I know because my sister, his wife, started referring to the
basement as the office supply store. When I visited she would ask if I needed
‘anything’, with a sideways motion of her head and her mouth stretched in that
direction, towards the basement door.
Never one to pass up some paper, I’d say sure and we’d go down after Big
Joe had gone to bed, and I’d “shop”. Her
grown kids did the same, always surreptitiously, occasionally calling ahead to
ask her to check the inventory. The goods were always removed when Big Joe wasn’t
around or they were hidden in other bags upon leaving. Diaper bags were roomy receptacles for office
supplies.
Big Joe never commented on the decreasing piles. In fact he never once concurred that he had
even put the bags down there. Prior to
the basement stash, he had been putting the bags in the small spare room that had
belonged to his older son. That was when
my sister, his wife, seeing that a buildup wash happening, began to give the stuff
away. He never asked where the bags of supplies
were going, but had changed course and started depositing them in the
basement. It was never discussed, never
pointed out. It was all very secret and
covert.
There were other bags that he left here and there – the plastic
type of grocery bags. They would have
receipts or some other odds and ends of paper – just stuff he never went through
to throw out, but would accumulate. My
sister, the opposite of an accumulator, has the reputation of throwing the
current day’s newspaper out before the end of the day if she knows she won’t
have time to read it. So she had taken
to throwing the plastic bags of paper scraps out when Big Joe wasn’t around to
see. Sometimes brown paper bags too.
It was that one time that she noticed him in and out of Young
Joe’s old bedroom, up and down the basement stairs; each several times. It was
not his personality to wander. Mostly,
he drifted from bed to table to car, completing his errands, then back to
couch, table, bed. My sister finally
asked him what he was looking for? “Oh,
just a bag” Big Joe said. Humph, she
thought, just a bag? Days passed and the
hunt continued. Big Joe seemed to be
getting pretty worked up. My sister
began to worry about the bags she’d been throwing out (which of course she
would never, could never, tell him, or admit to doing). Some days later Big Joe asked her if she’d thrown
out a certain brown bag in recent weeks.
Of course not was her answer. It
was then that he sheepishly admitted that he’d been saving some money in a
paper bag, just throwing bills in with the intention of counting it up and
banking it when he had the time. “How
much was in there?” my sister asked tentatively. About two thousand, Big Joe replied.
In later years, Big Joe began hoarding Vodka, in addition to
the office supplies. This was a true
mystery, as Big Joe was a Bourbon drinker all the way, though in fact he drank
less and less as the years went on. My
sister started showing up with a bottle of Vodka when she visited, or slipping
a bottle of Vodka in with the paper supplies when I was in the basement
choosing my papers. No one asked Big Joe why.
When he died, he
wasn’t remembered for his office supply hoarding; that remained his
secret. I remember him for his sudden outbursts of
laughter, which brightened and illuminated his face. He wasn’t known for being a talker, but he sure
loved a good laugh.
