If you watched the Fox show “24” with Kiefer Sutherland back in the day, you might remember the image and beeping of the digital clock before and after a commercial break and at the end of the episode, if I recall. The internet just informed me that a rare, silent clock displayed without the beep was used to punctuate the endings of highly emotional scenes, particularly around the time of a significant character’s death.
As a family, we regularly watched 24 together, and Joey often would enter the room carrying a massive silver bowl of popcorn littered with BBQ chips.
He called it “The Joey Special.”
He’d plant himself on the couch and utter “SKEEP…SKEEP…SKEEP”—his vocal impression of the digital clock sound.
Whenever I’m straddling my bike at an intersection and push the button to cross, the similar “SKEEP SKEEP SKEEP” sound always makes me think of Joey.
There are reminders of him everywhere, even a delivery truck bore his name a couple of days ago.
Joey’s clock, here, is silent now—technically—but everywhere I go, he is there—I see him, hear him, feel him. And at the same time, somehow, his absence—the terrible void—is excruciatingly palpable. Both, 24/7.
Someone who loves and misses Joey texted me this morning saying that she’s going to make a bowl of popcorn and BBQ potato chips for him today. I’m going to do that, too.
I invite you to watch some high-quality moving pictures tonight, to raise a bowl of heavily salted and buttered popcorn, liberally laced with Lay’s BBQ chips, for our significant character, Joey.
