We had all been sitting around the kitchen table when she flashed a cheshire at the back of Joe's head, the bitch.
"So, did you kill anyone in Vietnam?" she asked. He opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut, looking as though he had been hit over the head with a two by four.
He turned to face her, blinked in slow motion, then quietly rose from his seat and walked out the back door.
Months before, I'd found a syringe he had hidden underneath the refrigerator and had thrown it away without telling him anything.
As I watched him go, I thought about that syringe and hoped that he wasn't thinking about it too.
But no, he was clean now and had kicked the habit without going to the methadone clinic and if you think that was easy then I have some ocean front property in Oklahoma I'd like to sell you.
Since he kicked he went from collecting discarded soda bottles for the deposit to collecting a decent paycheck by climbing telephone poles for Ma Bell.
He said that at first it didn't look too good for him at the interview. The guy sitting behind the desk in the white shirt wrinkled his nose when Joe walked in with his flared jeans and long hair.
But when Joe mentioned he had been in Vietnam the white shirt leaned over the desk, shook his hand and told him he was hired.
Joe looked at me and smiled. "I guess effen Vietnam was good for one effen thing," he chuckled.
After he'd been clean for a few months his sister, who had become a Jehovah Witness, asked him to taste and see that Jehovah was good, but he figured that with or without Jehovah's help life was only going to get better.
When he wasn't using, Joe was a lot nicer to be around.
And a hell of a lot smarter, too.
Hey, Joe
by nilfun 2 Replies latest jw friends
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nilfun
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SixofNine
Every story tells a picture, don'it?
Nice picture.
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nilfun
Thanks for responding, SixofNine,
I feel like bashing my head on my monitor but I can't afford the plastic surgery.
I think I'd be better off getting some sleep instead...
G'nite