A Joey Kind of History

A short memoir about growing up with a father who has a love for stories

On a warm July night, the noise of my sister’s and my sock feet scampering around the old cottage mixed with the usual orchestra of crickets that lingered on Martha’s Vineyard. The usual routine that we knew as bedtime had been disrupted. Mom was in Boston, walking to raise money for breast cancer in the 2003 Avon Three-Day. The nanny, Ashley, was out with her friends. It was a cookies-after-dinner and movies-before-bed night; it was a Daddy night. Tori, my older sister, and I were dashing around as we tried to steal more cookies, giggling as little girls do, and Dad was attempting to race faster. Rounding us up into pajamas and tucking us calmly into bed was not Dads forte. Eventually, we outran short-of-breath Dad. So he calmly sat back on the faded, blue couch and called loudly to be heard over sock feet and giggles; he said if we were both in bed within five minutes he would tell us all of his best joeys.

            Martha’s Vineyard was my home. Sure, I attended kindergarten in Medway, Massachusetts, but as far as I was concerned, East Chop, Martha’s Vineyard, was where I lived. It contained the beach, my best friends, my whole loud, extended family, and all of my favorite memories. Every holiday, from sparklers-and-marshmallow Fourth of July to newspaper-wrapped Christmas, took place on the Vineyard. The house at 72 Green Ave with the peeling green and red paint, the outdoor shower, the yellowing hammock, the Dalmatian outside on a chain, and the pink room facing the street on the second floor was my home.

            Once Dad spoke of sharing joeys, Tori and I bolted to get ready for bed. Within four minutes we were in matching Tinker Bell pajamas with our teeth brushed to a sparkle and snuggled into the pink twin bed in the pink walled room. We loved to share that bed when we listened to Daddy tell joeys.

            “What are you rascals both doing in Tori’s bed?” Dad said, as he turned the corner into the doorway of his elder daughter’s bedroom. He put on a face of mock anger, Tori and I giggled and squirmed.

            “We want to hear the joeys, Daddy” Tori said.

            Dad sighed, in a moment of distress he had promised all of the joeys. All parents tell their kids stories, sometimes read straight out of a book and telling of glass slippers and dwarfs, and sometimes made up on the spot. Either way, story time is a common custom for children. Dad never told stories. He had something better. He told my sister and me joeys. Joeys are like myths, stories that explain why things are the way they are and how things used to be. Joeys are passed down, like folk tales. Daddy’s dad, a grandpa I never met, used to tell Daddy and his five siblings joeys every night, and the stories always began with “Joey and Franky”. There was never any significance to these names; they just flowed off Dad’s tongue in a way that always led to joeys.

            With Dad’s sigh Tori and I snuggled closer. I pulled the pink blankets up to my nose and encased myself in that cottage’s smell "sand, sun-dried sheets, and hydrangeas. My toes curled in anticipation because we were about to hear the incomparable joeys. Again, Daddy sighed. Maybe falling asleep on the beach that day had let the sun get to his head, or maybe it was the four pleading blue eyes, but something that night allowed the miracle to occur.

            Daddy sat down on the end of the pink bed, and leaned his head against the wall. It looked as if thoughts whizzed through his tired mind as he tried to think past the timeless first line of joeys. He turned to face us and began the first joey of the night.

            “Once upon a time, things were different here on Martha’s Vineyard, and Joey and Franky lived in a house up that was across the street from the ocean but still in the center of town. Right on the edge of a great big park sat The Top Knot, Joey and Franky’s house. From the balcony of The Top Knot, Joey and Franky could see the great big dock where the ferry unloaded millions of tourists. Every forty-five minutes, every day of the week, tourists arrived in multitudes like ants; they paraded off the boat, over the dock, and onto Martha’s Vineyard.

            “One day, Joey and Franky really wanted some ice cream from the creamery, Ben and Bill’s, but their mom wouldn’t give them money. Joey and Franky then came up with a way to make money. They were both excellent swimmers, so the two of them grabbed their masks and ran across the park to the ferry dock. They reached the dock just in time for tourists to swarm off of the ferry. With people watching, the boys became exhibitionists, and they jumped up and swan dived off the edge of the dock, flipping as they fell. The tourists screamed in amusement and surged toward the edge of the dock to pear at Joey and Franky.

            “‘THROW YOUR CHANGE AND WATCH US FIND COINS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN,’ Joey yelled up to the viewers.

            “Coins flew over the railing, and with each small piece of metal, the two boys dove down. With minutes passing while the boys were submerged, the spectators stood in suspense. The tourists were waiting for Franky or Joey to burst out of the water holding the coin above their head like a trophy before the boy pocketed the coin and yelled for more.

            “And on that hot summer day, the ice cream that Joey and Franky bought with their own soggy, coin-diving change was the sweetest ice cream they had ever tasted”.

            Dad smiled and opened his eyes. He looked down at us, and to his dismay, Tori and I were wide awake. In that brief moment in a pink walled room, I was a coin diver. I was yelling for change and speeding to the sandy ocean floor to retrieve it. Tori and I were ready for the next joey, even if Dad just wanted to go to bed.

            Full of hope, Dad asked if we were tired, and with a shake of blond hair, Tori and I told him no. He sat back against the wall and put a rough, construction-worker hand to his neck. His crooked grin slowly spread across his face and he began the next joey.

            “Once upon a time, things were different here on Martha’s Vineyard, and Joey and Franky were enjoying a cool, summer afternoon when suddenly the dock that once paraded tourists throwing coins to Joey and Franky was burning to the water line. The family in The Top Knot was livid because their mother was at the hospital giving birth to Joey and Franky’s little sister, Sally. With the nanny trying to keep order, the two boys sat on the old, copper roof of their beloved home and looked across the park as ash suffocated the clouds. With blackness in the sky, Joey and Franky wondered if the sun would ever be as bright again. But when little Sally finally came home, they learned that it would be.”

            I could not imagine the massive dock that unloaded tourists from the mountainous ferry burning to the water line. My eyes widened as I pictured the cloudy day turn to night as the result of just one forgotten cigarette butt.

            The magic of time travel was in the air, and Dad was ready for the adventure. The love story of all joeys began to roll off his tongue.

“Once upon a time, things were different here on Martha’s Vineyard, and Joey and Franky knew a group of girls. They were all sisters and they lived three houses down from Joey and Franky. The girls were all older by at least three years, taller by at least a head, and unrealistically stronger. They were born to a father who only wanted a boy, but nonetheless those six girls were the light of his life. As a protective father, he dressed his girls head to toe in pink polka dots, so they would never be lost. The girls patrolled the ocean side park as if they were lionesses hunting for prey. They would strut their chubby polka-dotted legs and scout for Joey and Franky. The girls would beat Joey and Franky up every day when the boys were playing in the park, but the boys played in the park to allow the girls to beat on them. Joey and Franky always secretly hoped that they might win a fight, or more that one of the girls would let Joey and Franky win. Joey and Franky undoubtedly loved the polka dot girls.”

            Dad chuckled at the thought of two small boys being in love with masculine older girls, and Tori and I giggled at the thought of love. As far as we were concerned, our prince was a coin diver who would let us beat him up.

            After a moment of shared laughter, my eyes lids began to feel like lead. The pink flowered bed that smelled like summer suddenly became the most comfortable place I had ever been as I sank lower and lower beneath the covers. I could hear Dad starting a new joey, but it sounded as if he were a million miles away. His voice from another universe was shaping words into lost tourists, on the hunt for the best clams, and Tori was intently listening. This joey was a rerun; I had heard it the week before. The pair of idiotic, lost tourists worked their way from a fountain all the way to a brackish lake on the other side of the island as they searched for clams until they did, in fact, find the yummiest clams the island has to offer. They then shucked the shellfish on their back porch and made clams casino for a cocktail party. The joey was all too familiar. So without hearing the ending a second time, I slipped into dreams of shiny pennies sinking to the ocean floor, cigarettes suffocating clouds, and pink polka dots.

            One day, in the summer of 2013, Dad and I, now his fifteen year old daughter, were out walking the streets of town after grabbing a slice of pizza at the corner. Dad loves to window shop in Oak Bluffs. We were walking up the street when a particular store window caught his eye; it housed many old faded Polaroid photographs in frames. I asked him what he was looking at, and in response, he strolled into the store. Looking around for an employee, Dad came across an old friend, as he almost always does. Dad and the bearded friend shook hands and laughed as they inquired about each other’s families. Dad introduced me, and the older bearded man laughed.

            “Ay, Bobby, we were about her age when we stahted coin divin’, right?” The bearded man’s cheeks crinkled as he smiled at me. Dad laughed and ridiculed him for never actually finding any of the coins.

            The bearded man turned out to be not only a retired coin diver but the owner of the small store. That day, Dad purchased a faded photograph of a burning dock; it was dated August 5, 1965 " his sister, Auntie Suzy’s, birthday.

            I realized I was no longer a child when it dawned on me that Joey and Franky did not become millionaires in the coin-diving business and that the sky never did turn black for a year. I know my father was as imaginative as his father, as imaginative as I am. I now understand that joeys are just a piece of my past, but if I listen hard enough in that pink room, I can still hear giggles falling silent to words. In all truth, joeys are just over-exaggerated stories from Dad’s childhood. I expect that the moments that I live each summer on Martha’s Vineyard will someday also be stretched and sculpted to fit the shape of joeys.

Reviews

[A. Amos]

I really like the flow and your story telling is simply spectacular!