The Good Guy Joey Joy

This is a story about a good guy called Joey Joy.

Just yesterday, he held the door open for a lady:

"Thank you, young man." – she said with a smile.

"No worries, mam. My name is Joey Joy, have a good day!" – he answered happily.

And the week before, he offered his seat to an elderly man on the train:

"Kind of you, thanks!" – nodded the old man.

"No problem at all. My name is Joey Joy, have a good day!" – he replied with a smile as he showed the man to his seat.

Joey's main ambition has always been to be the good guy, but he felt like he never got the chance to make a real difference - the type of thing that would make him famous. This stood true until the day Joey was presented with a unique opportunity.

Walking down the street that he's walked a thousand times over and over, he noticed from afar what he at first thought was a pile of leaves.

"Why would there be leaves in the middle of summer…" – thought Joey. "I could sweep them away, I suppose…"

As he got closer, Joey realised those were no leaves but banknotes laying lonely on the ground. It was almost as though the money was abandoned by its previous owner.

"Hm, that's strange…someone must have lost it." – he said to himself in confusion.

Joey looked around for a second, realised there was nobody but him on the street. He decided to pick the money up and figure out what to do with it later. Rather natural, wasn't it?

But when he was grabbing the banknotes off of the ground, as one would do with a pile of autumn leaves, he found a little black book. There wasn't anything strange about it, except that it was a strange book with a bunch of names written on one page after another.

"That's weird…but this could probably help me find the person who lost all of this money." – he comforted himself as he continued shoving money in his jeans and jacket pockets.

As soon as Joey got home, he counted the money. There was exactly $20,000 – the kind of money Joey has never held in his hands before…

Being a good guy, he decided to phone the people whose names were in the little black book, but his efforts were all in vain. No phone numbers, addresses or social media profiles…not a single one.

It was then that Joey decided to do the real good thing and help everyone on his path. He knew this would surely earn him the name of Joey 'The Good Guy', and that wasn't something he would just let go of.

The next day, he was ready to make his dream come true. He wore his best clothes, put his biggest smile on and started his journey to fame.

It didn't take him long to find someone in need. He saw a man sitting on the side of the street holding a 'Homeless' sign.

"Here's the first lucky guy." – Joey exclaimed in his mind as he, of course, understood it was simply rude to derive such happiness from someone's misfortune.

He came up to the man, kneeled down in front of him and had a little friendly chat. The man wasn't exactly talkative, but Joey knew what would lighten the man's day up.

"Look, I'm here to help you. My name is Joey Joy and I'm going to give you money today. Spend it as you wish, but if anyone is to ever ask you how you got so lucky, make sure to mention my name, would you?"

"Money? How much are you giving me and why?" – asked the man in confusion.

"I found twenty thousand dollars on the street yesterday. I tried finding the owner but it didn't work, so I decided to do a good thing. That's all." – he answered with a gentle smile. "I'll give you, say, one thousand dollars. How does that sound?"

"And you've got all of this money on you?" – asked the man as his eyes scanned Joey.

"Yeah, it's all right here." – said Joey as he reached into his bag to prove to the man that he wasn't fooling around with him.

Joey counted exactly one thousand dollars and reached out to the man with excitement. But in return, the man attacked him.

Joey didn't have time to understand what was going on. All he could mumble was: "What are you doing?! Stop this! Stop!"

But the man didn't stop and that angered Joey. "You ungrateful filth!" – he muttered with disgust as he gathered all of his strength and pushed the man off of himself. The man fell to the ground, and lay there motionless, giving Joey time to stand up shake the dirt off.

"That's right, you pig! That's what you get!" – Joey told the man. It took him one more glance to notice that the man was lying with his eyes open.

Joey's heart starting racing. He ran and ran as far and as fast as he could. He couldn't see anything or hear anything. All Joey could feel was his own heart beating in his throat.

When he finally stopped, he realised his dream of becoming 'the good guy' will never come true. After all, he just killed a man. He fell down to his knees and started to weep. Anger took over him again. He reached into the bag and aggressively emptied all of it on to the ground.

The money fell out like a pile of autumn leaves spreading all around Joey and he could again see the little black book.

"What have I done to deserve this? I'm the best person I know" – he thought to himself with his lips shaking.

The money lay on the ground as a pile of autumn leaves surrounding the little black book.

Nothing was strange about it, except that it had a new name on its list.

The book lay there for hours and hours and finally, it could hear the footsteps of its new temporary owner.