Page 25 of Johnny

sake.

I am a bank teller for a secret organization, that’s it.

Joey was another matter. Altogether different than Jesse in many ways.

For one, I’m pretty sure he’s not my real brother. I’m not sure how much of this he’s figured out, but

that’s the facts.

I heard my parents arguing once. I was really small. Jesse was an infant, so I was no more than

three.

But I’m telling you, I remember that day so clearly. They were fighting in one of the rooms on the

family floor. Far on the other side from where I spent my time. I don’t know where the nanny was.

Who knows? All I know is that I heard voices. Loud, angry voices. And I followed them through all

those hallways, and all those doors. And when I finally peeked in my mother was holding a baby.

Joey.

I didn’t know what his name was then. And Joey probably isn’t his real name. I’m pretty sure we

just called him that to make him fit in with Johnny and Jesse.

She was screaming at my father. Screaming at him.

I wet my pants in the hallway, that’s how scared I was of my mother in that moment. It trickled

down my leg and made a puddle on the floor.

But the baby wasn’t screaming. His eyes were closed. My mother was holding him to her breast

and his cheek was smashed against her shoulder. He was asleep. Through all that anger and vitriol, he

was sleeping.

This is the only part of the memory I question.

How was Joey not afraid of my raging mother? She was using her free hand to slap at my father.

And she, like me, like my father, like Check, was not a person you fuck with.

How could Joey have possibly been asleep?

Sometimes I wonder if I made all that up. The whole scene. Like maybe it was just one more

example of my overactive imagination? Because I have a very overactive imagination. Even now.

I am one of those guys. One of those conspiracy theory people. I believe in all of it. The Kennedy

and Martin Luther King assassinations? Setups. Moon landing? Faked. Aliens, sure. Why not? Knights

Templar, and the Zeitgeist, and One World Order? You betcha. MK Ultra, and the Illuminati, and Skull

and fuckin’ Bones. Yup. It’s all real. Or, at the very least, it’s disinformation based on the truth.