Joey & Janey(M. K. Mafi) Joey and Janey


Joey Dunn and I were friends in high school. Actually, we’d known each other since middle school, and he was probably nicer to me then than in high school. Seemed that everyone grew up by the time they entered East Side High, or they thought they were too good to be my friend. But sometimes Joey talked to me when his circle of pals wasn’t around or when he needed help with his homework.


In English class he used to sit in front of me, and he wanted me to massage his back with my pencil. So for the whole sixty minutes of class time I was busy massaging him, as our teacher lectured about "The Great Gatsby." Occasionally, the teacher glanced in our direction but then overlooked whatever was going on. He was a young teacher—first year, I think.


My best friend from my elementary school days casually looked over at us but then went back to being her typical, antisocial self. She knew Joey was just using me—for my brains and now a massage. But Joey was too cool for me to let down. In fact I kind of liked poking my pencil’s eraser in his back and circling it around. If only his girlfriend knew that I had her man in ecstasy for sixty minutes every day. The nerd Janey Cornmuffin—me—was getting off on Joey Dunn’s relaxation moment. Or was it the other way around, that Joey was getting off on having me at his beck and call? Joey did seem relaxed though.


One day Joey invited me over to his house after school. We rode the same bus and he lived a few doors down from me. He needed help with his homework.


His mom was home since she was a housewife. She was nice to me in a strange way. I guessed she thought I was too much of a geek to be with her son.


I wasn’t there long since Joey preferred to copy than to get real help with the work. I felt sad that he didn’t read the books assigned to us. He was missing out … that Joey.


As soon as I got home, I called my mom at work to check in with her. She was mad that I’d gone over Joey’s house, worrying that he could have done something sexual to me. I doubted he’d even thought of it since I knew he got what he wanted from his girlfriend. Anyway, I still got a lecture about the dangers of going over to a guy’s house and that, thank God, his mother was home.


I suspected, though, that his mother wouldn’t be anywhere else but at home. Once or twice she’d subbed at our school, and seeing her there was awkward. Kids didn’t like her, either, because she yelled a lot.


In our senior year Joey was in danger of not graduating. He’d already been kicked off the lacrosse team because of his grades. So he’d come to me for tutoring at my parents’ business, which was a convenience store where he’d eat cheese Danishes and drink the black coffee that sat out all day with a lot of milk. Luckily, my parents worked the day shift so they didn’t see him. And the woman who was there in the evening, Mary May, was probably glad that I had a boyfriend, even though I kept saying he wasn’t.


To my surprise Joey pulled his grades up. He got a “B” on his math final and a “C” on his English paper. I felt proud of him. Still, sometimes I felt that he didn’t appreciate my help because he was too busy with the wrong crowd, getting high and drag racing.


One Saturday night I decided to show up at their races. I was really scared to go, but I went anyway. I took my dad’s black pick-up truck. The night was dark and the windows were tinted, so no one could see me.


I waited in the mall’s parking lot where Joey’s gang of friends gathered. Then ten minutes later, they all took off. I knew they were about to get on a highway to race, and I went after them. I couldn’t believe how fast I had to go just to keep up. Eighty miles … no, ninety! My God, how fast were they going? And I was still behind. I slowed down a bit before I got pulled over. But the race was on, and I didn’t want to lose them.


Then it happened. The last thing you would want to have happen when you’re speeding. The guy who Joey was racing lost control and banged into Joey; then the boy flew into the forest with his car landing upside down in probably a deer’s home.


Flames on the other side of the road got my attention. It couldn’t be, and it shouldn’t be. I drove over there fast and jumped out of my car. Joey’s car had lost control and went into a tree. I dialed 9-1-1 then rushed over to where Joey was. Luckily, he was in the car all by himself. But the door was locked. Me and a few of the guys who’d been racing tried to break in.


The guys were too worked up to worry about what I was doing there. I ran and got the wooden stick that my dad kept in his truck to break the window, just in case. When I rushed back, one of the guys took it from me and broke the driver’s side window.


The boys pulled him out before the flames evaporated him. But he’d been affected and actually passed out due to the smell of gas coming from the tank. The smell even made me sick—and the fire was hot. I wished the police would hurry up.


I saw a huddle of people on the other side of the highway, too, trying to help the other racer. Things weren’t looking very good over there, either. I saw they were yanking what appeared to be Joey’s girlfriend out of the passenger side. But what was she doing sitting with the other racer when she should have been with Joey?


Sirens blared toward us.


The fire had sent up a lot of smoke, and I couldn’t see Joey and the guys very well anymore.


The ambulance took Joey away. I followed in the pick-up truck.




Part II



When things had settled down, I went to visit Joey. I texted my mom, letting her know that I was staying over at Sara’s house so she wouldn’t panic.


I hesitated behind Joey’s hospital room door and then pushed the door open. I thought at once that I was in the wrong room. What appeared to be Joey was a man three times his age or Joey’s grandfather. He was asleep. I stepped closer to the bed. It was Joey. But as an old man. I saw the bump on his high aquiline nose and the little dot on the corner of his lip; it was Joey all right, but prune like, wearing a faded army jacket. What had happened to him? Surely the fire wouldn’t have done all that?


He soon woke up. Stared dead in my face. Then he grabbed hold of my hand tightly.


“What happened to me? I ache all over.”


“You got in a bad car accident, Joey. You’re lucky to be alive. You almost caught on fire.”


“Who the hell are you?” Joey let go of my hand. He could be really cruel and I was angry and hurt—even if he did almost die.


“I’m Janey.”


“Who?” He seemed confused.


“Janey. The one who practically saved you from failing high school.”


“Shit… I never graduated. Didn’t you know? I’m still trying to get my GED. I just can’t pass the math part.”


“Oh come on, Joey. Don’t talk like that. You know math is your strongest.” I paused trying to think of something that he would remember. “You know that two negatives equal a positive. And one positive and a negative is always a negative because they’re different signs.” I gestured with my index fingers, one in a vertical position and the other in horizontal.


Joey’s gaze went from my hands to his wrinkly ones. “Nonsense. That’s all a bunch of bull. What do we need math for anyway?”


“You know we use it every day, Joey. Even for minor things. Like how many times we use the bathroom or wash our hands.”


“You’re confusing me. My head hurts. And I think you got my name wrong.”


Then it dawned on me that something really bad had happened to Joey. He looked and acted like Joey. But he wasn’t Joey anymore.


“Joey, remember how you used me so you could copy my homework? Remember how you wanted me to massage your back with the end of my pencil? Remember how you promised that if I helped you get an A on your English test that you’d dump Jennifer and get with me?” My voiced started to shake. “Remember you said you’d take me to the prom if I’d stop talking to that guy in the media center?”


Joey just stared out into space.


“Joey, remember that one time you said you loved me, and then you tried to take it back as if you didn’t know what came out of your mouth?”



Joey was still in a world of his own.


I started to shake the arm of the old man who had taken Joey’s form. “Don’t be like this, Joey.”


“I’m sorry for all that you think I said. But I’m not the Joey you accuse me of being.”


I stared hard into Joey’s face. The carefree spirit was still in the old man who seemed to be Joey. Joey didn’t know who he was, and I realized I didn’t know this new Joey, either. He was an old man with no worries in the world. I wanted to remind him—to bring him back as the young Joey.


Tears poured from my eyes. Joey didn’t notice. He just stared at the TV in front of him.


I grabbed his arm and shook him. “Joey, don’t regress.” He still ignored me. I shook him harder. “Joey, you still have a chance to make some changes. To do better in school. To go to college. You’re not this old man, Joey. You’re really seventeen, about to graduate from high school. Joey, come back to me. You still have your life to live. Just believe in it, Joey.”


I woke up in the hospital chair facing Joey’s bed, and he studied me for what seemed a very long moment. I was relieved that Joey looked liked himself again but though with a burn mark on his cheek.


He said, “You saved my life, Janey. I’m sorry for everything that I put you through. I’ve been stupid.” Tears leaked out of his eyes.


I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, or what I was hearing. Why did it have to take such a horrible scare to teach my friend Joey what’s important in life?

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