Joe

Joe owns the furniture store next to the pawn shop. It’s called "Out of the Woods", and on a very busy day, he sees four customers. That means he spends a lot of time at the pawn shop, standing around the coffee pot, telling stories.

Joe wears overalls every day. One of the buckles on his strap broke, so he clipped it together with a paperclip. His hair sticks straight up, as if he bolts out of bed, puts on his overalls, and jumps in the truck to leave without ever looking at himself in the mirror.

He wouldn’t speak to me the first nine months I worked at the pawn shop, but I didn’t mind. Aunt Cheryl described him as one of "the world’s biggest downers", and that was a fairly accurate assessment of Joe. He was not excitable. When Eric’s grandmother was unable to remember his name and took to calling him Woody, he just called her Gladys and moved about his business.

I do not remember what it was that I said to Joe that finally made him warm up to me, but about three months ago, we became friends. He started making the trip to shop to talk to me. We were talking about some medical break-through I had seen on CNN when Joe dropped a bomb-shell.

"I am so disappointed in my profession. We could have saved the world, but we dropped the ball."

"Furniture makers? How could they have saved the world?"

"No, I’m a geneticist with degrees in computer programming and biology. As a geneticist, we spent so much time trying to figure out the causes of cancer, when we should have been working to cure it. Everything causes cancer. That’s what all our research amounts to. I will never forgive the scientific community for wasting so much time."

I was stunned. I would have never suspected that the slovenly cabinet maker next door was a brilliant geneticist that had headed research programs at major universities across America.

Having never had the chance to talk to a scientist before, I threw a million questions at him, on topics as diverse as quantum physics, genetically engineering cattle to produce more beef, or the way video games are programmed. Joe would patiently explain scientific methods and data, or the way computers worked, smiling broadly. I wondered why he left the world of science when it was clear that he still loved it.

Turns out, Joe had major health problems, so his doctors advised him that he would have to leave his laboratories behind and find a new career that didn’t involve such long hours or stress. Joe and his family moved to East Texas, and they opened "Out of the Woods". He seemed happy enough at the furniture store, if a little bored.

He told me that sometimes he got calls from his colleagues, wanting Joe to test their scientific methods, or look for flaws in the proof data.

I did not see Joe yesterday. It crossed my mind in the late afternoon, but I was consumed with other things and I didn’t dwell on it. What I did not know is that, across town, his wife was frantically trying to reach him. Her phone calls went unanswered all day. In a panic by the time the last school bell rang, she jumped in the car and rushed to "Out of the Woods".

Cheryl and I were standing outside, trying to discover the source of the smoke billowing in to the sky. We heard a firetruck coming down Main Street.

"Good, it’s about time they got down there and took care of it. The whole damn town will..." Cheryl stopped talking when the firetruck pulled in Joe’s parking lot and the EMTs jumped out with a de-fibrillator. "Oh shit! What’s wrong with Joe?"

Cheryl rushed over to help, as did Tom. More firetrucks joined the first one, followed by an ambulance and four police cruisers. I decided it was best to stay out of the way, so I went back inside the shop.

Forty five minutes later, Cheryl came to the desk.

"Joe passed away in his office today. His wife found him."

"Shit."

Tom told me later that he looked very serene. He had a can of Coke in one hand, and a bag of chips in front of him.

"Don’t worry Reb, he looked real peaceful. It probably happened in an instant, and he just slumped over."

I hope that’s the case.

R.I.P Joe. You were a gentleman, a scholar and a scientist, and I will miss you.