Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  Hamilton pushed her wavy, long dark hair out of her face and looked across the desk at Charles, her green eyes shining like emeralds. She pulled out her tablet in preparation for note taking, just in case the need were to arise.

  “Paula. Do you know what I’ve been thinking?” he said to her with a straight face.

  “I make a point not to know,” she teased him.

  “Well, since I can tell that you’re dying to hear my every thought, I’m thinking about the individual district data.”

  “What about it?”

  “Some places are fiercely recruiting and successfully rehabilitating Residents. Others are not doing as well. I want to know what the difference is between the districts.”

  “Which ones are doing really well?” Hamilton asked, pulling out a stylus to scribble notes on her tablet.

  “Um, Indianapolis and Chicago and Cincinnati and a couple others. Really a bunch in that part of the country. Don’t get me wrong, the other districts aren’t doing poorly, but these are surpassing our expectations.”

  “So you want to reward them?”

  “Certainly!” Charles said proudly, a subscriber to the idea of positive reinforcement. “But I also want to know what we can learn from those districts in order to make the other cities that much better. Get where I’m going with this?”

  Hamilton furrowed her brow and said, “Questionnaires? Interviews? Procedural changes? We do all those things already. What else were you thinking?”

  “I want to go undercover. As a homeless person.”

  The assistant nearly dropped her tablet on the ground. She looked at her boss as if he were insane, wondering what alien being had possessed him and then made this typically calculated man concoct an idea so moronic.

  “I … um, I really don’t think that’s the best idea.”

  “Why not? Think of what we can learn!”

  “Think of what could happen to you! Being homeless is not safe. People get hurt. Really hurt.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Your wife will never go for it.”

  “That’s why she won’t know.”

  Hamilton slapped her hand against her head in a blatant display of disapproval toward such an egregious line of thinking. She knew what he wished to obtain from such a plan, though how he was hoping to go about executing said plan was insane.

  “You can’t lie to Marlene about something like that.”

  “I’ll merely be withholding the truth from her until I’m safely back in San Diego.”

  “So, you’re going to, uh, disappear for a while and then magically come back like nothing ever happened?”

  “No. People will think I’m at a conference. You’ll be the only one who knows what I’m really doing.”

  “But people call you and text you and email you. Are you thinking of going through the entire program? That’s a long time.”

  Charles admitted that he hadn’t mapped out the logistics of the operation.

  “That’s why you’re here! I want to do this. How do we make this happen?”

  “It’s a terrible idea. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  “I get that.”

  “This company needs you. These people need you.”

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  “It’s dumb.”

  “You’re dumb.”

  They smiled at each other, enjoying a brief release of tension before resuming their heated discussion.

  “There has to be someone checking on you,” Hamilton said. “Multiple times a day. Ensuring you’re still alive. Alright?”

  “Yup. No problem.”

  “And you need to tell your family.”

  “Nope. I don’t want to worry them.”

  “But you can’t lie to them.”

  The CEO turned away from his assistant and stared out the wall of windows overlooking the city. He ran through ideas in his head on how to respectfully dupe his wife into thinking he was safe on a business trip.

  “You can send them emails,” he said to Hamilton. “Send them email updates. Maybe I’m without cell service or my cell phone broke.”

  “For a couple of months?” she said incredulously.

  “I won’t be gone that long. Just enough to get recruited into the program and see how they interact with the Residents. I want to get a feel for everything.”

  “I really don’t like this. It screams bad news to me. Why can’t someone else do it? Have someone else go undercover. Besides, everyone will know who you are.”

  “One,” Charles said as he held up a finger, “I’ll be undercover. I’ll be disguised. No one will know it’s me. And two, I don’t trust other people to do this job. I want to see it with my own eyes. I’m fine with having other people do it as well, but I need to be an active part of this one. It’s happening.”

  Hamilton twirled a strand of hair—a habit Charles had only seen her do a few times before—and then she looked at her boss, noticing the seriousness in his expression and the determination in his eyes. She knew Charles well. When he bore that look, nothing was going to change his mind. He would execute the plan with or without her help, and it was now her job to lower his chances of getting harmed.

  “Alright, you stubborn brat. I’ll help you. But for the record, I’m against this.”

  “Duly noted. Thank you.”

  “Right. So, where are you planning on going?”

  “To the number one district within our company: Chicago. If there’s any place our entire company can learn from, it’s that district.”

  Hamilton shook her head softly, placing the tablet on the chair next to her.

  “Why can’t we just ask them what they’re doing differently? If anything,” she said.

  “We’ve been down that road. Nothing looks to be different, on the surface. They follow all protocols. They have the same resources. I need to get in there and see how they’re recruiting so many Residents. It’s unheard of.”

  “What? You think they’re forcing people into it or something?” Hamilton said, concerned.

  “I’m not saying that. But it’s crossed my mind. I’m hoping they’re simply better at convincing stubborn individuals into trying the program. Something they’re saying or doing to get more people in the door. It can’t be entirely by chance.”

  “But, Charles. What if they are forcing people into the program? Like you said, these districts have an incredible success rate.”

  “I know—”

  “That means these people are realizing what we can do for them once they’re in RD.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So maybe we should consider doing that if it is, overall, helping the homeless population.”

  “You mean, we should consider forcing homeless people into the program? Giving them no choice?”

  “Yes.”

  “No!” Charles yelled and half stood out of his chair. “These people are no different from the rest of us. They have rights, including the freedom to choose. We will not begin kidnapping people just because we think it’s in their best interest.”

  Hamilton stared at her tablet and took a deep breath, allowing her boss the necessary time to cool off.

  “I didn’t mean for us to kidnap them,” she said carefully. “I’m sure there is a reasonable amount of pressure we can apply. Maybe that’s what’s going on in Chicago. A level of encouragement they cannot decline.”

  “Maybe. And that’s why I need to do this. I want to hear and see—to fully understand—how they’re treating the homeless Recruits. Every finite detail.”

  “So you’re set on Chicago?”

  “Honestly, based on company data, it’s probably one of the safest places to live on the streets.”

  Chapter 4

  His first day as a homeless man went fairl
y well. In a way, he felt like he was a little boy attending camp for the first time. He had no responsibilities, was quickly meeting his fellow campers and learning their nicknames, and part of him enjoyed sleeping under the stars (not that there were many stars visible in Chicago). Charles knew he would feel much differently if this were a potentially permanent situation, or one born out of necessity. He had a choice, and so he did not share their sense of loss, failure, helplessness, and depression. He understood that for some, being homeless was a very conscious choice that brought certain individuals freedom and happiness. But his data indicated that those were the minority. For most, and for Charles’s fabricated character of the street, homelessness would be forced upon them by a brutal society determined to destroy the foundations of stability. Sure, the fact that the CEO was feigning poverty set him apart from other members of the camp, but his deception was based on good intentions and was a piece of something greater that would eventually benefit the entirety of society.

  He found that the emotions his homeless companions held were growing within him as time moved on. Day two was not as easy as the first day. Despite his particularly unique place in the community, he quickly became frustrated with the remedial and stale lifestyle of the homeless. He needed to eat, and so he went panhandling on a nearby street corner, only to be screamed at by a fellow camper that the corner was his and Charles had no right to it. Not wanting to cause any trouble, the CEO respected the man’s words and took his dirty sleeping bag elsewhere.

  Once he found a location that seemed to be unclaimed, he set his stuff down and grabbed a gas station soda cup that had been discarded on the roadside. Having seen the robotic movements countless times before, Charles waited for cars to stop near him, watching for the traffic signal to turn red, and then made his way down the line of cars, holding out his cup in front of each window, fighting to make eye contact with the drivers while they tried just as hard to avoid his gaze.

  After a mere ten minutes, Charles was utterly bored. He couldn’t fathom how anyone managed to do something so unstimulating for hours on end, and then his stomach began to growl angrily. Reminded of his hunger, the typically well-fed man sucked up his complaints of boredom and began to panhandle once more. That determination led to a couple of bucks in his cup and the eventual purchase of a rather small burrito. Perhaps enough to sustain him for a couple of hours.

  Before long, Charles returned to his new home below the freeway overpass and relaxed inside his sleeping bag to write in his notebook.

  What was so odd about living in such a situation was how alone he felt. Sure, he had human interaction with the persons that tented near him or with people walking down the street, but he never felt much of a connection with those living such drastically different lives. In all actuality, he began to quickly recede into his own mind and find comfort within his personal thoughts. He would spend hours simply lying in the sleeping bag or standing on a street corner with a cup in his hand, allowing the thoughts to flow at their own free will.

  Moments like this were when Charles accomplished the majority of his best thinking. Quiet nights in front of a fire, peaceful hours with a glass of Lagavulin, still nights when the family was already asleep, had the incredible ability to mature into creative developments: a new online portal for each Resident, a buddy system to hold Residents accountable, or even the initial idea that led him to be sleeping on a street below I-90. He grew more comfortable as his mind began to dominate the scene. Rather than making an effort to speak with the other members of the camp, Charles escaped into his thoughts and found the time slipping away.

  After living in his head for close to an entire day, the CEO snapped himself out of the trance. He reminded himself that he was there to obtain important information from his surroundings and inhabitants. The ease of falling victim to his eager imagination frightened the man. He figured that this was a coping mechanism for much of the homeless population, a way in which they could blissfully live out the remainder of their lives without ever needing to accept how precarious their lives were. It was enticing, yet completely contrary to what he was attempting to accomplish. And so he allowed himself only brief periods of daydreaming.

  As he jotted down some notes from that morning, a white van slowly drove past the camp. The words Reaching Dreams were painted across the side. He watched with pride as the car turned a corner, seemingly having just assessed that location for a possible mission trip to recruit more Residents. He had never seen a Reaching Dreams van before (most districts utilized SUVs for their versatile functionality and less authoritative feel), though he had designed the districts to operate autonomously and saw no issue with anyone using a larger vehicle to transport people.

  Charles’s pride was challenged when he heard a man next to him mutter, “Fuckin’ company.”

  The CEO whipped his head around to search for the source of the unexpected comment and saw a white, middle-aged man with matted hair and uneven patches of beard. The strange man stared in the direction in which the van had driven away before turning to duck into his tent.

  “Hey! What’d you say?” Charles called to him.

  “Wha?” the homeless man responded, looking out curiously at the newcomer who had recently come to live in the group.

  “You talking about that company? Reaching Dreams?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  The homeless man seemed annoyed by Charles’s questioning, and so he treaded lightly. Some of the impoverished individuals he had dealt with in the past were incredibly kind and endearing people, wanting only for the world to be a welcoming and homey place. Others were simply bad people that either had some sort of psychological problem or would happily cut down another person for the sake of something to do. At times it was difficult to tell how a total stranger would behave. There was often a trigger that would be accidentally tripped, sending a seemingly calm person into a frenzied rage that could not be subdued. The trigger could be a word, a phrase, a look, or simply some factor known only within their own mind. Charles understood he was vulnerable on the streets, and so he took caution with his words.

  “I thought that company helped people.”

  “Shit, man,” the homeless guy said. “They doin’ it all wrong.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “They don’ ask if ya want help. They force ya.”

  Charles didn’t like the sound of that. “Force you to do what?”

  “Force ya into the car. Everyone. No choice.”

  “And you don’t want to go with the company?”

  The man eyed Charles suspiciously. He took a good look at his sleeping bag and the notebook in his hand.

  “The fuck you askin’ for?” he said angrily.

  “I’m-I’m just curious. I thought it was a good company.”

  “Fuck. Some of us like bein’ here. We like the freedom. We don’ wanna be in no fancy place where we are told what to do. We belong here.”

  “And, they don’t give you a choice?”

  “No! That’s what I said! You don’ get no choice. They come by, they force ya in the car, and then you gone. That’s it.”

  Charles could not believe what he was hearing. Sure, this person was not the most reliable source, but if what that man was saying had any truth to it, then Chicago did not understand the purpose of Reaching Dreams. The company was designed to empower people, to teach them how to thrive as a part of society. Forcing someone into the program would not support a healthy environment in which someone could learn and grow.

  “I didn’t know that. Now I do.”

  “Okay.” The homeless man stepped into his tent without another word and left Charles to scribble frantically in his notebook.

  He did not expect to receive such information in that way. Perhaps his suspicions were true and the reason that district was performing so well and rehabilitating so many people was because they were for
cing the entire homeless population into the program. While that was inherently wrong and incredibly immoral, Charles could not deny that it got results. He thought back to what his assistant had said not long ago. In the end, if all of those homeless people were transitioned into functioning members of society, then possibly a stronger approach to recruiting Residents was acceptable. However, there would have to be a balance between giving individuals the choice to come with Reaching Dreams versus forcing them into a van.

  The CEO remained tucked in his sleeping bag, developing some policies that took into account the new information, before deciding it was time to make some money in order to eat his next meal.

  While he rolled up his sleeping bag and walked toward the same street corner he had panhandled at earlier, Charles kept an eye out for another Reaching Dreams van. He wanted proof of what that man had said to him. He wanted to physically see the mission trips himself in order to fully understand and acknowledge the mistakes that this district was making.

  At the same time, he didn’t want to see it. If there was a chance that people he employed were mistreating the homeless, then he almost preferred to be blissful in his ignorance. By going undercover, Charles was hoping to receive helpful tips from a high-performing district, not information about the possible abuse of good people. He understood that a large portion of the homeless population did not wish to be rescued from the streets because they saw nothing wrong with their lifestyle. It was a choice they had made, and they were sticking with it. Free choice was a God-given right that Charles wouldn’t dream of violating. Without free choice, people were nothing more than birds in a cage, prisoners behind bars, worms on a hook, or rats in an experiment.

  Jacob Gutierrez had been notified the week before that he was to monitor the whereabouts and well-being of an undercover executive from Reaching Dreams. He was told that under no circumstances should he reveal the identity of the executive or the nature of the project, which would be difficult to do considering he hadn’t been told who the person was that he was supposed to be watching.