by John L. Monk
He eyed me quizzically, but didn’t reply.
“Fancy rich doctor,” I said. “And all these poor people…”
Doctor Cline chuckled. “You’re not thinking of suing me, are you Trevor?”
“I don’t know. What kind of car do you drive?”
“My feet. I only got licensed this year, and I’m rooming with two other doctors. If I had a car, I couldn’t afford the insurance for it.”
“You should try homelessness,” I said. “Free food, free medical, sleeping under the stars, and you don’t have to work.”
Doctor Cline reached in his pocket, pulled out a cellphone, and held it to his ear. “I’m with a patient. Yeah. Okay. Talk to you soon.” Then to me: “Sorry about that, Trevor. Now let’s see … you’re gonna need stitches. You’re not afraid of needles, are you?”
“I love needles.”
The doctor gave me a sad look. “Let’s get you sewn up. Don’t want your head turning blue, do we?”
While he stitched me up—not painful at all—I said, “I really appreciate you helping me like this.”
“I swore an oath,” he said, mock-seriously.
“Which is why I feel bad asking you for a favor.”
“Hold this,” he said, and pressed my hand over the bandage. “What’s this about a favor?”
“I need to make a phone call, and you’ve got a phone I’d love to borrow.”
The doctor smiled. “Oh, I don’t think that’d be a problem. No calls to Japan, okay?”
He reached in his pocket and handed it to me like it was no big deal. A cynical part of me wondered if he was pretending not to care if I stole it.
He’s a cool guy, stop being a jerk.
“Let’s get you to one of those seats over there,” he said and helped me up.
“Sure doc, and thanks.”
While Doctor Cline helped his next patient, I stared at the phone.
“You know you want to,” I said, and dialed.
Chapter Sixteen
The man who answered was different than the one I’d talked to in Georgia. He told me to sit outside and wait for a car to show up. Neither friendly nor unfriendly, he processed my order professionally.
I must have waited three hours. The sun had gone down two hours before and the temperature was dropping. For entertainment, I watched the police drive slowly up and down the street, back and forth.
Feeling exposed, knowing they were looking for a brick-wielding homeless guy, I made sure to sit in the shadow of the concrete steps leading to the church. If the cops could get a description from the surviving missionary, they’d pick me up and toss me in a lineup, and I’d be the only one there with a wounded scalp.
Who knew Mormons were allowed to fight back? Not me.
I wondered what had happened with Trevor and those two. All my experience with Mormons had been way less violent. On various occasions, I’d even gone out of my way to talk to them. Mormon missionaries got so many doors slammed on them they were almost as starved as me for good conversation. Nicest people in the world. We’d chat for hours before they realized I was just a lonely guy who wanted to talk. Then they’d smile and shake my hand and say they had to get going. When that happened, I’d sometimes do my book memorization trick, quoting The Book of Mormon back to them word for word. That always kept them around. You haven’t lived until you’ve made a missionary burst into tears in public.
The street was busy with cars. Just as I wondered if I should give up and try to find shelter, one of them stopped. A town car. The driver got out and shouted, “You’re not Trevor, are you?”
“That’s me,” I said and got up.
The man on the phone had asked for both my names, which confirmed the landlord definitely knew what I was. A hopper—and yeah, it felt funny calling myself that. This put the official number of people who knew about me to five and a half: the minister, Nate, Rose, Peter Collins, Rose’s landlord, and an optimistic half for my mother. When I got a chance, I’d have to accidentally call her again.
The driver came around and opened the door for me.
Before I got in, he said, “You’re homeless.”
“But house trained.”
“You got some kind of ID?”
I took out Trevor’s Nevada ID and showed it to him.
Shaking his head, the man gave it back, let me in, and shut the door.
“It’s gonna be a while,” he said. “You want some music?”
“Not right now.”
“Personally,” he said, “I like long rides. Gives me time to think. Oh yeah, almost forgot.”
He pulled something from his jacket and handed it back. A half-ripped sheet of steno paper with a number on it: 27015.
“What’s this for?” I said.
“Don’t know. Dispatcher didn’t say much except write it down and give it to you. Mysterious, huh?”
He sounded a little excited about it. Chatty, too.
“I think I’d like some music after all,” I said. “Anything before the nineties is fine.”
Then I leaned back and shut my eyes.
* * *
“Hey, buddy, wake up.”
I opened my eyes. The car had stopped, and there weren’t any streetlights.
The driver got out and opened the door for me.
“We’re here,” he said.
We were parked in front of a beach house at the end of a long drive with no nearby houses. Beyond it, what could only be Puget Sound stretched out of sight. The night sky was a gray helmet of cloud cover, and the world smelled like saltwater and homeless Trevor and nothing else.
“I don’t have any money,” I said.
“Already paid for. You gonna be okay out here?”
He looked around uncertainly.
“Sure,” I said.
“You want me to wait for you to get inside?”
“That’d be great.”
I walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. Nobody answered, so I rang again. Then I knocked.
“Everything okay?” the man shouted.
There was a metal box on the wall with a flap over it, just like the one in Georgia. And like that other house, it opened to reveal a keypad. The landlord must have gotten them in a sale.
Squinting at the paper in the meager light, I punched in the numbers. When nothing happened, I hit the pound key—and heard a click from the door. A twist of the knob and it opened right up.
“Got it!” I shouted back to the guy.
He gave me a thumbs-up and drove away.
On entering, I found a bank of light switches, flipped each one, and blinked in surprise at the security camera pointing down at the door. Again, just like the one in Savannah. Considering the types of people he rented to—party animals and messy health nuts—I didn’t blame him.
A couple of feet in and to the left was a large kitchen with white tiles and shiny appliances. A dining room opened ahead and to the right. I passed that and entered a living room with big cushy chairs and a massive plasma television. All the latest video game consoles were stacked neatly beneath it in recessed cubbies. There was also a satellite TV box to go with the dish I’d seen on the roof. On the wall beside the TV were floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with movies.
I left off there and checked out the bedrooms, and that’s where the similarity in houses ended. The master bedroom had two beds in it, which was odd. Odder still were the giant mirrors on the walls and on the ceiling. There were also shelves with an assortment of sex toys displayed openly. Not family friendly at all. A small sign hanging above them read: Please Wash After Use.
Gross, yet sanitary at the same time.
The other bedrooms also had sex toys with signs over them. More troubling was the box of disposable hypodermic needles resting open on a nightstand.
Turning to leave, I noticed something else—metal brackets on either side of the door fastened securely to the wall. In the corner stood a metal bar long enough to span the two brackets and secure th
e room from the inside.
That’s not scary at all.
A search of the fridge yielded sodas, juice, packages of sausage, condiments, and ice cream in the freezer. The pantry had cereal, crackers, boxes of spaghetti, and various canned foods.
I was about to close the pantry door and then stopped. There was a box on the bottom shelf with a cardboard sign taped to it reading, “Donations.” Yet again, just like the house in Georgia.
I looked inside and found four bottles of pills, a puffy bag of marijuana, little baggies of meth or heroin … and a black snub-nosed revolver.
“Weirder and weirder,” I said and shut the door.
Trevor was homeless, and I sensed he’d been that way a long time. Bad enough I had to occupy the body of a stranger. I didn’t have to be filthy, too.
Nothing strange about the bathroom—towels, soap, and shampoo. It also had razors and his and hers deodorant. I quickly stripped down to nothing at all and looked at myself in the mirror. Lily white. The only sun Trevor got was on his face and hands.
The shower was amazing, stunning, stupendous. I hadn’t realized how itchy I was. A minute into it, the tub was brown with washed-away dirt. At least I hoped it was dirt … No matter, it was washing away.
I scrubbed like I was searching for the real me, not bothering with shampoo, lathering my whole head and beard with soap. Maybe twenty minutes later, satisfied I’d gotten as clean as possible, I stepped out and dried off. I opened the door to let out the moist air, pumping it back and forth like a bellows. When the mirror started to clear, I closed the door and set to work getting rid of my beard.
Cleanly shaved, I didn’t look so bad. My hair was still a mess, so I used some scissors I found in a drawer and gave myself a haircut, making sure to catch the clippings on a towel draped over the sink. Style wasn’t important, just that it was short and hopefully free of critters. Afterward, I gave my head a quick run under the shower, toweled off, then collected my hair and went to find a trash bag.
“Hello,” someone said as I passed naked through the living room.
Up went the towel in my surprise, scattering hair all over the place. But that was the least of my concerns.
A man was sitting on one of the recliners drinking a soda.
Chapter Seventeen
Standing stark naked with hair all around me, I must have been a sight. Whereas the man on the sofa chair seemed perfectly normal. He was a young guy of Asian descent, slender and good looking, dressed in a buttoned-down shirt with muted colors.
“Sorry to scare you,” he said in a vanilla Midwest accent. “I think there’s a vacuum in one of the closets.”
If he was one of the party animals the landlord liked to rent to, he sure didn’t look that wild.
“You okay, man?” the guy said. “You wanna have some sex?”
On second thought, yeah, he was definitely one of the party people. I wondered if the landlord’s business was legal. Probably, I figured. Well, except for the drugs.
“No thanks,” I said, and scooped up as much hair as possible.
“But I’m offering you carnal knowledge,” he said, pouting.
I shook my head sadly. “And I only like veggie knowledge.”
Before he could reply, I went to the kitchen and emptied my clippings into the trashcan, careful not to make another mess. After that, I dropped the towel in a basket in the laundry room. I hoped there were spare clothes like at the house in Georgia, or I’d have to wash Trevor’s and wait in a sheet with a sex-happy party guy in the house.
The TV was on when I came back, and it was showing hardcore pornography.
None of my business.
As I passed by, the man turned the sound up. Grunts, slaps, and affected oohing followed me into the room with the security bar.
A quick search of the bureau next to the window turned up a variety of shorts, shirts, and underwear for both sexes, as well as socks and bras. The walk-in closet had nondescript pants, more shirts, and assorted shoes—again for both sexes.
After selecting a T-shirt and a pair of pants, I poked through the shoes for anything that fit my size. Several of them did. Now I had a pair of used sneakers.
It was sort of weird, all this clothing everywhere. I wondered how much of what Rose had told me about the landlord and his properties was true. Were there really that many extreme health clubs?
If I could have made friends with the landlord years ago, my rides would have been so much easier. Then again, if I’d chosen the easy way and slipped off to stay somewhere other than my rides’ homes, a lot of good people would have suffered. Being in the thick of a ride’s life is the only way to find out what he’s done. In fact, now that I thought about it, I felt guilty ditching the homeless life for the warmth of this party house. Maybe I was supposed to deal with Chancy and his hammer. Maybe that nice old man, Max, was in danger.
Nothing I could do about it now—even if I had a car and wanted to leave. I’d only just gotten here, and it was too late. If the guy in the living room had a car, I’d ask him for a lift tomorrow.
When I returned to the living room, he had his pants down and was masturbating to the images on the TV.
“Of all the…” I said, shaking my head. “Hey—would you please stop that?”
The man paused, mid-stroke. “Why? Change your mind?”
“No, I didn’t change my mind,” I said, looking away. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Call me Jack.”
I heard him get up, followed by the sound of pants being buckled.
“All clear,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Dan. Can you turn that off? Or, uh, change the channel?”
He blinked once, opened his mouth like he had a question, then stopped. Then he said, “You mean with women in it?”
I shook my head. “Just something normal.”
The guy peered at me, lips pursed as if solving a complicated puzzle. Then he leveled a finger and said, “I get it now. You’re a prude.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly it. A huge prude. Biggest prude ever. Is Jack your real name?”
He laughed. “No, it’s Stephen. Pretty funny though. Jack. Because I was—”
“I get jokes, Stephen,” I said and tried not to smile. It had been sort of a good joke. “Are there more of you coming? Some kind of club?”
His expression grew puzzled. “Club? What do you mean club?”
Pointing around me, I said, “Here at the party house. That’s why you’re here, right?”
Stephen’s eyes widened and he barked a laugh. “How did you get here, mate?”
Mate? That was an odd expression for an American.
Not wanting to give away too much information, I said, “I got a ride. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were in the shower. I didn’t want to waltz in and presume. I’m a gentleman.”
“How did you get in?”
“This is a hopper house,” he said. “If you’re here, you already know. Or should. Wait … is this your first time?” He clapped his hands excitedly. “I remember when the first one opened forty years ago. Before then, everything was confused. How long have you been hopping?”
Forty years ago? Hopper house?
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
How could I be so stupid? All those clues and I’d missed them. Rose’s so-called “party animals” were other hoppers. This guy Stephen—he was a hopper. Why hadn’t she told me? She’d led me to believe the landlord was a real landlord—with rent and bills and fees and all that. She hadn’t even given me the phone number to call for a ride. The landlord did that, after she’d killed herself.
“Of course,” I said.
“What?” Stephen said, stamping his foot.
On her call with the landlord, Rose had said, He’s not like the others.
I’d wondered what she meant by that. Now—staring at Swingin’ Stephen—I thought
I knew. She’d sensed I wasn’t like him. Or herself, for that matter. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted me to come here.
“So you’re a hopper?” I said.
“Fortunately.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise,” he whispered, leaning close, “I’d still be … DEAD!”
I flinched and raised my hands in defense, then lowered them when he laughed.
“Great,” I said. “A nutcase.”
Stephen’s eyes widened. “You keep them in a case? My my. Now let’s see…” He sized me up, head to toe. “Homeless. Am I right?”
“How did you know?”
“Fingernails,” he said, as if checking it off a list.
I looked at my nails—way too long, and still caked with dirt even after the shower.
“And you need to brush your teeth, too,” he said. “And do something better with your hair. Now, if I could break you of that prudishness, we might actually have a good time. There’s lots of movies here—have a look. If you’re not into men, we could turn off the lights. Or is it Asians you don’t like?” He made a dismissive gesture. “We’ll figure it out. With the lights off, it all feels the same.”
“What about hopping,” I said, ignoring all that. “You’re really one of them?”
“One of us. A little over a hundred years, now.”
I stared at him in shock. He couldn’t have been dead that long. Could he? That’d put his birth back near World War I.
“I’ve met a few older ones,” Stephen said. “Some of them … hmm … they’re a bit loony. I’ve been loony before. Lucky for you I’m going through a steady phase right now. The trick is not to be too … um … choosy. In your pleasures.” He grinned at me, eyes half closed. “I noticed you’re circumcised. I am too.”
Also ignoring that, I said, “The landlord said he has houses in every state. What’s in it for him?”
“Work, work, work,” Stephen said, rolling his eyes. “Okay, fine. I’m going to tell you five addresses, so pay attention.”
He rattled off five P.O. boxes in various states. I forgot them almost as soon as he finished. Which was fine. When I died or got kicked, they’d be in my head forever. Which, of course, he knew.