joey's savior

DonJuan Carleone was a 25 year old dishwasher at a New York City restaurant. He’s a high school graduate trying to work his way through community college. He shares a small one-room apartment with his younger brother, Joey. It was a tight fit. DJ and Joey grew up in Wright City, MO with their single mother, who struggled with drug addiction their whole lives. The move to NYC meant starting a new life where no one knew them and there were no misconceptions about their characters.

DJ was taking the subway one day to get most of the way to work early Saturday morning and was surprised to see he was the only person in that corner area. He went to sit down when he spotted a little black notebook on the seat. He glanced around to see that no one was within close proximity, so he figured someone had probably left it accidentally. DJ picked it up and opened it to the first page, but there was no writing anywhere. He thought, ‘I could use this with all the classes I have, maybe I could use it as a little information book. Like an address/phone number and even schedule book.’

He put it in his backpack and stood up because his stop was coming up next. DJ gets off the subway and continues his journey to work.

The next day DJ wakes up at 5 am to get ready to go to an 8:30 morning class, and as he’s packing his lunch and books into his backpack, he sees the little black notebook from the subway. He had forgotten all about that! He pulls it out and opens it to the first page, where he writes at the top To Do List. Under it he begins writing all the things he needs to get done that day and numbers them in chronological order. He thinks to himself, ‘I need to skip a few pages to leave room for random notes,’ and does so. He then thinks he needs to write down some phone numbers in its own section of the notebook and skips to the last 5 or so pages. He comes across some writing on one of the last pages just as Joey walks into the room.

“Are you making me breakfast?” Joey jokes.

“Yeah, go back to your room and wait for me to call you when it’s done,” says DJ with a smile.

“OK,” Joey says sarcastically, “I’ll never eat!”

As DJ is looking distracted, he reads the writing in the notebook. It says, ‘S341 Port.’

“What is this?” asked DJ. “Look at this, Joe.”

DJ explains how he found this notebook on the subway, “and now I see this. What could that be?”

Joey says, “Let me see it,” and he flips through the whole Moleskin notebook. “There’s nothing else in this anywhere,” he says, “it’s so odd, I don’t get it,”

“It says Port, and think about it, it IS kind of mysterious, right?” says DJ.

Joey suddenly looks excited. “Port could be Port Authority, and people going in and out of the Port Authority would likely be looking for somewhere to store their stuff while they move around the city. No one wants to carry a bunch of luggage with them, so could it be the locker number, don’t you think?” asked Joey.

“Yo, I knew I had you around for SOME reason!” DJ says sarcastically. “Do you want to go with me to check it out?” he asked.

“I actually don’t have anything planned until 2 because that’s when my economics class starts, so, yeah, let’s go see what’s up with this,” replies Joey.

The brothers get dressed and ready to go. They leave the apartment and head to the Port Authority. They get there and look around, “Where would the storage lockers be?” asks DJ.

“There’s a sign for the information desk, let’s see if we can find it,” Joey says as they proceed toward the sign. There were arrows pointing down the hall where there was a desk with a lady sitting at it. They went to the desk and spoke to the woman sitting there, “Hello, Ma’am, how are you today?” said DJ.

“Fine, and yourself?” she replied in a southern accent.

Joey went on to explain that they were looking for a locker, and she said, “Well, we don’t have any storage lockers here, but there are many facilities around the Port Authority that store luggage, and there’s one that’s right around the corner. Would you like the address, directions, or any other information regarding luggage storage?” the woman asked.

“Ma’am, if I showed you a locker number, could you tell which company would have lockers with that number?” asked Joey.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have that information. However, I can recommend a place to start looking. The closest place would be Luggage Galore, and it’s directly across the street from the main entrance. There’s also Storage Plus that is right around the corner from the main entrance, but you turn right outside of the entrance and walk about one block,” the lady explains.

“Thank you, Ma’am, we’ll begin with these two,” says Joey.

After trying those two places with no positive results, there was a third company two blocks down from the Port Authority called Store It! that they went to next. DJ walked in first and went directly to the counter where a man was standing ready to greet them.

“Hi, how can I help you today?” the man asked.

“Hello, I’m looking for a locker that my cousin rented with my grandma’s stuff in it, and my cousin gave me this number,” said DJ showing him the locker number.

“Yeah, that one would be down Hall 2 on the righthand side, go ahead and go find it. If you need any further help, just let me know,” said the man.

“Alright, man, thank you, I’ll let you know if I need anything,” said DJ.

DJ and Joey walk in the direction of where the man was pointing and began looking for the correct number. Halfway down the hall they saw the number they were looking for. They walked up close to the locker and realized there was a combination lock on it.

“How are we supposed to open it?” asked Joey.

“We need a combination to open it, what now?” DJ wondered. He pulled out the little black notebook and started looking through it again. He went through and looked at every single page one at a time. Nothing was found.

“I don’t know, and this is starting to frustrate me because after all this searching for the right place with this exact locker number, now we need a frigging combination with no way to find it!” exclaimed Joey.

DJ turned the notebook over and studied the back. There was absolutely nothing at all. Just then DJ spotted a tiny piece of paper folded up and stuffed into the spine of the notebook, right where the wire spirals down the side of the notebook. He pulled it out and unfolded it. It had a few numbers written on it, and he looked closer at it. It said, ’27-14-9.’

“Could this be the combination?” asked DJ.

“Let’s try it and see! There are no other options, and it’s either this works as the combination to the lock or we just walk away always wondering what the hell is up with this bizarre situation,” replies Joey.

DJ steps up to the combination lock and puts 27, turn right to 14, then the other way, skipping 9 once to come back around to the 9 and ‘CLICK!’

It opened up! DJ looked at Joey with so much excitement! “Oh my Jeez!” exclaims DJ.

He opened the locker and there was a briefcase inside. They looked at each other with complete astonishment! “What the...?” said Joey.

He reached in the locker and pulled the briefcase out. They decided to wait until they were back in their apartment before they opened it. For some odd reason, they were both feeling excessive amounts of adrenaline and amazement! Neither of them knew why they would be experiencing such emotions.

Once they got back to their shared apartment, they looked at each other with uneasiness.

“Should we open it and see what’s inside?” asked DJ.

“Hell, yeah! If we don’t, we’re always going to wonder and daydream about what it could’ve been! I am absolutely NOT ready to do that! And my curiosity is getting the better of me!” said Joey.

So, they both stared at the briefcase, and DJ opened the briefcase. Inside they saw a flash drive. There was nothing else inside the briefcase. They looked at each other, both of them had puzzled looks on their faces.

“What is this?” asked Joey.

“I don’t know, but it has to be something important. I mean, why would someone go to all this trouble to put this little thing in here with all these security measures? I’m truly just hoping we didn’t happen upon something dangerous. We’ve Gotta find out what’s on this drive!” replied DJ.

They left the storage lockers and found a cab home. DJ took out his laptop and inserted the flash drive, and an icon popped up. He selected it and a bunch of unfamiliar numbers and words came onto the screen. What is this, DJ thought to himself. He turned around to ask Joey if he recognized anything enough just to identify anything, but he had fallen asleep on his bed. Maybe it was time to get some rest thought DJ.

He drifted off to sleep when a knock on the door startled him awake. He went and looked out the peephole, and there were the same two men standing outside the door. DJ was done with the cloak-and-dagger type of behavior, and so he threw open the door!

The two men seem startled. “Hello, my name is Dr. Stephen Thorpe, and I have reliable information that the two of you have found my notebook,” the man said.

“I may have found something, but what’s it to you?” DJ asked.

At this point, Joey had been woken up by the sound of talking, and he came to the door. They both stood looking at the two strange men in their doorway.

“Well, as I was saying, I lost my notebook with some very important information inside and I’m willing to offer a reward in order to recover this notebook,” said the man in a serious no-nonsense tone.

“What kind of reward are we talking about, if I had this notebook?” DJ asked.

“This is very important, young man. This is top-secret, very sensitive and potentially life-changing work. I’m willing to be very generous to the person or persons who are willing to help me recover this notebook,” the man replied.

The man pulled out a checkbook. He pulled out a pen and wrote something on the check. He handed it to DJ. He looked at the check, and he was stunned! The check read 1 million dollars in the amount space. DJ looked at the man with a puzzled look.

“Is this real?” DJ asked.

The man replied, “only if you have my notebook.”

“I can do better than that!” DJ exclaimed, as he ran to the cabinet where he had stored the briefcase. He pulled it out and handed it to the man.

“Oh, thank God!” the man said. “Do you really have no idea what this is about?” he asked.

DJ and Joey looked at each other with confusion. “What?” Joey said.

The two men looked at each other and silently came to a conclusion.

“Well, a deal is a deal,” the man said as he handed him the check. He took the briefcase and notebook as he walked out the door.

The brothers didn’t know what to think. Joey thought there was no possible way this check could be real, while DJ was more optimistic. However, DJ knew that even if they had not gained anything from this, they had not lost anything, either. So, he decided to set the check up on top of the refrigerator and deal with it later.

A few months later DJ and Joey were sitting in their small studio apartment watching the news when a familiar face came onto the TV. It was the man from the briefcase situation. Joey turned up the volume, and the news anchor said

They both went to bed, each of them thinking well into the night about manf the possibilities that were now in front of them. Early the next morning Joey was wide awake laying on his couch. He decided 7 am was late enough to wake his brother up and did so. Joey made coffee, and scrambled some eggs while DJ buttered the toast. They sat down to eat in their little one-room apartment, and neither spoke until they were both done eating.

“Okay, so-“ DJ began to say but was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. They both looked at each other with trepidation on their faces, and their eyes were as big as saucers. DJ looked at the briefcase and it clicked as Joey went for the door. DJ made a slight noise that only Joey could hear, and Joey froze. He turned toward DJ to see why he made that noise, and DJ pointed at the briefcase. Joey turned back to the door and went to look through the peephole. He saw two big men in suits with fedoras on their heads, and everything about them screamed “MOB!”

Joey backed away from the door and whispered, “We gotta get outta here, NOW!”

They both were looking around and DJ said, “The window!”

The brothers’ apartment was on the third floor, and there were fire escapes out the windows. They had never used the fire escape before, but they had opened the window from time to time with nice weather. At least they knew they could open the window! DJ grabbed the briefcase and they both grabbed their wallets and were out the window onto the fire escape.

DJ had kicked the ladder down, and then he was down the ladder to the next level. Joey quickly followed, and they passed the briefcase back and forth as they went down the fire escape until they hit the ground. DJ then put the ladder back up trying to keep anyone from seeing that they had come down that ladder. They quickly walked up the alley to the street and kept going.

They went to the bus stop and got on. They decided to get out of their neighborhood and go to a restaurant or diner, as they were looking for somewhere to sit down and think. They found such a place and took the back booth, which was completely out of the direct line of sight from the front door.

“Alright, what are we going to do?” asked DJ.

We got cash, let’s go to the bank and put the money into our accounts before something else happens and we lose it somehow, maybe someone takes it,” said Joey.

“Nah, we can’t do that because of taxes. I say we go right now and donate one million to the Black Lives Matter fund. At least if we do that maybe we’ll receive good karma and that could mean being able to keep the rest of the money,” says DJ.

“That sounds like a good plan, “ said Joey.

One month later as they sit on a beach in Rio De Janero, Brazil sipping tequila, DJ and Joey look at each other smiling. “We did it,” said Joey with satisfaction in his voice and a hot Latina by his side.