital, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why, really. I guess I figured he needed his privacy, and his other friends would check on him. I got the window fixed and repaired the door I’d busted open. The only time I stopped by the hospital was to leave Joe’s house key with the receptionist. She invited me to visit with him, but there was something about that last look Joe had given me that gave me pause. I politely declined.

It was three months before Joe reappeared at the bar. He walked in on a rainy Tuesday. We hadn’t discussed him since the incident. Joe and his whole story made my buddies uneasy. Yet I thought of him regularly, and the sight of Joe strolling in that evening brought a smile to my face. It only served to increase my buddy’s discomfort. That was when the Holey Joe thing started. Just like little boys do, my buddies labeled the thing that unnerved them with a mean name to lessen its impact.

Joe’s face had healed in a patchwork, which I only glimpsed when he was adjusting the covering he wore on that side of his face.

I was the one to go up to him and ask him how he was. He struggled to speak, but I still heard him well enough despite the odd, saturated sound of his voice. He told me he was doing better. That some of the buckshot had lodged in his skull and the doctors said it was too dangerous to remove. But he didn’t mind it being there, he was thinking clearer than he had his entire life, and he felt free of things which had been hanging over him. He told me “thanks” for what I’d done for him and for fixing up the house. I declined any kind of payment, so he bought me a beer, and that was that.

Joe only stayed for one drink. It was almost as if he came in just to know he could. Like it was a farewell. I was certain of that by the way he placed both hands on the bar and lowered his head before he left. He gave me a brief smile and a nod on his way out. None of us ever saw him again.

I don’t know what got me sitting in Joe’s old seat. No one else ever claimed it. Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever saw anyone other than Joe sit on this ragged old stool. But, after a couple of my buddies moved away, another found God, and another AA, I was mostly unaccompanied at the bar. No one would’ve called me lonely before, but I guess they would now. So, I tried Joe’s spot. And you know what? I liked it! Tucked in that corner you can be left alone if you choose, but you also have an excellent overview of the entire happenings in the bar.

I ignore the chill that often finds me here though. Can you feel it today? I figure it’s the AC. Sometimes I try my old spot, but it doesn’t last long. Somehow, I always find myself back in Joe’s seat. And then what do you know, you show up. You heard he drank in this bar, and this was his favorite perch. Now I’m boring you, but I’ll admit it’s been a while since I had someone to talk to.

You said you knew Joe how long? Since he was born? You must mean since you were kids. I’m sorry I can’t help you find him. Like I said, I ain’t seen him since that last visit. Come to think of it, I’ve not seen much of anyone. It’s almost like I’m invisible here; especially since I retired. That and my wife passing made things tougher. My kids moved out of state too, and they don’t call often. I won’t lie. It’s nice to have someone to spin a yarn to.

Sometimes I like to sit here and think about Joe going off and starting fresh somewhere. But I think I’m too old for all that now….

What’s that? No, I wouldn’t mind if you stayed awhile. Though, would you kindly remove that hood? I like to see who I’m talking to. That knit cap sure looks familiar. Have we met? You know, I think we have. Long time ago though. I was young, about the time my uncle passed. But no, can’t be. Must’ve been someone else; You’re far too young!

Do I read? Sure, sometimes.

What’s this? Looks like one of Joe’s books.

Which page, you say?

Well… that is interesting. Joe tried? Didn’t have the stomach to go all the way, huh? Shame. He was awful sad, and I reckon this would have helped him.

Yeah. I’ve been feeling low myself. Sad, I guess you could say. I don’t know if my kids even think about me anymore. But, I’ve still Joe’s old bar stool. Strange how it's only ever been me or Joe to sit in it, isn’t it? Far as I recall, anyhow.

Ah hell, why not. Let’s take another look at that book. Maybe Joe missed something.

 

 

 

 

 

D.M. Clarke writes about people and systems who are hiding from themselves. His work has previously been published in print anthologies by Outcast Press and Madness Heart Press, and online at Misery Tourism and A Thin Slice of Anxiety. Originally from England but now an American citizen (he accepts both congratulations or commiserations), he lives in Wisconsin with his partner and pets.