A Tale of Two Joes

Joe was sitting in someone else’s chair in someone else’s room. The window in front of him let in a soft yellow beam of sunlight and the rectangular heater that sat alongside the wall pumped out a steady current of warm air. Joe’s chair faced the window and next to him sat an empty chair; both angled as if someone had deliberately arranged them so that the sitter was forced to dwell on the events going on outside of the window rather than inside the room. Behind Joe were two beds, on opposite walls with matching nightstands.

Joe was stuck in this familiar strange place again. He was troubled, and he wrung his hands together as if he were trying to wash away whatever it was that troubled him. Joe looked out the window and stared at the trees blowing in the wind. The window pane was thick and muffled all sound, and he liked the way the trees swung silently back and forth. Their green leaves danced and turned inside out with each gust, revealing a slightly different and duller shade on their undersides. All the while, the trees’ sturdy trunks and full branches alternated leaning left and right at a slow, rhythmic pace. Without realizing it, their dance brought him peace of mind and helped to ease his pain.

He and Ethel finished digging just before twilight. They heaved the last bucket-full of dirt up with an old rope, and as he dumped its contents into the wooden wheelbarrow, he imagined what their house would look like when it was all finished. The maple trees loomed large around him and they were counting on them to grow even larger to cover their house with shade from the summer sun. He lifted and turned the wheelbarrow, and huffed it down to the bottom of their property line and dumped its contents. Ethel smiled, tightened the handkerchief that covered her hair, and wiped the sweat from her brow with her sleeve. She had faith in him, and together they would build their house.

Joe tired of looking at the trees through the window and he felt the urge to move. His mind told him it was time to go home and to sit in his own chair, so he pushed himself up and went to find a way out. He pushed open the door to his room and glanced around cautiously, peering down the long hallway. Nobody seemed to take notice of him and all the faces meant nothing to him. He didn’t know where he was but he knew where he wanted to be – home. The feeling was instinctual not reasoned. As he took his first step into the hallway, Joe noticed the thin slippers that covered his feet and wondered how they got there.

Photo courtesy of Sears Archives
It was 1939 and they ordered their house from a Sears and Roebuck mail order catalogue. He and Ethel chose The Milford Model, item # 3385, as shown on page 27, and it cost them $1,671. They liked the lines and layout and agreed with the description under the picture that read, “A home like the Milford is a credit to you, your family, and every neighborhood.” When the lumber arrived by train it was pre-cut and fitted and needed only to be assembled by a craftsman. So, together he and Ethel finished building their house.

Joe made it down the hallway and pushed the door open that led to a stairwell, which he hoped led to home. As the door slipped open a loud bell sounded. The noise startled him so much that, going against his own desires, he stepped back inside the hallway. They came running in their white uniforms and grabbed him by his hand and led him further away from the door. Then they made false promises and played tricks with his head. They seemed intent on confusing him into submission: You have guests coming and they’ll want you to be here when they visit. We don’t have a car for you to leave in right now. Don’t worry, your tomato plants are being taken care of. Joe’s eyes were a cloudy blue and they betrayed the confusion that lay behind them. On his wrist was a silver and gold Timex watch with a flex-band. As they guided him back to his room and sat him down in front of the window again, he glanced at his watch and wondered if it was keeping proper time, and feared that perhaps it had slowed down a minute or two. I’d better fix it, he thought.

Photo Courtesy of Decor Medley
He worked with his hands and his mind, depending equally on each to get the job done. He was a clockmaker and he worked out back in his shop with his tools while Ethel worked out front in the store with their customers. He made clocks of all kinds, crafting their cases out of pine, maple, and oak. The sawdust coated his workshop floor and was always in his hair and in the wrinkles and creases of his skin. He assembled the clocks’ gears, chains, weights, and pendulums, and perfected their timing with fussy precision. He enjoyed making mantle clocks and wall clocks, but his specialty - and true passion - was the long case, or Grandfather clock.


Joe sat slumped at a round table and in a room with lots of other round tables. There were six chairs circling his and he ate his supper with two other men he didn’t know, one of whom was sound asleep with his head hanging over his plate. A television could be heard blaring from the next room and it almost covered up the sound of the clinking silverware. Eating was merely an exercise. Joe swirled his spoon around in his mashed potatoes and creamed corn, and felt nothing.

Photo courtesy of Laurel Leaf Farm
His garden was green and lush. Squash and zucchini burst from the vine and cucumbers grew as much as 2 inches in a single day in the humid days of summer. The tomatoes were plump and red and he loved to eat them like an apple, letting the juice run down his arm. Ethel picked the lettuce daily and pickled the beets, beans, and peppers, and his stalks of corn were always knee high by the 4th of July and a proud 7 feet tall by the end of August. The only thing he loved more than growing his corn was eating it, savoring the butter and salt mixture, and wearing the juicy spray of the yellow and white kernels on his clothes and chin. Ethel cooked the freshly picked ears in her large, black and white speckled Graniteware bucket over the outdoor fire pit and that, he was convinced, is what made it taste so good.

Joe was frequently visited by strangers and they sat alongside him in his room, taking their place in the empty chair next to his. They talked about the weather, told him about their day, and made small-talk between long pauses of silence. When Joe felt like talking he would nod his head and state empty questions like, is that right and how about that. One stranger came more than most and Joe liked her and enjoyed her company. She was the one who was most like him and she seemed to understand him, even though he didn’t understand himself. She made things better and more familiar than they seemed to be when she wasn’t there – and that made him happy.

He and Ethel felt lucky to have such fine girls. There was a hammock that stretched between two trees in the backyard, and that was his favorite place to sit with them and share a bowl of vanilla ice cream after dinner; just he and his two chums with a bowl and three spoons, cuddled up together and rocking back and forth slowly as the sun set on their day.

Joe had no sense of time. Each day it ticked away and he was unaware of its passing and of his place within it. Each day was new and the same, and yet each day was unfamiliar – he was in an undeserved purgatory. Joe was like an aged Grandfather clock whose uniquely crafted frame was worn and seasoned to a natural antique perfection, but whose internal workings misfired and were unable to measure and keep time with any accuracy. Joe’s memory was caught in a faulty loop of confusion. He was betrayed by the very mind that served him so well for nearly 80 years.

Each night, after supper was finished and the dishes and homework were done, they sat in the den of the house they built. Their two chairs were side by side and angled towards each other, purposely arranged so that the focus was the center of the room and everything that happened in and around it. They sat together and talked about the memories they made and experiences they shared. They did this for over 40 years, and after Ethel died he still sat there alone – and he relived those memories, relied on them, and cherished them. His brain replayed all that his senses had captured over the course of their life together:

The smell of the turkey roasting in the oven on thanksgiving - the crackle of the fire from behind the iron curtain covering the brick fireplace - the smell of Ivory soap in the bathroom – the creak of the black leather recliner, followed by the shuffling of newspapers – the feel of the soft green carpet on his stocking feet after a long day – the girls’ tiny footprints preserved in the concrete base of the flagpole – the taste of the pears picked from their tree – the sound of the coo-coo clock’s call at each passing hour.

He had a good life and he was grateful for the memories he had, and took comfort in knowing that he would always have them.