joey johnson was the most harmless person in the world.
he had a job as a custodian in an office building in a mall on the outskirts of town. he worked odd hours.
he lived alone in a house that had been owned by his parents. was, in fact, still owned by his father, who was serving a life sentence for murdering joey’s mother. joey’s father was also suspected of murdering a couple of young women, but had never been tried for those crimes.
joey’s father had been an angry man. until the murder of joey’s mother, however, his anger at home had taken the form of constant ranting, not physical violence. he had never struck joey, and joey had never seen his father strike his mother before the murder.
joey inherited his docile nature from his mother, and from his father’s mother whom he, joey, had never met or seen a picture of.
when joey came home from work at night, if it was not too late, he usually watched television. he did not have cable tv, so he just watched the network stations, and, more often, the local station.
the local station had some curious programs, and curious ads, especially late at night.
one ad that ran often and that caught joey’s attention was for “real live girls - not inflatable dolls”. joey found the ads confusing - he could not quite make out what they were for. they promised the purchaser a “real live girl” but even joey, innocent as he was, realized that this could not be literally true. the “real live girls” pictured in the ads looked like ordinary women in their early twenties, wearing bikinis and clearly intended for sex - would they also cook and clean house? have day jobs to bring in money? the ads did not say they would not, but it did not seem likely. the ads said they “talked” - but about what? could they talk about politics and the weather and the yankees and the giants or just about sex? did they have to be fed? unlikely. but the ads assured the viewer they were not “not just dolls”. joey decided they must be some kind of robot. in any case, they were way too expensive - more than a car! - even with a “low down payment” and installments.
intrigued as he sometimes was when he watched the ads, joey never thought about them during the day. when he was performing his duties as a custodian, he often daydreamed, but about playing for the yankees or the giants or the knicks, or about winning the lottery, or about having a girl friend who would be a gentle soul like his mother and also a sports fan.
joey was happy just to be alive and to have a job.
No comments:
Post a Comment