“A GIFT OF HAPPINESS” CHAPTER 10: THE FINAL CHAPTER

"A GIFT OF HAPPINESS" 

CHAPTER 10: THE FINAL CHAPTER

    It's about 1:15am right now. My friends which are seating with me in the living room are starting to feel drowsy. At this point I already have finished telling my story. But Kate, Lillith and Bella want to find out further about what happened. 

"It can't believe that it was the granny all along." 

    Utters Kate. 

    

"I really thought it was one of the guys from your store." 

    Lillith says.

"No way gals, there's no way Frank and Phil or Chris would have done that."  

    Jazmin is already sleep. She's in a seating position while resting her head in the cough. Despite feeling drowsy, my three friends still want to stay up a little longer, this was supposed to be an all-nighter after all. But I'm already feeling tired, yes I'm currently off tomorrow so I can afford the luxury to sleep in but at this point I'd rather go and get some rest. Because of this, we decide to go to sleep. 

    Since my friends are over, we decide to all sleep in the living room, in sleeping bags. We briefly wake up Jazmin to help her get into hers but in the end, she decides to go to her room and sleep in her nice comfy bed. After I shut the lights, we all go to and fall sleep. 

    Now it's about 11:30am, Jazmin is still sleep. My belief is that she's going to have to do another evening shift at the hospital. My friends are currently sleeping and snoring. The night was heavy for all of us, especially Jazmin. I gently pull myself out of my sleeping bag and go right ahead to the bathroom to start my morning routine. 

    After leaving the shower, I go right ahead to the kitchen and start preparing breakfast for me, Jazmin and my friends. Since I am the first one to wake up I figure that I may as well do that. 

    I grab some eggs and start frying them with low fire so as to not make much noise, I then grab some pieces of bacon, enough for everyone and place them in the air fryer. Bacon is very tedious to fry and I'm not in the mood to fry Bacon in the traditional oily way. To accompany the eggs and bacon I start making some pancakes. In the end it takes me about an hour to finish cooking everything up. 

    Upon finishing up cooking I quickly divide the food and place all the plates in the table found in the kitchen and seal them by putting another plate on top. Then I grab my food, some orange juice and some gravy and head right on to my room to eat. 

    2023 has been a tough year for me. I lost my job earlier in the year and it took me a few months to get a job as a front desk receptionist in a private building. After I graduated college, I was disappointed to find out that my bachelor's degree was not enough to land a job as a software developer in any of the big companies. Ever since I been getting jobs as a retail store associate and as a receptionist.

    While I peacefully consume my breakfast while watching some blog videos, Jazmin knocks on my door. She then let's herself in and asks me: 

"Which one is mine?" 

"Uh, you can take whichever. They are all the same." 

"Great! Thank you for cooking, you saved me a lot of time." 

"No problem, we girls need to have each other's backs." 

    Jazmin than seats in my bed and turns towards me while smiling. 

"I have a favor to ask." 

    Upon hearing this I let out a deep sigh. I mean, I kind of expected this. 

"What is it?" 

"I have some arrangements today at about 5:00pm and I won't be able to go get the groceries for next week. You think you can help me out by going to get them yourself?" 

"Sure, why not? After all, I don't have plans for today besides staying home and watching movies." 

 "Thank you so much Zo! Here's the list." 

"Where are you going now?" 

"I'm going to the carwash to wash my car and then I'm going to my mom's house to spend the day." 

"Okay, be safe out there, see you either later tonight or tomorrow." 

"Okay." 

    After Jazmin grabbed her food and left, Bella and the others wake up as well. Because of this, now that I finished my food I go to the kitchen and let my friends know that breakfast is on the table. Then I went ahead to wash my ditches. While I do so I hear my friends talking amongst each other, because of this, while feeling curious I go ahead and ask them what's the chit-chat about. 

    Kate turns towards me and shows me her phone. To my surprise is Joe, this is the interview that the youtuber couple did to him back in 2017. It has millions of views. Apparently, Joe's sincerity accompanied with his rough appearance had turned into a phenomenon, a meme. After the waters came down and Mrs. Chidgey had been condemned to life inside a elderly asylum. People started visiting the neighborhood to see the site of the events and to pay a quick visit to Joe's Pizza and burgers as well. Because of this, Joe became a local star in the neighborhood which obviously boosted sales and customer traffic to his Pizzeria. 

"What do you think Zoe?" 

"I don't think nothing at all to be honest, I'm happy for the dude." 

"That guy Joe must be pretty rich right now." 

"He probably is, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case." 

"I can't believe that someone would kill people by feeding them Pizza." 

"Yea, is very unorthodox to be frank but evil always finds a way." 

"Did you had to go to court because of what happened?" 

"No, I never had to go to court thankfully, but Joe did. Despite this, I feel a guilty in a way." 

"Why so? You didn't do anything." 

"Yea but I still helped prepare those orders which eventually helped killing the victims but whatever, that's in the past right now." 

"After looking up Lizbeth Chidgey it says she still alive and is currently staying at the Rosa Coplon Jewish Home and Infirmary."

"Really?" 

"Yea, only two people two people would come to visit her every once and a while." 

"Really? Who are they?" 

"Not much is known about those individuals, all is known as they had nothing to do with the 2017 killings." 

"Okay, that's oddly strange." 

"It is, that's some dark stuff. Who would want to go see someone like that." 

"Probably some family member or friends." 

"Zoe, what happened after Chidgey was taken away? Can you tell us that part of the story?" 

"I don't know much about what happened in the court case involving Chidgey besides that Joe and the homeless guy named Jared having to testify in the case and Mrs. Chidgey being sentenced to spend life on the Rosa Coplon Jewish Home and Infirmary. But I did go back to visit the neighborhood back in 2018 just to check on Joe and the rest. I can tell you that." 

"Sure thing, go ahead, we are all ears." 

    After hearing this, I take a brief deep breath, close my eyes for a second as memories of the past once again come to me. June 2019, a year after the Homeless men killer was caught and a year after the court case was settled sentencing her, the killer to life in a nursing home. 

    At about 11:30am I passed by the streets of Emerson. At this point I was already living with Jazmin and another friend in Brooklyn NY. The reason of me being back in Buffalo was because at the time, my mom till had not moved away to Connecticut yet and therefore, she still lived in Buffalo. Since I was already there, and the Maple projects were just a few train stops away from the train, I decided to pass by and say hello to Joe. 

    At the time I got to Joe's was fairly busy, a few orders had come in. Something I noticed upon arriving is that the placed looked slightly different, and none of my co-workers were there, instead, the whole crew was made up of new faces, faces that I was not familiar with. 

"Is Joe here?" 

    One of the guys, a Hispanic guy who was at the cash register told me that he was on the basement and that he should be back here in a minute or two. Because of this, since I wanted to seat in the tables, I decided to order a cheese slice and grabbed a bottle of Orange juice along as well and sat in one of the tables to wait for Joe. 

    After what seemed like five or six minutes, Joe came back up with the fermented dough. Upon entering the restaurant, he glanced at me and noticed me and with a polite smile, he signaled me with his left hand to give him a minute. 

    After leaving the dough with one of his employees, Joe came back to greet me and to have a quick chat. Obviously, he and I were very happy to see each other. We walked outside to the front of the store and started chatting. 

"It's a pleasure to see you, you all grown up now." 

"Come on boss, you know I haven't changed that much I only have shorter hair now and wear glasses." 

"Yea but you seem more mature to me, which is good, you dress like an adult now." 

"I see that you have a lot of new people now, what happened to Chris, Frank and Joel?" 

"They are all gone their own ways, Chris has his own Pizza chain now." 

"Is that so?" 

"Yea, I became really popular after the waters got settled and the rise in sales enabled me to have a few more locations opened up, Chris is one of the owners and he's restaurant is not so far from here." 

"That's amazing. I know that that was his dream to own his own Pizza restaurant." 

"Yea, he's an amazing manager and chef, just like me." 

    Both Joe and I started laughing after Joe said that. 

"How about Frank? I know Phill went ahead and moved to Florida, right?" 

"Yea he did. Frank in the other hand went and moved to Cincinatti and from what I know, a family member got him a job as a truck driver." 

"Good for him, I know that job brings a lot of money." 

"Joel decided to leave as well after the court case got settled." 

"She did? I lost contact with her so I don't know where her whereabouts are." 

"She moved back to Iowa where her family lives. An aunt of hers married a man that has a clothing business and they offered her a job as a manager there. I can give you her number if you want, she still calls back here every once in a while." 

"For real?" 

"Yes, she's like a daughter to me, I saw her grow from a shy teenager to very mature young woman." 

"I would appreciate that." 

    Joe then asked me: 

"What happened to that friend of yours? What was her name again?" 

"You mean Leslie?" 

"Yes, what happened to her? I never heard back from her after she left." 

"Oh, she's married now, she married an Austrian man and now lives in Austria and is currently going to college there." 

"I heard college is free there." 

"Yes, that's why she moved there." 

"That's pretty nice to know, that everyone is doing okay." 

"So, what happened in the court, I know you had to go there and testify." 

"Yea, I got asked a few questions about my sell history and the transactions involving the granny. I had to talk about my interactions with her and even got to express my opinion on the matter a little, but nothing much." 

"I heard another person had to testify, one of the homeless people that survived." 

"Yea, he was there on the 6th and got to see some of what happened that night, but he did not provide that much. He's testimony did help on putting that murderer where she is right now."  

"Good." 

"I'm essentially a meme right now, did you know that? I mean look up." 

    After I looked up I saw that the logo of the restaurant had changed from a generic chef to Joe's face. 

"Impeccable." 

"That news couple really did a lot to further my business." 

"I'm sure you did as well boss, they got popular because of you and because of what happened here." 

"I heard they are now going to other states chasing crimes." 

"You have to be really dedicated to do that." 

"Have you checked Homeless Street yet?" 

"No, what's going on there?" 

"They demolish all the abandoned buildings in there and are now rebuilding the whole area." 

"For real? Waw that good, is a good time to leave the past behind." 

"So, tell me, what's going on with you? Why haven't you come by more often?" 

"I don't live here no more." 

"Is that so?" 

"Yeah, I moved down to New York with some friends, and we are now going to college there." 

"How is it down there?" 

"Expensive but good, everything is close no need for cars." 

"Of course not." 

    After chatting for a while Joe and I said our goodbyes. I promised him I would stroll by again next time I would come and see my mom but that never happened. My mom moved to Connecticut shortly after and as of now I don't have a reason to go to Buffalo anymore. So that was really the last time I ever saw Joe, but from what I heard from, he's doing okay. 

    As of Leslie and Joel I'm currently still in contact with them. We don't chat too often, but we send each other messages every once and a while. Hopefully you guys can meet them one day. But when it comes to this story, and the killings that took place that's pretty much over. From what you tell me, the old hag is still alive there at the nursery home, but she is not going to kill anybody there, and if she does, I'm not going to be there to see it. 

"Of course, not Zoe." 

"Well girls, that's about it. I never thought that I would wind up telling such a long story but here we are." 

"We've known you for about two years and we never knew this about you." 

"I never gave this too much mind after it happened. After I left Buffalo, I got too busy and involved wit college and life in New York." 

"That makes sense." 

"Anyways, who wants to help me out with the groceries?" 

 - END OF STORY -