Just Me and Joe

July 5, 1971. My 7th birthday. Today was going to be my day to stick it to the jerks on the block. It was the days of the G.I. Joe craze, when every self-respecting lad of 7 or 8 had at least two or three Joes and a slew of necessary accessories (various weapons, uniforms, jeeps, and the like). Now, there was a definite hierarchy among the Joes, and everyone, no matter how limited they were intellectually, understood this hierarchy intuitively and respected it: The standard regulation Joe with the black beard was either a private or a corporal; the African-American Joe—which, for some reason, none of the Italian or Irish kids in the neighborhood seemed to have—was a sergeant; the non-bearded Joe was a lieutenant or captain; and the gray haired Joe was a colonel. The ranks for each Joe also depended upon your place in the complex hierarchy of the block and varied depending upon how old or how tough you were.
.....Today, for once, was going to be my day. Today was the first day that Hasbro, the maker of the G.I. Joe action figures (Don’t even think about calling them dolls!) was coming out with the white haired Joe, who we had all already determined had to be the general. In an act of uncharacteristic compassion, my mother had agreed that, while she was shopping on Roosevelt Ave., she would stop into Toy City and buy me the white haired Joe for my birthday. I would be the first kid on the block to have him and, therefore, because of the rules of seniority, would always have the highest-ranking G.I. Joe on the block.
.....I tried to be cool about the whole thing, but I know that I probably couldn’t help rubbing my good fortune into the faces of my less than delighted pals. We were playing on the street, when in the distance I could see my mother’s hobbit-like frame waddle down the street pushing a shopping cart. “This is it!” I shouted as loudly as I could to all my friends. “This is the moment when I get to be the one in charge, the guy givin’ the orders!” My friends gritted their teeth and I could hear them cursing under their breaths. But what could they do? The rules were the rules.
.....I ran down the street as fast as I could. My mother had the usual look of apathy on her face, but perhaps because it was my birthday she didn’t greet me with her usual, “Will you just leave me the hell alone until I get inside.” Instead she put her hand into the cart and slowly lifted out the large bag she had inside. It had the famous “Toy City” logo on it, so I knew that my wildest dreams were about to come true.
.....“Here’s your damn toy,” my mother said, dropping the package in my hands. “Now go play with your friends and try not to bother me for a few hours, will you?”
.....I ran as fast as I could with the package to the spot where my friends were playing. They were all looking up at me with incredible envy in their eyes.
.....“Well here he is,” I said proudly pulling Joe out of his brown paper wrapping. “Get ready to start taking commands.”
.....I pulled Joe out of the bag and lifted him up like the sacred object that he was and waited for the oooohs and ahhhhhs of admiration from my friends.
.....“Look at that!” I heard fat Ricky shout out. “Your mother really screwed you over this time.” In seconds, everyone was joining him laughing at me.
.....I turned the box around and gasped in horror. Instead of the white haired Joe, who would be giving commands forever, my mother in her usual state of confusion had accidentally bought the red haired Joe—the one we had determined was the doctor, the one who couldn’t give any commands at all, the one, in short, who no one in his right mind would ever want to have. The poor bastard wasn’t even able to fight. All he could do was wait around in the “hospital,” waiting until someone came in with an injury. And the reality was that no one’s Joe in the entire history of the G.I. Joe Universe ever got injured. They might get their head or limbs ripped off, but they never would waste their time going to see some candy-ass, red haired Joe doctor.
.....“Hey, Mike,” Rudy said. “I got a mole on my ass. Do you think your Dr. Joe could check it out for me? He, he, he…”
.....“What an idiot!” I heard someone say as I walked back home, my head hung in abject shame.
.....“How did the boys like your new doll,” my mother asked as she stirred the sausage and peppers she was making for dinner.
.....“It’s not a doll,” I snapped. “And you got the wrong one. I asked you to get me the doll—I mean action figure—with the white hair. You got me the one with the red hair.”
.....“White, red…What’s the difference,” my mother said, oblivious to my agony. “They’re all the same anyway. Just pretend you have the white haired one.”
.....Just pretend I had the white haired one. If only I could have pretended that my entire existence up until that point was just a cruel nightmare that I would one day wake up from, then I might have some consolation. Right now, though, it was just me and the doc—two sad, pathetic losers who were victims of a chronically unjust, consistently absurd universe.
.....And these were supposed to be the good years.Hero