“What’s it about?” he asked.
“It’s about homeless people,” I responded.
John raised his bushy eyebrows. “Well, you have a wealth of good copy in this town,” he said. “But, whatever you do, don’t put anything I said about the city in your book. People here don’t like to be criticized.”
I took a sip of my now cold coffee.
“I also heard you’re still living in your car. That right?” John asked next.
“Yeah, I am. It’s been over a year now. I’ve been sleeping up in the Methodist church parking lot most of the time—sometimes at the Episcopal church. Just me and my little dog.”
“Well, I’ve got a room at my place if you’re interested,” said John.
“Oh, I’m interested all right,” I replied. “But I don’t have any money. How much would it cost?”
“I’ve got five people living there now,” he began. “But I’ve never rented this room. It used to be my room when I was a kid. It looks out over the street. I’ve been using it to store stuff. We would have to move some stuff around to make it habitable, but we can do that. It’s better than sleeping in your car. And your dog can sleep there, too. As far as money goes—well, let’s say you give me what you can, when you can. How about that? Maybe you’ll get rich off your book.”
“Wow. That’s generous of you.” I was a little stunned, and more than a little wary. After my close encounter (of a very unusual kind) with Tina and her trailer, I wondered if this was another offer that was too good to be true. Would I be evicted tomorrow if someone else came along who was able to pay more? At least it would be a bed for tonight, or maybe even for a few nights.
“Come on. Let’s go take a look at it,” he said, standing up.
We walked out of Sally’s together. “I’ll grab Willow,” I said and walked quickly to the van. I opened the door and picked her up in my arms to carry her to John’s house.
I didn’t know much about John, I thought as we walked to the corner and waited for the traffic light. As he was pointing out things of interest in the neighborhood—the bank on the corner that was built about ten years ago, the auto-repair shop that came a year later after they tore down the Miller House—I was thinking about the many times I had seen him around town. He drove a brown-and-black late-sixties Volkswagen bus that he had obviously been patching up over the years. It would putt and sputter and occasionally backfire as he would arrive with five or six hungry people to a free church dinner. He generally gave his riders tourguide service over the sound of the engine, often pointing out which bridge was built when, what year the local college opened, and where he had gone to school.
“Here’s home,” John said as we reached his house in the middle of the block. We climbed up the steps to a big porch. It was a turn-of-the-century Victorian home. “I was born in this house in 1938,” he said, reaching in his pocket for a ring full of keys. He selected one and slid it in the lock. “Everybody else uses the back entrance,” he said. “But since your room is right up at the top of the stairs, you can use the front. It’s right above the porch here. You’ll have to remember to lock the door every time, though. Sometimes people hang around on the porch at night. My room is clear in the back, and I can’t hear them out here.”
It was dark inside. Shades were pulled down in the living room. “This way,” John said, as he grabbed the rail of the dark mahogany staircase and began climbing the stairs. I followed.
The staircase made a turn at the top, and we arrived at the second floor. John looked through his keys again, picked out another, and turned it in the lock. He opened the door and flipped the light switch. One bare bulb hung from a patched-up light fixture on the ceiling; it blinked a couple of times before it came on. “I’ll have to fix that someday,” John muttered, pointing to the fixture.
It was a small room, mostly full of dusty cardboard boxes. There was an old dresser on one side and a metal fold-down bed up against the wall. John walked over to the paper shade that covered the front window. He pulled it down slightly and then let it go so that it rolled to the top, letting sunlight fill the room. Dust from the shade filled the air.
“Let’s get some fresh air in here,” John said, reaching for the latch on the window. He turned it with one hand and pulled the window open with the other, sneezing loudly.
“Gezundheit!” I replied.
“I haven’t been in here for a long time,” John said. “We can stack some of these boxes on top of each other. That will give you more room.” He reached down and strained to pick up a heavy box. “These are old records,” he continued, “—old 78s. Let’s stack them along that wall.”
It didn’t take long to move the thirty or so boxes out of the way. Then John swung the metal-spring bed into the middle of the room. “Now, if I remember right,” he began, “this bed springs out dangerously when the latch is opened. You grab one side and I’ll get the other.” We positioned ourselves to avoid injury and John pushed open the latch. The mattress forced the springs down, and we guided it into place. John tested the mattress with his hands. “Still good,” he declared. “Try it out.”
I moved to the side of the bed and sat down. Then I slowly swiveled and stretched out. The end of the bed at my feet hovered a few inches off the floor. “Oh, I forgot about that,” he said. “It’s a little catawampus. You have to put some books under the legs to level it out. You can use any of the books in that pile on the floor. Otherwise, you will be sleeping either uphill or downhill all night.”
I carefully swung my feet off the side of the precarious bed and stood up. John pulled a couple of books from the stack in the corner of the room. “Here: Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno ought to level the legs out. You’ll have plenty of demons under your bed,” he chuckled. He bent down slowly and placed Paradise Lost under one leg, then moved to the other side and put Inferno under the other. “There.”
Willow had been sitting by the door, observing our activity. She came over and jumped into the middle of the bed. “Well, it looks like your dog is at home,” John declared as he reached over to pat her head. Willow sat up, wiggled her nose and let out a tiny sneeze. I soon followed with one of my own.
“I’ve got a broom and some dust rags,” John said. “It won’t be so bad when you clean it up a little. In fact,” he added, fishing for his keys and moving toward the door again, “I might have what we need right in here. Follow me.”
Just outside the room was another door, secured with a padlock. John inserted a key and it opened with a click. He turned another key in the door lock and opened the door.
“My treasure room,” John said. He switched on a small overhead chandelier. My eyes widened at the sight of dozens of antique Victrolas, with horns in many shapes and sizes, sitting on tables and on the floor. “I must trust you,” he said. “I don’t show this to everyone.”
There was one massive Victrola sitting on the floor. It had an off-white horn that must have been three feet long. “So this is what all the records are for,” I said.
“Yes. I collect these. They are my babies,” John said, spreading out his hands. “Most of them were broken when I bought them. I stole parts from some of them to get the others working.”
“They are fantastic,” I said, marveling at the collection and contemplating the irony of a man with such poor hearing in one ear being a collector of Victrolas.
“My mother got me my first one when I was a kid,” he said. “It had a dog on it, like that one over there—you know, the Victrola dog?”
“Yes, I remember the dog,” I said.
“She used to play Benny Goodman records on a big machine in the living room, and she would dance with me when I was about that high.” John held his right hand about three feet off the floor. “She was a wonderful woman. I still have that one in my bedroom. I play it at night when I go to sleep. I have good memories here.”
“So, you said you were born here?” I asked.
“That’s right—right
downstairs in the kitchen,” he confirmed. “There was only one bridge in town then, the Manette. The hospital was on the other side of the water. The bridge was closed for repairs, and there was no way to get to the hospital, so the doctor came here. The only time I’ve been away was two years during the war. I lost most of my hearing in this ear and my eye was damaged by a grenade, so they shipped me home.”
John stepped up to the closet door and opened it. It was stuffed with boxes piled on top of each other. He found a broom and dustpan and handed them to me. “These are a little worse for wear, but they will do the job.”
“So, is this really the only house around here?” I asked.
John stood and nodded. “I’ve seen a lot come and go,” he said. “The city got bigger, then smaller, then bigger, then smaller again. I played my trombone when six thousand sailors came, and I played it when six thousand sailors left. This street used to be lined with homes. Now, I’m the last holdout. The last of the Mohicans, you could say. I spent twenty years taking care of my mother here before she died. It took me six years to clear the things from her room. I’ll probably die here, too.”
I honored the quiet, distant look on his face. After a moment, it shifted. “Let’s go get that room cleaned up,” John said heading for the door. “Oh, here are some old, holey T-shirts we can use for dusting.” He picked some rags up from the bookcase by the door. “Oh, wait. I’ve got to show you this.”
John picked up a small box from the top of the dusty bookcase. He held it carefully in his hands and pushed something on the bottom. The top of the box slowly opened and a small red bird rose into view. The bird warbled a redbird song. “These boxes are rare,” he said proudly, touching the bird with his little finger. “Those are real feathers!”
“Amazing,” I said.
Then John placed the wooden box gently back on the bookcase, and we moved out of the room. He locked the door and put the padlock back in place, snapping it closed and pulling on it to make sure it was secure.
We went into the front bedroom, and John went right to work sweeping the floor while I dusted. “You might want to put some cotton in your ears if you want to sleep tonight,” he said, as the broom swished across the floor. “A ship is in with lots of sailors on it. On top of that, it’s Friday night and a holiday weekend.”
A few minutes later, John swept the last of the dirt into the dustpan and placed the broom against the wall. “Well, I’ve got to get going,” he said. He pulled out his key ring again. “Here’s a key to the front door. Don’t forget to lock it on the way in and out. And here’s a key to this room.” He handed them to me. “I’ll see you later.”
I nodded my thanks, accepted the keys, and kept on dusting. John’s feet made a strange stomping sound as he went down the stairs. I heard the rattling of his key chain and, minutes later, the sound of his Volkswagen bus coughing and spitting as he fired up the engine.
I spent almost another hour cleaning, then decided to take a break and go for a walk in the park with Willow. We stopped at the library to read the daily papers and stopped by a local church for a much-needed evening dinner before heading back to John’s house.
I walked into the Salvation Army parking lot about six in the evening to get my sleeping bag from the van, just in time to see James and AP straining as they lugged an old floral-print sofa down the alley.
“Put the Goddamn thing down for a minute!” AP yelled. “I need to catch my breath!”
“We only got a few more yards to go,” James panted back.
“I’m puttin’ my end down now!” AP dropped the heavy sofa to the pavement.
“Shit, man,” James whined, momentarily holding on, but then letting go of his end with a thud. “We were almost there, man!”
As I walked toward them I saw their friend Brian around the back corner of the 7-Eleven, carrying two wooden armchairs, and Robert, another regular at Sally’s, toting a couple of wooden shipping pallets. James took off his weathered baseball cap and wiped the sweat off his brow. He spotted me as he looked up.
“Richard, Richard!” he said, waving me over to them. “Look, we scored a sofa and some chairs. They had a one-day garage sale up the street, and they said we could have these if we carried them away!”
I looked at the sofa. There was a large rip in the material on the side, and the cushions were threadbare in many places. I asked an obvious question. “What’re you guys going to do with them?”
“We’re gonna sit on them!” James replied, in an equally obvious answer.
“Where?” I asked.
“Right over there,” James replied, pointing to the spot behind Sally’s where the men hung out.
“Okay, but you know the Major won’t go for that,” I cautioned.
“Hell, they’re gone for the weekend,” AP offered. “It’s a holiday, man—Labor Day. They won’t be back till Tuesday. We can party till then.”
Brian and Mike had caught up with AP and James and were now supervising the operation.
“Let’s go,” AP said to James. He leaned down to pick up the sofa; James did the same. They put their hands under the bottom and lifted with audible grunts. I watched as the two men carried the sofa the final few yards and then, in unison, dropped it in the dirt.
“Let’s face it that way,” James said, pointing to the cement wall and beginning to tug on his end.
“Shit, man, it’s okay like it is,” AP said, sitting down on his end.
“But it would look better if we faced it that way,” James insisted.
“Okay, okay!” AP grudgingly stood up. The two men then spun the couch about forty-five degrees, looked at it and then plopped themselves down, one on each end.
“I’ll start a fire,” Brian said, lifting one of the wooden pallets he had tossed to the ground. He got a good grip and tried to remove one of the slats, to no avail. “You guys got an axe?” he asked.
“We ain’t got no tools,” James replied.
Brian tossed the pallet to the ground, raised his leg, and stomped on the slats with his boot, loosening a couple of them enough to twist them off.
“Did you check for spare change behind the cushions?” I asked AP.
“Man, we did that half a block away from the house!” AP said. “Just a couple of candy wrappers, though. That’s all.”
Brian continued to stomp and break wood away from the pallets, and Robert began collecting the wood as AP and James looked on.
“Man, I’m thirsty,” James said, getting up off the tattered sofa and walking toward the old wooden steps that had once served as the back entrance to Sally’s, now boarded up. He got on his hands and knees, crawled partway under the steps, and pulled out a large black plastic bag, which held their stash of refreshments for the night—a case of Rolling Rock.
“Bring me one,” AP called out, followed by a “Me too” and an “I’ll take one” from Brian and Robert.
James pulled out four bottles and delivered one to each of his buddies.
“Well, it looks like you guys are set for the night,” I said.
Brian took a swig of his beer and set it on the ground. He made a small tepee out of the pieces of wood that he had splintered off the pallet. Then he got down on his knees, leaned forward with his lighter, placed the flame near the splinters of wood, and blew gently. Slowly, the small pieces of wood began to burn. “I’m a good fire builder,” he said, as the fire began to grow. He placed a few larger pieces of wood on top of the small blaze. “And there are two or three more pallets behind the 7-Eleven we can get later,” he added, picking up his beer and sitting down on one of the chairs.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I said, excusing myself. I got my sleeping bag and made sure my vehicle was locked up tight before heading off. Willow and I walked over to John’s house for the night. There were three people talking on the front steps of the house as I approached. I had seen them all before. The woman took a deep drag off her cigarette and then flicked it out into the street. “You the new guy?
” she asked, as I moved closer, carrying Willow.
“Yeah. I’m Richard,” I replied.
“I’m Lisa,” she said. “This is Steve and this is Don. We all live here.”
I nodded at the guys and said, “This is my dog, Willow.” I put her down on the sidewalk but watched her carefully. It was only about ten feet from the front steps to the street, which was now humming with traffic. “Is John here?” I asked.
“No,” Lisa replied. “He took one of the other guys to Seattle. He’s had a toothache for a week or more; he moaned most of the night last night. So John took him to the university over there. It’s about the only place he could go. He doesn’t have any money. John found out they will pull it for free at the dental school. Nobody would do it over here. They didn’t leave until two, so I don’t expect them back till late.”
“Well, glad to meet you,” I said. “Come on, Willow,” I called, and we moved up the steps. I unlocked the door, climbed the stairs, unlocked the door to my room, and tossed the sleeping bag on the bed. I quickly unrolled it, and Willow hopped up on the bed.
The room was stuffy, so I opened the window about halfway. I peeked out at the lights from Monica’s across the street—there was a neon Budweiser sign glowing in one window, a Coors sign in another, and a Lotto sign filling a third, the latter serving as a spotlight for a pull-tab banner. To the right behind the signs, I could see the silhouettes of men playing pool; at the other end of the building, I could see the outlines of people sitting at stools at the bar.
Four sailors were walking briskly toward the front door in their dress whites. They were laughing as they walked into Monica’s one by one. The neon lights illuminated their uniforms. Once inside, they headed for the bar and then blended into the crowd.
Well-dressed men and women began walking down both sides of the street. An older gentleman wearing a white Stetson hat was walking arm in arm with a woman carrying a single long-stemmed rose. I guessed they were going to see Kenny Rogers; I had seen the announcement on the marquis of the old theater on the corner of 5th Street, just a block and a half away—the one that had been remodeled into a dinner theater—a distant reminder of my former life.
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