Part TWO: The House Across the Street from Our House
The house across the street from ours also housed several different families.
7. First, there was the woman with the renters. She had as many as 10 different people renting from her and living in the house just so she could afford to live there. She had at least two young children, and at one point a man rented her garage space so he could live in it. We learned this because one day the garage door went up and we saw the guy wearing a bath towel over his shoulders, nothing else. This happened just as we pulled up into our driveway on our return from the grocery store. While we pulled bags of food out of the car the garage door across the street went up. Our daughters saw the naked man and started laughing.
He started yelling. “You like what you see? You like what you see?! Take a picture; it’ll last longer!”
While my daughters and my wife shook with laughter, I yelled at the drunken idiot to close the garage door. “Close the door, fool!” I shouted.
There was a lot of activity at that house. At least two times an ambulance, with sirens blaring, went to the place. One day, emergency medical personnel carried a woman out of the house and put her on a gurney as she bled from her chest. On another occasion, we received a letter that was addressed to the house across the street. I dutifully took the letter there and knocked on the door. The mistress of the house answered the door, wearing only a flimsy bathrobe. She was Caucasian, bleary-eyed, with pasty skin, stringy uncombed bronze-colored hair, holding a cigarette, and standing unsteadily in the doorway. I explained to her that we received a letter addressed to her house. She thanked me, then asked if we were buying the house we lived in. I told her yes, we were buying the house. She seemed surprised by that bit of information, although I couldn’t explain why. Her home across the street seemed to be ruled by the spirit of chaos, and I’m glad she moved.
8. The next family in the house across the street was an interracial couple, a Mexican man and his wife, an African-American woman. They had a daughter in her late teens. She was a student at Modesto Junior College (MJC) and knew our youngest daughter who attended the same institution. The family was very quiet. I rarely saw the man because I think he worked graveyard shift somewhere in the area. The wife seemed to stay indoors all the time. They moved.
9. The next family in the house across the street consisted of a baldheaded, middle-aged Caucasian man who lived with a petite middle-aged British woman, also white. During their short stay in the house, it was clear that the man really enjoyed drinking wine, possibly the good stuff. He was often seen walking to the communal mailbox with a glass of wine in his hand.
One day his wife knocked on our door, and when I answered it, she said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but your garage (she pronounced it GAIR-raj) is open.” I was surprised, but I thanked her and closed the garage. This interesting couple only stayed a few months in the house. They drove around in a convertible sports car. I always thought they were spies or some other sort of intelligence operatives. Either that, or the man was an executive for a large corporation. They moved and the house was empty for a few months.
10. Two young men moved into the place. They were not residents of the house for very long either but after they had been there for a few weeks, I noticed that both of them had brand-new cars. One of them drove a Mercedes, while the other rolled around in a new Chrysler 300. A week after the new cars arrived, I noticed there were two brand-new jet skis in the garage. I went out to the station wagon parked in the driveway. I planned to go to the hardware store and get some plants and seeds for my garden. Before I got in the car, a friendly police officer walked over to me and suggested I go back inside for a few minutes. I then saw why he made his suggestion. A formation of approximately 10 police officers made their way slowly up the street toward the house across from us. Before I went inside, I saw the officers use a key and enter the house. A few minutes later the friendly officer walked across the street and told me that the two young men who lived there were growing marijuana, and there were hundreds of marijuana plants inside the house. He even showed us an image from the inside of the house on his digital camera. When the newspaper reported on the story, it was estimated that the marijuana the young men were growing was worth $800,000 on the street. The two young men were arrested and taken away. The authorities were tipped off because as a “grow house,” it used an excessive amount of power.
11. The house remained empty for a while, and now a respectable family lives there. They are good neighbors, for the most part. I talk to them sometimes. I think the “curse” on that house got removed. On the other hand, they also happen to have a large dog, so there’s that.