He was, after all, the quietest, least spontaneous, most predictable man I'd ever met. Not that he was dull. Well, mostly Joe wasn't dull. There were times when it was easy to forget he was at a party, or even sitting next to you. Mostly, he was just always there. And you always knew what he was going to do.
Take last Christmas, for example. The Secret Santa exchange at the office. Everyone knew that getting Joe as your gift giver means you would get a $10 gift card to the local bookstore, and a $5 gift card to the local coffee shop. It didn't matter if you couldn't read a word and only drank organic milk. Those were the gifts you were going to get from Joe.
A girl Joe once dated told me once that the great thing about him was that he was steady, dependable, predictable. You always knew what he had planned, even before he did. Dating Joe went something like this:
Monday was TV night.
Tuesday, pub quiz.
Not much tended to happen on Wednesday, so Joe stayed home and cleaned the house.
Thursdays were a good night for restuarants, as most people tended to get paid on Friday. Friday was therefore the best evening to stay in and rent a movie.
Weekends were for getting outside and enjoying nature. And possibly running an errand or two on the side.
The biggest problem with dating Joe, this girl then admitted, was that he was so steady, dependable, and predictable. After two years and a major fight about seeing a movie in a theatre for a change, and doing it on Tuesday to see it at cheap night rates, she'd had enough. She walked out.
The following Thursday, Joe asked if I'd join him at a restaurant for dinner. He spent the entire evening crying into his beer about how a perfectly good pub quiz night had been ruined by his girlfriend's crazy ideas.
We often wondered about Joe. Aside from his ideas on what should happen when, he was a pretty decent and friendly guy. The wondering didn't tend to last long, and we all avoided doing anything with him more than once in a blue moon. It worked fine, kept us all friends, and life generally went on its merry way.
One Tuesday I got a call. It was from the captain of Joe's pub quiz team. Joe hadn't shown up, and hadn't emailed or called to say that he wouldn't be there. This was unheard of. Joe had been attending this pub quiz religiously since he'd moved to town twelve years ago. The only times he'd missed had been that particularly bad case of bronchitis, and the freak fall down the stairs that had resulted in a sprained ankle. Both times there'd been contact. The captain was worried that Joe was seriously ill or dead. Since the pub team didn't know where Joe lived, could I go over and check to see that he still had a pulse?
I hung up the phone, puzzled and very worried. There hadn't been a time when a piece of Joe's schedule had been out of place and no one had heard why. I phoned a few friends, and no one had heard anything either. Three of the most concerned arranged to meet me at Joe's house, in case we needed a team to break in and revive him, or get him to the hospital. We all got there at the same time, parking on the street in a neat row.
The house was brightly lit, every curtain closed but light streaming around the edges and into the night. Joe's car was in the driveway, parked carefully closer to the sidewalk as he usually did. There was nothing but silence on the street. We waited on the front lawn for a few minutes, watching for movement between the lights and windows, and trying to find the best way inside if no one answered the door.
Finally, I walked up the path to the door with our friends behind me. I rang the doorbell, leaning heavily on the button to make sure there was no question someone wanted in the house. There was still no sound on the other side, nothing to indicate that the bell had been heard or anyone was going to answer.
I leaned on it again, and then banged on the door for added emphasis. Still nothing.
I looked over my shoulder at Tom, who just shrugged.
We were hoping to not have to actually break in. It would draw attention, and if there was no real reason to be concerned, it could mean some interesting exchanges with neighbours or police. But this was Joe, and he'd missed pub quiz... surely the police would understand.
Reaching out, I grasped the doorknob firmly and gave it a twist. To my surprise, it turned and the door swung inwards easily.
Several of the guys behind me gasped. Joe was a stickler for security. Doors were locked all the time, even if they weren't his. He'd visit someone, and lock the door behind himself as he entered. The thought of an open house would have horrified Joe and sent him into a spectacularly dramatic tirade on the dangers of city living and crime rate statistics.
This was starting to look really bad. We moved into the house in a huddled mass, not sure now that we wanted to know what was going on but unable to leave our friend in obvious distress.
We started to hear sounds from the living room. A man, yelling. Someone being slapped. A low and ominous moan. Walking faster, we entered the living room in a rush, hoping that we could take whomever was in there by surprise and rescue Joe.
Every light in the living room was on. An assortment of pizza boxes and popcorn bags littered the coffee table. Joe was sitting on the couch with a small bottle of pop in one hand, and the other holding a greasy slab of pizza. He was leaning forward, eyes glued to the TV set in front of him.
I tilted my head so I could see the screen. Die Hard, by the looks of it.
A puzzled grunt came from behind me. Feet shuffled. An uncomfortable silence descended.
Joe looked up, pizza suspended precariously over his lap. He stared at us for what seemed like hours as we tried to make sense of what we were seeing.
"Hey guys," he finally said. "What's up?"
I coughed, trying to find the right words. "Your quiz captain called. You, umm, weren't at the pub. He was worried."
Joe put the pop and pizza down onto a carboard box in front of him. "I got a call from the video rental place. The latest Die Hard came in. It's been pretty popular, been unavailable for weeks. I decided to watch it instead."
There were more sounds of embarassment from behind me.
"Want to watch?" Joe said. "I ordered way too much pizza, I think."
We all learned something about Joe we never would have expected. He was the quietest and most predictable man any of us had ever met.
He was also the biggest Die Hard fan on the planet, and would drop everything without thought to see it.
None of us ever looked at Joe quite the same way again.
2013 Stats
Books finished: 2
Weekly posts: 1
LOVE this story!
ReplyDeleteMe too! Awesome work :) A good reminder that one can be too predictable sometimes.
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