Chapter 6- The Man from the Green Hills

It smelled like hot coffee in the apartment when Alvin woke up. The aroma was intoxicating, calling him out to the kitchen. He hit the ground and rolled on the floor for a second. Then he realized he wasn't wearing his shirt. He fumbled around the right part of his butt, looking for his wallet and realized he wasn't wearing any pants either.

"What in the world?" he examined his person and looked in the mirror, "how did I get home last night?" he started thinking, Man, I don't remember a thing after, well I don't even know when. At least Simon is making coffee. He walked into the kitchen, "Simon?"

"Oh, no Simon here my friend," a mysterious man said from the kitchen. He had a thick Irish accent.

"Wait, who the hell are you?" Alvin ran into the kitchen; a man with a rough beard and unkempt hair was making a pot of coffee. He was standing in his boxers and nothing else, "Ah God, why aren't you wearing clothes?"

"Good mornin' Alvin my boy," he handed him a cup of coffee, "Do you not remember me? Will's the name; you had quite a night last night…" he continued talking but Alvin couldn't understand his accent.

Simon walked out of his room, he was wearing a Dole Kemp '96 campaign pin and was holding a purse, "Thank God you're making coffee; I can't remember a single thing," he noticed Will, "Whoa, who is this?"

Alvin looked at Will, "This is Will, I guess we hung out with him last night."

"Oh yah, we we're running around everywhere…" he kept talking but they weren't able to understand a thing after that.

Alvin looked at him, "Wait, you seem to remember what happened. Can you fill us in?"

Will started talking very quickly and they had no idea what was going on. In between their splitting headaches and their lack of sleep, his words were flying past us.

"… and that's wha' 'appened," he stopped and drank the entire pot of coffee. Simon pulled Alvin aside.

"This guy is absolutely insane," Will started making another pot of coffee, "We need to get him the hell out of the apartment."

"Wait, don't be too hasty. I have no idea where my pants are, which has my wallet and cell phone in it. Also, you have someone's purse and a Dole Kemp campaign pin. I need to get my things and I want to figure out what happened," Alvin finished and Simon turned him around.

"It looks like Theo and Ellie stayed the night here too."

Theodore and Eleanor were both sitting straight up on the couch asleep, wrapped in a blanket. Alvin and Simon walked over to them and nugged Theodore. He wouldn't wake up.

Alvin shook him, "Theo wake up!"

He woke up, "Alvin? What the hell? Why am I at your place?"

Simon chimed in, "We were thinking the same thing."

Theodore started coming more too and he examined his self, "Alright, so where are my clothes?"

"You're completely naked under there?"

"Yeah and so is Ellie," He whispered to her to wake her up, she turned and laid on him, "You guys, I don't remember a thing from last night. Where did we go?"

Will called from the other room, "Oi, Theo! You're awake lad!" he was drinking straight from the pot again, "This guys is the craziest mother…" he trailed off with a thicker accent than ever.

"Wait wait wait, who the hell are you?"

Simon was looking around the room for anything that would lead them to what happened last night, "He's Will, and we're not really sure who he is."

Eleanor woke up, "Hey Theo," she looked under the blanket, "where are my clothes?"

"Probably where mine are."

She was fading back to sleep, "Happy Valentine's Day, Teddy."

"Happy Valentine's day."

Once they had collected themselves, Simon called everyone together and ran down the situation. Will read the paper in the other room while this was going one; Simon started to talk, "Alright, so there are a few things missing right now. First thing is Alvin's wallet and cell phone."

Alvin chimed in, "We really need to find those things first."

Simon looked annoyed, "thank you Alvin, but yes we do need to find those things. Moving on, Theo and Ellie are also missing their entire outfits from last night. Except for their shoes and whatever was on their person."

Theodore had put on the blanket as a toga and Eleanor was wearing Simon's robe, which was extremely long on her, Theodore then said, "Before we leave, we should really look around the house first to see where things might be."

Simon again looked annoyed, "I've already taken care of that, can people stop interrupting me? Alright, so the only clues we have right now are this Dole Kemp campaign pin and the purse I found, which contained a cell phone. I've been calling people on it, but so far, nobody has picked up. Right now, we need to find a starting point."

Will stumbled in from the other room; he had put on his clothes again and looked only half as crazy as he did before, "A starting point? You should call those two girls that were with you lot last night."

Simon's face lit up, "Two girls? Did you catch their names?"

He walked over to him, "No, but I do know how to figure it out," He grabbed Simon's shirt and pulled it off over his head and turned him around so his back was facing everyone, "They wrote their numbers on your back."

Theodore and Alvin got close and looked at them, Alvin said, "They don't look familiar in the least. They're local though, they didn't leave an area code."

Will chimed in, "Well, that makes sense, considering we went into Philly last nigh'."

Alvin looked scared, "We went into town last night?"

"Yeah, you kept saying we needed to go to all of your favorite bars."

"Alvin, go make a list of all of your favorite bars, Eleanor, look on Facebook for anyone missing a purse. You have the most friends on it so you'll have the large net to throw out. Theodore, call Brittney and Jeanette and ask them if they were with us last night, and I'll go and see where this button came from," Simon said as he ran to his computer. Will was the only one not doing anything; he sat back down at the table and started to read the paper.

About ten minutes later, they all came back together and shared their information.

"Alright, I found that there was a losing candidate party off campus last night, and that's where the buttons came from. Theodore, what did you find out?"

Theodore picked up a piece of paper where he wrote everything, "Well, Jeanette and Brittney were with us for the beginning of the night, but they left around 10:30 because we were all getting too smashed and they didn't want to take care of us."

"Hilarious. Eleanor, any luck on the internet?"

She looked at Alvin's laptop which she was using, "No, I've got no leads here. None of my friends are posting statuses about missing a purse and nobody has responded to mine about said purse. We should give it more time I think."

"Keep us posted, Alvin, anything yet?"

"Yeah, I've got a list of my favorite bars and a few other ones that I go to on occasion."

"Alright, Alvin, you and I will go into town, Theodore, go grab some clothes for you and Eleanor."

They all started to move, Will stood up too, "Wait Wait Wait, you lot haven't done this very much have you now?"

Simon looked at him perplexed, "What do you mean?"

"I mean pickin' up the pieces after a crazy night. Finding lost things and stuff like that. Well, I have and I'm willing to help my new friends out in this case. I won't tell you exactly how to do this but I will help you out considering I remember everything that happened last night."

Simon got angry, "Why won't you tell us where all of our stuff is?"

"For two reasons, one: you all need to learn how to do this for yourself when I'm not around, and two: I wasn't keeping tabs on you all the time, so I'm not sure where everything is meself."

"Alright, well what do we do first?"

"The two on the couch, you go ahead and go grab new clothes. We don't need two naked people running around and causing great distraction. You me and Alvin will go to the house first and see if we can find your pants," he started putting on his jacket, "If you want to find everything, you best listen to everything I have to tell you."

Theodore got up and left the house and Eleanor waited, looking things up on Alvin's laptop. Will, Alvin and Simon walked out of the house with the purse Simon woke up with. The motley crew got many an odd look as the strolled across campus.

Will talked to them as they walked, "In cases like this, it's best to start where you started the night. Most likely, the first area is where you blacked out and started doing stupid things, so an impression was made."

Simon talked lightly to Alvin, "This guy is really sketchy. Who the hell is he?"

"I don't know I've never met him before. He obviously was at the house last night so he probably knows someone there."

"I hope so; I don't want some random stranger guiding us around the city to our eventual graves. I don't have lunatic stab insurance anymore, Alvin."

He laughed and will turned around to him, "what you two gobs laughin' about?"

Alvin responded, "Oh it's nothing," They arrived at the house and walked in. It was a disaster area. It smelled of stale beer and alcohol, and there was trash everywhere. The pledges were cleaning the house and when they saw Alvin, they went into attention.

"At ease, pledges, " they all continued cleaning, "while your cleaning, I need some help piecing together what happened last night."

A pledge responded, "Brother Alvin, your pants are in the tree in the courtyard. The President has your wallet and cell phone," they ran outside, and, sure enough, Alvin's pants were in the largest tree in the courtyard.

"Well boyo, it seems it's time to climb," Will laughed at the site of Alvin's pants in the tree.

"I'll get a pledge to do it, let's go get my stuff from Jack."

Alvin ran inside, "Hey pledges, first person to get my pants out of the tree earns an iota of respect," he kept walking upstairs to the president's room and walked in, "Jack?"

Jack was the president of the fraternity and he was sitting at his computer, he didn't turn around when Alvin came in, "Hey Alvin, here for your wallet and cell?"

"I am."

"They're on the table. You got pretty crazy last night bro. I almost had to throw you out but you left on your own."

"Do you know where I was headed?"

"You don't remember?" he turned around, "I guess it makes enough sense, you were pretty far gone at that point. You were headed to that off campus party."

"Fantastic, before we go," Alvin grabbed the purse from Simon, "Do you recognize this purse?"

Jack looked at it intensely, "No, sorry man. Where the hell did you get a purse from?"

Simon chimed in, "That's what we're trying to figure out."

He laughed, "Alright, well good luck to the two of you. Sadly there were far too many women at the house last night for me to single out one purse."

They started to walk out, Alvin thanked him and they went downstairs where his pants were waiting for him.

"Here you are, brother Alvin," a pledge said as he gave him the pants.

"Thanks," he grabbed the pants and they walked out of the house.

"So, Simon, where was this off campus party?" Alvin said as he examined the contents of his previously returned wallet.

"It was on Grant and 12th; it's relatively close to Theo and Ellie's apartment."

"Then we head their next!"

"You two are doing a great job," Will said as he walked behind them, "We're getting every so closer to the ultimate goal."

They walked through the bitter cold, carrying Alvin's lost pants and a purse. They weren't at a loss for weird looks. People would stop walking and stare for a while as the three odd men walked around with a purse.

"How close are we, Simon?" Alvin said, he was getting extremely bored.

"We're about five minutes out of the neighborhood, but we'll probably get there faster than estimated." It was bitterly cold that day, not a good day to be walking around the campus.

"After this, we should stop and get lunch, it's probably about noon now and I still haven't eaten."

Will agreed and Simon nodded in apathy. They walked in silence for a while after that, nobody really had anything to say at that point. They approached the house and knocked on the door. Someone came and opened the door.

"Can I help you guys?"

Alvin stepped forward, "Hey, uh, well we were at the party here last night and we're looking for two sets of clothes."

"I don't know about that, but you guys were the buyers, weren't you?"

Simon looked surprised, "Buyers of what?"

"Follow me," he took them around back of the house. They went to the garage and it was bare outside from an old car.

"You guys bought the Daewoo Lanos! Obviously you were too drunk to drive so you said you would come back today to grab it," he threw them the keys, "Enjoy, I never thought I would be able to get rid of it. It runs fine; it just has a problem with the fan belt some times."

Simon pulled Alvin aside and will was laughing, "We bought a car Alvin? With what money?"

"I'm not sure; we probably just dipped into our savings. We still have a good amount of money from record sales and touring. Think of it this way, we did really need a car."

Simon looked at him sternly, "We didn't need a Daewoo Lanos!" he looked at it closely, "Well, it doesn't seem to be in terrible shape."

"Exactly, look on the bright side of things. We now have a car to get into Philly and we have a car for whatever we want! It works out well."

Alvin took the keys from Simon and Will grabbed shotgun, "So we don't have any leads on the clothes besides the possibility of finding them at the bars, but that seems to be completely illogical," Simon said as they started to drive away. He got a phone call, "Hello?"

"Hey Simon, it's Theo."

"Hey Theodore, what's going on?"

"I found our clothes at our apartment, I'm not sure how we got back to your apartment but everything was here. Eleanor also found a lead on the owner of the purse. She told me to tell you to give her a cal land she would relay the information to you."

"Thanks Theodore, I'll see you later," Simon hung up and started to call Eleanor.

Alvin looked at him in the rear view mirror, "Who was that?"

"That was Theodore and he found their clothes, now I'm calling Eleanor who has a lead on the owner of our mystery purse."

"Then there's no need to go to the bars," Alvin turned the car around and they started heading into campus. Eleanor picked up her phone.

"Hey Simon, I'm assuming Theodore got a hold of you?"

"You assumed correctly. What do you have to tell me?"

"Well, one of the girls in my English 217 class responded to my status with a description similar to the purse you have."

"Fantastic, where is she at?"

"She said she's at the Union on the third floor waiting for you guys."

"Alright, tell her we're leaving and heading towards her position," he hung up the phone and looked up to Alvin, "Alvin, we need to go to the Union. On the third floor, a girl is waiting for us for her purse."

"Cool, I'll turn around," they headed turned around and headed to the interior of the campus. The Union was a short drive away, "We can finally finish this."

They parked at the Union's front gate and they all ran in. Will lagged behind and allowed them to get far away from him. Simon and Alvin ran up three flights of stairs and got to the common room on the third floor. Simon called Eleanor.

"Eleanor, what was the girl's name?"

"It's Meghan, she's blonde and average height."

"Thanks Eleanor, I think I see her now."

They ran over to a young woman sitting at on a couch reading a book, "Meghan?" Simon asked her.

"Simon? Do you have my purse?"

He handed it to her, "I believe so."

She stood up and hugged him, "Thank you so much! I was freaking out when I only had my wallet and no purse."

Alvin looked at her, "If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did we meet you?"

"Oh well, you guys came to McLarren's with another guy and we all started taking shots together. I asked you to hold my purse Simon when we went to another bar, but I got a call from one of my friends and left without it. Do you two not remember?"

"Not a thing," Simon said.

She looked around them and asked, "Where's the other guy that was with you? I think his name was Will."

They turned around; he wasn't in sight.

Simon took off his glasses and cleaned them, "Where did he go?"

"I guess he took off," Meghan started to walk away.

"Well thanks you two, I really appreciate it.

Simon and Alvin discussed for the rest of the walk back to their car where the mysterious man had disappeared to. Many theories surfaced but they were both just happy to be rid of him. They got to the Daewoo and found a note under the windshield wiper.

Simon picked it up, "It is from Will," he proceeded to read it.

Alvin and Simon, I'm very proud of you two, you both didn't need my help as you both deciphered the clues and tracked everything down. I hope you've both learned something, and won't drink as much next time. Will. P.S. I took some money from your house for my services.

"He's gone," Simon said, "Who the hell was he?"

"I don't really care at this point, I'm just mad he took some of our money."