Joseph Michel

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Joseph Laurent Michel (born March 30, 1981) is the on-again-off-again boyfriend of Rae. He has spent his entire life in the St. Charles/Lafourche area.

After he is laid-off during the lockdown, Joey's inability to connect emotionally leads him down a spiral of loss and failure.

• Joey is motivated by his short-term needs. He has no sense of the future.
• Joey wants instant gratification.
• Joey is challenged by a world that no longer makes everything easy for him.
• Joey will discover that the world he knew no longer exists.

Kicked out by Rae, Joey struggles to find some relevance. He blames Cash for his problems and after fighting with him, he hides out in Cash's New Orleans office to avoid arrest. While in hiding, he begins to stalk/harass Cash on social media, posting angry screeds about everything that has been taken away from him. When Hal sets fire to the office, Joey dies in the fire.

Plot Synopsis

Get It All Back

At the end of May, Cash gives Rae a copy of her modem log, which shows a massive amount of porn being downloaded every night. Rae promptly kicks Joey out of her house. A few days after being kicked, Joey, assuming Cash framed him, attacks him. During the fight, Cash manages to dislocate Joey's jaw, and Joey flees. After spending a few days in an old deer blind, Joey breaks into Cash's house. While there, he learns about the New Orleans office and realizes that Cash is not going into office, so he walks to the city and breaks in.

For the next two weeks, he uses the computers in Cash's office to stalk Cash, Rae, Sandy, and eventually Hélène on social media, posting rambling complaints about all the ways life has treated him unfairly and about how everything he deserves has been taken away from him.

While hiding out, Joey spends what money he has on beer and beef jerky. Every night, he passes out. As his mental faculties decline, his social media posts become less coherent. Finally, one night after he has passed out, Hal sets fire to the office as payback for Cash's discovery about the fires in Sadie. Joey dies in the fire, too drunk to wake up in time to escape.