The Homeless Millionaire

I awoke the next day to a new reality.

It was the same bed, same room, and it was raining outside as usual. The house was very quiet and that was unusual, because normally there would be all those sounds produced by the Noyce gang preparing to leave.

I checked the time: just after eight o'clock. I had slept for nearly nine hours and really didn't feel like remaining in bed any longer. Robinson had asked me to come in at noon that Saturday, and I had plenty of time. I drank a couple of coffees and smoked three cigarettes and went on my morning bathroom run, clutching my pissbottle.

This time, I was ambushed by Dave. He popped out of his and Birgit's bedroom looking disheveled just as I was creeping across the landing towards the bathroom door. Hiding my pissbottle behind my back, I said:

"Good morning, Dave. Is something wrong?"

"Yes," he croaked. "We've all got flu. Myself, Birgit, both kids. It's very infectious, so I thought I'd warn you."

"Thank you," I said. He didn't move, and neither did I. Moving would have meant bringing my pissbottle into view. So we stared at each other for a while and he gave me a weak smile and a sort of half-wave and finally fucked off back into his bedroom.

I did my morning routine and I swear it felt like preparing for a funeral. I had come to really like working at Robinson & Klein, if one could call what I did there work. It had stopped raining and I left the house early and walked to the office, my throat tight.

I got there around half past eleven and had a small shock, because the door was locked. It appeared Robinson hadn't come in yet. I had no doubt he'd be there at noon, but that still left me with half an hour to kill.

It was a moist morning and the cold seeped through my clothes and there was no way I'd spend half an hour waiting outside the office. So I went to a convenience store and bought a pack of cigarettes and spent a few minutes perusing the magazine rack. I bought the day's paper and returned to the magazine rack and leafed through magazines until the guy behind the counter began throwing me hostile glances.

I walked back to the office as slowly as I could, but I still got there at ten to twelve. Happily, Robinson was there.

He greeted me with a sad smile, and said:

"Early again, my boy? You must like this place."

"I do," I said with great sincerity.

"So do I, so do I. It's such a shame. But there is really no way I could run it by myself, and I'm too old to start looking for a new partner. Let's get down to business old boy, the sooner we sort out everything, the better. I've already drafted a reference letter for you. Would you care to read it, suggest changes as you see fit, and type it up?"

It was a very nice letter—too nice, in fact, and the only changes I would have liked to make would be to my detriment. Robinson extolled my virtues so enthusiastically that a prospective employer could feel intimidated by the superman he was about to hire, and ashamed at the salary he could offer.

However, I couldn't bring myself to ask Robinson if he could tone things down a little. I was sure he'd feel hurt, and he was feeling hurt already, and so was I, and so in the end I just thanked old Robinson profusely and typed the letter the way it was and gave it to Robinson to read and sign.

I asked him if I could put the letter in one of the Robinson & Klein envelopes and his voice broke when he told me to help myself to the stationery, take as much as I wanted. Then he got out the big corporate chequebook, and hesitated for a while before beginning to write. When he'd finished, he said:

"Come here, my boy." He held out the cheque as I approached his desk and I made a mistake: I took it and folded it and slipped it into my breast pocket without looking at it first.

"Thank you," I said. An uncomfortable silence ensued, and I felt compelled to break it.

"What will you be doing now?" I asked. Robinson steepled his hands under his chin and pursed his lips.

"That's a very good question," he said. "I seem to have all these options, and none of them are particularly appealing."

"Maybe you could go on that train trip across the country."

"Yes, I suppose I could. But you know, old boy, somehow it doesn't seem like something I would enjoy at present. I'll definitely keep it in mind though, and who knows... Never mind me. What about you? What are you going to do?"

"I feel the way you do," I told him. "Nothing seems appealing. I expect I'll start looking for a job. I know this isn't the best time of the year, but I might as well get started."

"Hmm. What about your painting? Aren't you going to give that a go?"

"I will, I will. But I still have to pay the rent, and so on."

"Hmm. I hope you won't think it's presumptuous of me, but I would suggest putting off your job search and giving your artist's career a proper push. You have a bit of money to tide you over, and you've just had a successful show. Strike the iron while it's hot, my boy. Success is all about the right timing, you know."

"I agree. But I'm not sure I can pull it off."

"Why?"

I hesitated before answering. Why, indeed? My paranoid pal giggled. It was the first sound he'd made that day. I said:

"I've never tried to paint and draw on a sort of a full-time basis. It was always well, now I'll do this and maybe next week I'll do that, and maybe next month I'll start working on this big idea I've been playing with the past few weeks. Doing it day after day is intimidating."

"Isn't it what you want to do, though? Paint, and draw?"

"Yes."

"Well then."

He glanced at his watch, and said:

"You know something, let's close up and go have lunch. My treat. If I sit around here much longer I shall start to cry. Or have you already made plans?"

I assured Robinson that I hadn't made any plans for the afternoon. So we both left the office around one o'clock, and I got a ride in Robinson's Rolls-Royce. It was quite old and not as comfortable as modern saloons, but the looks it drew were priceless. I felt like a royalty riding in that car. Most likely Robinson did too, and this was why he'd kept it. The car's age added to its glamour.

He took me to a pricey little restaurant with at most a dozen tables in the dining room. Almost all were free; Robinson informed me that most of the patrons came there during the working week.

"They go elsewhere on weekends," he said. "Many go out of town. I expect I'll be doing that too, now. What shall we have to drink?"

I went for a plebeian pint of Toby (they had it on tap), and Robinson treated himself to a gin and tonic. I followed his lead with the food: we had anchovies on toast followed by filet of sole with fries and green salad. Robinson insisted on getting a bottle of Riesling to go with that.

He told me a few stories from his time at sea during the war. In turn, I told him about my nomadic early life: moving to a new city and a new country every couple of years.

"That's cruel for a child," he commented. "Learning your way around and making a few friends and being forced to leave. Mind you, it's very good training. Yes, very good training indeed for the future."

I must have looked unconvinced, because he added:

"I mean, look at you now. You've come here from Toronto and within a couple of months you've landed a show at a gallery and a job and generally settled in swiftly and successfully."

"I had a bit of luck there," I admitted.

"Luck favours those that deserve it, my boy. Luck isn't really luck. It's a natural outcome, a combination of preparation and opportunity. No preparation means one misses the opportunity."

I was respectfully silent. He sighed, and said:

"Oh God, I'm beginning to go into my lecturing mode, as my niece likes to put it."

"You have family living in Vancouver?"

"Yes. I wish I didn't, quite frankly. Oh my. I shouldn't say things like that."

We left soon afterwards, and Robinson insisted on driving me home. He parked across the street from the house and I saw a face flash in a front window and knew my arrival in a Rolls–Royce had been duly noted. Time would show whether this was good or bad.

"Take good care of yourself, my boy," Robinson said as I was getting out. "No one else is going to do it for you, believe me."

I stood on the pavement waving as he drove away and he opened his window and stuck out a hand and waved back.

I didn't really feel like going home; the beer and wine and the brandy with the post-meal coffee had made me want more. But I'd been spending a lot of money since the show, and I had no job. So I went inside, and quickly made my way upstairs.

I undressed in my room thinking how nice it would be to be sitting in a pub instead. I finally took the folded cheque from the inside breast pocket of my jacket and unfolded it and looked at it.

Robinson had written out the cheque for twelve hundred dollars, far more than what I'd have earned working till the end of December. It made me blush with embarrassment; I really hadn't thanked him enough for that.

After a while, I got dressed and went to the Park Pub and proceeded to get obliterated. A couple of people tried to engage me in conversation, and one of these people was a nice young female who asked me for a light when I was ordering another beer at the bar counter. She followed this up by asking why I was looking so glum.

"It's a birth defect," I told her. I escaped back to my corner. The pub was pretty full, it being a Saturday, and there were many glances cast at the empty chair at my little corner table. I ignored them.

I stayed there until closing time and found out I had to focus hard to walk in a straight line. Getting to my room noiselessly was very difficult; it involved frequent pauses while ascending the staircase. The Noyces were all in bed, prostrated by the flu. Everyone seemed to be asleep.

When I was finally safe and secure I rolled a joint and didn't even finish smoking it before blacking out under a blanket.