Joey

      Joey

 

Muriel was her name and oh Lord . She was a master fisherman. She hooked this guy so hard he would never get the hook from his mouth. That barb struck so deep. I had never seen anything like this.

I was working as an assistant manager at a restaurant chain called The Farm Shops. This is where I met him. We managers and assistants used to go from shop to shop and see what was going on, we called it a visit if caught but we were just spying. Making sure we not being out done or that another store had displays we did not. We made note of the cleanliness, food presentation and anything we could think of to better our shop and use these missteps if any to our advantage.

I was an assistant in the Plainville store. This was a twenty four hour shop, four days a week and just off route 84. This was one of the two busiest stores in the chain. It was during one of these forays to another store I met him. Joey.

If you can picture an unmade bed, with blonde hair , never combed, a wrinkled flurry of energy, always excited about something or another, this was Joey. He was infectious. I don’t mean actually but by nature. You could not be near him and not feel some kind of excitement. You were never really sure what you were supposed to be excited about but that was fine. It was a mass of positive energy.

We became very close friends and spent as much time as we could with each other. We helped one another at the others store, some nights after the midnight closing you could find us cleaning out freezers in order to help the other. I had been his best friend about six months when one night he met Muriel. It was like the scene from the Godfather where Michael meets Appolonia! Lightning bolts. I was not there for the original meeting but saw him the next day and Lord! He could barely speak. Every other word from his mouth was Muriel. I actually laughed at him. All in good fun of course. When I finally did meet her I was confused. She was tiny, not well built, far from distractingly pretty. To be honest I never saw the attraction but they say there is an a*s for every seat and it sure seemed true here. Joey and I continued to stay friends and made many plans together. We had some wild ideas, the kind that only eighteen year olds can dream up. We were becoming tired of these jobs we were doing at the Farm Shops, so we took a road trip one night. A trip not well thought out and not well planned. We decided to drive to New York City and find the docks. At this point we would find the cruise ships and try to land jobs as waiters. Sounded good at the time. 

Well we managed to find Manhattan, the Bronx but never quite got to the docks. We did manage to locate a burning stolen car on the Cross Bronx Freeway. We also passed by a Playboy Club . Joe was out of his mind. We have to go in there was his cry! He talked me into it . We got to the front door and found it was a key club. So we bought a key . It was made of green aluminum and allowed the holder to bring a guest. And that is what we did. Oh my , this was like heaven! I know I fell in love at least thirty times that night and I believe Joey even stopped thinking of Muriel for a few minutes. We went home that night full of memories but no cruise ship work.

We next decide to apply for waiters jobs at the Colonade Banquet Rooms. Just to supplement our income from our usual work. This place was a banquet facility attached to a steak house and was part of another chain only far better than where we worked. The chain was called The Steak Clubs. They had wonderful food.  We interviewed with a man named Arthur Colliss. He was soft spoken and extremely well dressed very confidant. He took our applications and told us to call him back in a week. This was the largest mistake of his life. I took him literally. I called back a week later and had Joey do the same. He took the call but said nothing was going on right now and call back. Well call back I did . Every day for three weeks, seven days a week. He finally decided we were not going away . I called on a Friday afternoon and he said , “you ever tended bar?” I never had but we were brought in that night and started a great learning experience. We served banquets of up to a thousand , learning how to serve functions and to tend bar.

Joey and I used this extra cash to fund a business of furniture stripping and refinishing. Another venture we had short supply of knowledge about. It was amazing . We feared absolutely nothing. We just hitched up our courage and went ahead full bore. I haven’t seen Joey in many years now but I can fairly well guarantee he is still with Muriel and they have six rumpled children.