Joey Gapauldi

* EMS
* ID Photo

## Description

Joey Gapauldi is a character played by Bountyrogger

## Background

### Childhood

The fourth of six children, Joey was born on the East Coast of Liberty City into a poor family; his father working at the docks and his mother taking care of him and his siblings. Growing up wasn’t easy for Joey despite his best efforts he had no friends and bullied daily at school. Joey was very shy, rarely going out to play, instead preferring to stay at home where he deemed it safer to be. One of his favorite things to do while safely tucked away in his house was to go online and look at all the nice cars, particularly paying attention to the muscle cars; his favorite type of car. In High School Joey got a job working at a local pizza shop as a delivery boy. He would deliver pizzas in the nearby neighborhood, the “ghetto”, the “hood”, the “slums”. He never felt safe when he was working so he carried around his preferred weapon of choice, a hammer, with him on every delivery. One night while refueling his bike a mugger tried to mug him. Joey was scared shitless as he stared down the barrel of a gun and let the mugger take anything he wanted including the bike. When he got back to the pizzeria his boss, the piece of shit that he was, laid into Joey about the lost revenue and “did he know how much a new delivery bike is?!”.  It was at that point Joey knew that he had to move. After surface level googling about safe places to live, he decided to move to the City of Noire.

### Moving to Noire

After getting off the plane in Noire the first thing that Joey did was getting odd jobs at the docks delivering shipments to local gun stores, movie theaters, or other short runs to local businesses. One day on returning to the docks after a hard day of running short hauls he couldn’t find his car. After looking around the docks to see if someone had been trying to pull one on him he’d finally admitted to himself that his car had been stolen. Annoyed Joey looked around the lot spotting two women talking near a truck. Being the shy guy that he is, he nervously approached them to see if they would be able to help him off the docks, one of the women he introduced himself to was Isa. After explaining his current predicament Isa let him know that she too was ready to knock off for the day and was also headed back into the city, offering him a ride to wherever he needed to get too. It wasn’t long before Isa had gotten a phone call from her friend Juri, after she finished her phone call she asked him if he had plans already and invited him to meet her friend’s at Juri’s place. After arriving at Juri’s place near the beach, across the street from a gun store and not far from a gang hideout, Joey was introduced to Juri and Barry. The two Russian immigrants and Isa were planning a robbery. Joey was nervous and unsure about the invitation to rob a store with them, as he never thought of himself as a criminal, but was convinced to join the trio on this ill-fated endeavor.

With the switch car safely stashed away near some canals, the four of them were driving past a gas station where they spotted the last thing they needed before hitting the store. Guns out the other three descended on the unsuspecting victim, ordering him into the car, they now had their hostage! At first the plan was going smooth as butter, Isa handled the negotiations, Barry was in charge of the hostage, and Juri was on the clerk about handing over the money … poor Joey didn’t know what to do so he just stayed out of their way, scared and watching these three. It was very clear to Joey that this was something that they did often, they all knew their role and what the next step was; despite being scared Joey was kind of in awe.

Ill gotten money in hand and negotiations over, the four of them ran out of the store and piled into Barry’s car, Barry being the driver on this particular run. With six units on them Barry was doing a good job of evading, never quite able to lose all of the cops on their tails, when it came time to get to the switch vehicle Barry tried to make a tight squeeze between two buildings and became stuck. Shit, shit, shit! Joey, still scared and not able to react quick enough, was unable to jump up and over the stuck vehicle quick enough and was quickly arrested without putting up any struggle. In the holding cells during his processing Joey watched as both Juri and Isa were walked in, they’d also been caught and the police had found the money on Juri. The police held Joey in the holding cells as the other two were processed and the three of them were sent off to prison at the same time. The whole time they were in prison transport Joey was nervously fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt, he was absolutely terrified of his stint in prison; never in his life did he ever think that he’d be going to jail! Isa and Juri kept him safe while he was in jail and upon his release he swore that he would NEVER do crime ever again.

After they’d all been released from prison Joey decided that he’d still like to hang out with Isa, even if she was the reason that he’d just experienced the scariest time of his life, but she was the only person that he knew and even though she was a criminal she was kind and was already looking out for him. So he stuck to her hip like a puppy dog, learning all that he could from her, and respecting his wishes she never pushed him to do crime with her and her friends. But crime wasn’t the only thing that she’d get up to, Isa knew a lot of people and they were always up to something. So Joey was introduced to more of her friend’s on group fishing and hunting trips, or just having fun going off roading on the mountains; most of these people were quickly forgotten since they didn’t stick around for very long. After some time Joey and Isa became close and felt a strong family like bond, after some long talks the pair decided to make it official and went down to the local courthouse where they adopted each other as siblings. Joey always knew that Isa had a decent sized family of adopted children, but he didn’t realize just how big her family was until after the mutual adoption and all these strangers would come up to him and say things like “Hi Uncle Joey”. What was strange was the various walks of life that these people were coming from; there were police officers, gang bangers, DOJ employees, paramedics, and regular civs that held jobs at businesses like BurgerShot.

### His First Job

About a month or so after being released from prison, Isa introduced Joey to a man by the name of Daniel Krick. Daniel was the owner of the Downtown Taxi Company. It was through this meeting that Joey got his first steady job in Noire, driving a taxi for Daniel. Joey was happy being a taxi driver, he was finally able to make some decent cash for himself. Earning enough to purchase himself a home and a new car. It was while working for the Downtown Taxi Co. that Isa’s boyfriend, Preacher, proposed. After a short engagement period Joey had the privilege and honour of driving the bridal party from her daughter’s home (an abandoned and repurposed church) to a majestic waterfall where the ceremony was held. Not only was Joey responsible for getting the bridal party safely to their destination but Preacher had also asked him to be a groomsman.

### Time in AMR

A couple of months later despite her criminal past, Isa was not only working for the city’s EMS company, known in Noire as AMR, but she was in a supervisory role. Because of his gentle nature and natural instinct to want to help people Isa encouraged him to apply to AMR. Although present at his interview Isa refrained from having any input on whether or not to hire Joey, so it was with great pleasure when the others on the interview team agreed that he would be a great fit and he was hired on as a recruit EMT. Because of his natural abilities to help people Joey quickly rose through the ranks of AMR, going from a lowly recruit to a Field Training Medic in a short span of time. About three months later, give or take a couple of weeks, Isa was appointed as  Medical Director of AMR and was in need of someone to fill her old role as a supervisor, to work alongside her husband Preacher. So it was the three of them, Joey, Isa, and her husband Preacher, that ran the medical services provided to the city. They did this with efficiency providing a beneficial service to the city. It was through his job with AMR that Joey started to meet more people on his own, one of them being a manager at the local Burger Shot. It was through this new friend that Joey picked up his third job, flipping burgers, to make some extra cash to support his gambling habits at the casino. Once again it didn’t take long for the management staff at Burger Shot to see the potential in Joey and he quickly rose through the ranks there as well, making it all the way up to Assistant Manager.

About six months later, Isa (who had now been working with AMR for approximately 10 months and Director for 7 of those) let Joey know that she was planning to step away from her AMR duties to join the State Highway Patrol Department. She and her now ex-husband had gotten divorced after she’d found him cheating on her while she was away and she was looking for a change. So it was that Isa stepped down as Medical Director and Joey took up her old position and began to run the AMR services himself. He knew it was a lot of responsibility but he’d been working closely with Isa for a long time now and she included him in almost all of the decision making for AMR; including things like who to hire and reviewing/making policies. So as it was the transfer of power couldn’t have gone any smoother and Joey felt confident in his new position.

After Isa’s transfer to Highway Patrol Joey didn’t see her as much anymore, she was out there busy arresting criminals and Joey was juggling three jobs while trying to also have a social life. So it was about six months later that Isa came to talk to him about something very important. She was moving away. Joey was shocked, even though they hadn’t been spending a lot of time together anymore Joey was going to miss her … and what of all the children?! There was no way that Joey was going to be able to look out for all the nieces and nephews, but there was one special nephew that was lost without his mom, so Joey adopted him as his own son. So that was how Joey became the adoptive dad of the city judge Ty McNugget.

While all this was going on with Isa leaving, adopting Ty, juggling three jobs, that corruption started to slip into his department. It was becoming very evident that AMR was rife with it and it was time to start investigating some of the people in his employ and slowly cutting away at the disease that was spreading in his ranks. He had EMT’s that were secretly in gangs, lazy people who just wouldn’t show up for work (leaving the local medics to pick up the slack), and EMT’s out there picking and choosing who was worth saving. This. Had. To. Stop.

It was time to appoint someone to help him get AMR up and running smoothly again. So he and the newly appointed supervisor discovered who was secretly enjoying the gang life, letting go of the lazy bastards that just wouldn’t show up for work, and discovering who exactly it was that was being choosy about who to save. All of these people lost their job with the city medical services, some of them being placed on the blacklist so they were never able to hold the job again. However, like all good things, Joey’s time with AMR was quickly approaching it’s end.

Joey quickly filled the ranks finding another Supervisor to assist him and they got the Department running smoothly again. After nearly a year with AMR Joey was looking for change. Whenever the Sheriff’s Department had an opening he’d be asked time and time if he wanted a job, but he was never certain about if that was the kind of change that he was looking for. Finally, one day Joey finally decided enough was enough and he put in his resignation with AMR and abruptly took the offer with the Sheriff’s. Like the year prior, Joey was a quick learner and it wasn’t long until Joey made it through his Cadet training becoming a full fledged Deputy. Joey was a passionate and kind hearted cop who also knew that primarily his job was to arrest the people who broke the law. He was respected by his peers and fellow officers on the force while also gaining hard earned respect from career criminals; who also feared him. Joey’s main responsibilities were taking on shifts as a corrections officer at the state prison as well as taking on shifts at the State Courthouse when Court was in session. Joey took immense pride in his work and never let his guard down. However, it was that very sense of pride that would be what led him to eventually leave the force. After nearly three months with the department Joey was tired of hearing and seeing a ridiculous rivalry between his department and the local PD, and so he began to have disagreements with some of his Supervisors. Joey believed there was too much rivalry and cockiness between the Sheriffs and local PD, it should’ve never been about which department was better, they were all on the same side. It just didn’t make sense about why there was so much debate on who enforced the law better. Deeming things would not change, Joey walked into the Supervisor’s office and handed in his service weapon and badge, tending his resignation with the department.

### Wanting to Move On

During this time Joey had been receiving letters, emails, and texts from his sister Isa. She had moved to a small town called Harmony with her daughter Charlotte, and was working in a local mechanic shop. She had started a new life for herself and sounded happier than she’d ever been. Joey had been unsure about moving once again, feeling as though he had a solid life in Noire, but after resigning from the Sheriff's Department he realized a move and change might be what was in order. The main thing was unlike when Isa left, Joey knew he needed to leave some if not most of his possessions behind to help out the growing family that Isa had left him. Taking only a small amount of money and basically the clothes on his back, Joey gave his goodbyes to his friends and family before boarding a one way flight to San Andreas. He planned to land at the Los Santos International Airport and find his way to Harmony, to Isa, only knowing that Harmony was just outside of the city limits; in Blaine County according to Isa.

## Time in Los Santos

### 2023

When Joey first moved to Los Santos he worked any small jobs he could find. May it be delivering packages for GoPostal or making deliveries to the 24/7 stores. After the Great Flood of July 2023 he obtained his hunting License and that become his main form of income along with fishing in the local rivers. In August Joey began a short career with the San Andreas Department of Corrections at Bolingbroke Penitentiary, this didn't last long at all as he ended up putting in his resignation after his first week. At the end of August 2023 Joey was offered a Job at Carbon N' Chrome Harmony by Norma Jean. he took the job immediately and within 2 weeks was promoted to a full time mechanic. In the Beginning of September Joey finally heard back on his application for EMS with Pillbox Medical. He accepted the opportunity for a job interview and was accepted to join by Erin Hobbs and Layla Kirby-Styx. He continued to excel at both Paramedical and In-House with Pillbox and in mid October was promoted to EMT.

Joey stepped up as a Uncle to all of his nieces in Nephews as his sister Isa moved with Kaptain Dori to South Africa. His other sister Rhose also got married in this time to Kipp Dwyer. He also gained more family over time as Sophie Welsh became a Niece as well.

On 12/15 Joey was finally promoted to the rank of Paramedic at EMS as well.

### 2024

In January, Not long after the Grinch had stolen Christmas for the Citizens of Los Santos Joey approached Command at EMS about getting certified in Angel-1 as well as becoming an Instructor. Being at EMS for this amount of time and finally had the proper promotions behind him, Joey yearned to fly again on Medical Calls as well as teach the new Probationary at Pillbox. He was granted both of these with 100% support.

Joey also got promoted to Lead Mechanic during this time. The Managers and Senior Mechanics at Harmony had seen the amount of time and commitment Joey had put in and felt it was finally time to Promote him to Lead Mechanic. Joey also got a Job at Soochi's where he would finally be able to work the Food booth at Harmony while working on cars.

On the 19th of January Joey requested a meeting with Layla Kirby-Styx and Quinn Kealoha from Command regarding transferring from the Paramedical Department at Pillbox. This was due to between his time since August being in EMS at Pillbox as well as his time in AMR back home he had spent nearly most of 2 years as a Paramedic in some capacity. He was looking for a change and they granted this, he was transferred to the In-House team and joined the Residency Program there.

### Pillbox Medical Center

Joey joined Pillbox Medical Center on 9/2/2023. He quickly worked hard eventually making it through his probationary phase that November joining the Paramedical Team. There he rose up the ranks to Paramedic. Along the way earning his Angel Certification as well as becoming an Instructor. on the 19th of January though he requested to transfer over to the Residency Program with the In-House Department.

### Carbon N' Chrome Harmony

Joey was hired to CnC Harmony by Norma on the night of August 24th 2023. He had put in an Application but didn't see much happening in that route until Norma offered him a job on the spot since he hung around the shop so much. He quickly became skilled at his job being promoted to Mechanic. In the Months of December and January he became a lot more active around the shop and on January 12th was promoted to Lead Mechanic.

### Soochi's

Joey got a job at Soochi's on Janaury 10th 2024 due to his activity at Harmony CnC. Soochi's has a booth at the shop usually manned by Cami Parker but due to her recent amount of time away from the shop, Joey thought best to get a job to work the booth as well while working on cars.