The Homeless Millionaire

I really did work very hard for the next couple of days. I got up early and was clean, fed, and stoned by ten o'clock every morning. I would then sit and stare at a blank sheet of paper and shapes actually began to appear again.

But I still couldn't draw anything properly. I couldn't even trace anything properly. And it wasn't through lack of training. By the middle of the second day, my hand was as supple and strong as it had ever been. I could go on for at least half an hour before it started to ache. My eye was in top shape, too. I would look at something and instantly have a very clear and precise picture of it in my mind.

This was vital, because anything ever drawn or painted or sculpted was always done from the picture the artist had in his mind, not directly from the subject being drawn or painted or sculpted or written or even filmed - this rule applied right across the board. A film director had to set up a scene and coach the actors according to how that scene played out in his imagination. Even something as simple as a landscape shot without a single actor or stage prop still required the director to set up the camera and choose the point of view. And choosing a point of view required imagining what everything would look like if viewed from here or there or maybe over there.

I suspected it would actually be much more complicated, making a film, because making a film involved tons of other people, starting with the director of photography and ending with the executive producers constantly counting money and looking for ways to spend less and make more and imposing their will on people actually making the movie. And then there were all those fucking actors. In my opinion, actors were people with a personality disorder and a pathological need for attention and admiration. Working with people like that had to be hell.

A film director had to reconcile the private visions of all these people and incorporate them into his own vision. I was really lucky not to have anyone standing over me and telling me what to do. But on the second afternoon of my great artistic effort, I had the thought I'd actually appreciate having someone like that. It would be nice if someone told me what to do, because I wasn't getting anywhere by myself.

Everything I drew was shit. I had progressed to the point where almost every line was exactly right, but the combination still looked like shit. I couldn't understand why. I stared at each completed drawing and everything had been done the way it should have been, but the picture I'd drawn still was shit. It just wasn't true. It was like the visual equivalent of the spiel used by a car salesman trying to sell a junk car to someone naive.

I had been very careful about socializing with Johnnie Walker until then. I had a small whisky from time to time when I felt my hand was getting stiff. But on the afternoon of the second day, I felt myself slipping into what's popularly known as the pit of despair. It was three o'clock on a rainy afternoon and getting dark and my latest creation leered at me from my sketchpad the way an aged whore leers at a horny schoolboy. My big artistic push was beginning to resemble my second experience with a prostitute, the one that put me off sex for a long time.

It was Wednesday, nearly three days gone by and I hadn't even attempted to draw the portrait of Fiona's father. It really didn't make any sense to make an attempt when I couldn't get a fucking apple right. I'd drawn and painted apples hundreds of times, and sold an apple picture to Fiona and she'd raved about it. And now I couldn't draw a single fucking apple sitting right in front of me on the table.

So I tore up my latest apple effort and trashed the pieces, which involved getting a fresh garbage bag - I'd been producing lots of garbage lately. Then I called in Johnnie Walker for an urgent consultation. He suggested a change of environment, and a bit of socializing. I sipped scotch and smoked a joint by the open window, and considered my options.

The Noyces were still very ill. I'd run into Dave again on one of my bathroom forays and he informed me the doctor expected all of them to stay in bed at least until the end of the week. I felt compelled to ask him whether I could help, maybe by getting something from the store. He'd waved a weak hand and said:

"We're fine, we really don't need anything. We've got plenty of food, enough to last us till Christmas at the present consumption rate. When I think about eating anything, I want to throw up. It's a real effort, eating. Don't worry about us, worry about not getting infected with this shit. It's fucking deadly."

He had delivered this little speech from behind a hand cupped over his mouth, standing well away from me. I put extra effort into brushing my teeth that morning. I even stole some of the Noyces' Listerine, and gargled for as long as I could without choking.

Yes, the Noyces definitely were out as candidates for social interaction. I really regretted not having a phone of my own. Birgit had told me I was free to use theirs for local calls and long-distance calls made collect, but what I wanted was one of those long heart-to-heart conversations and I needed a private phone for that. And anyway I didn't fancy using a receiver that had been coughed at and spat upon by the sick Noyces. I had heard them talking on the phone a number of times, with frequent coughing fits.

Naturally, I could go to the Park Pub or some other bar. That's what people often do when they feel lonely, and need to socialize. But it was a dark, rainy Wednesday evening. I'd have to walk there and then go outside whenever I wanted to smoke a joint, as I was sure to - my pot consumption had risen to a joint every couple of hours.

Suddenly, my paranoid pal spoke up. He surprised me because he hadn't said a thing those past few days. He'd been hovering in the background with a gentle smile. Whenever I looked at him, he looked away.

My paranoid pal said: what about me? I am your closest friend. No one understands you like I do. Couldn't we have a talk like we used to, in the good old days?

Sure, I said. Just let me freshen our drink. My aim was bad and I splashed some scotch on the table. I looked at it, hesitating between sucking it up and wiping it clean. My paranoid pal said: what about watercolor? Why don't you try painting?

So that's what I did. Remembering Robinson's advice, I put utmost care into the preparations. I needed to cover the table with newspaper sheets and assemble the tools: a dozen tubes of paint, a palette, three brushes of differing thickness and softness, two containers of clean water. I also put the pillow from my bed on the seat of my chair. I needed a higher seat for painting than for drawing. Color meant I needed a wide-angled view of what I was doing, to make sure everything worked together.

I thought about what to paint and almost immediately decided I'd paint Fiona's father. I hadn't tried that yet and I hadn't painted in a while: this was my chance to fuck up on a monumental scale. I propped up his photographs using a couple of books and my mug and poured myself an extra big drink. Then I just dived into it, got going right away without any planning.

I was so bad it made me giggle instead of weeping - I was already somewhat drunk. I wasted two sheets just getting the colors right. The process felt good, maybe because I was taking hits of scotch and smoke every ten seconds.

I began the third, serious attempt by outlining the shape of his head and neck and shoulders with water. The ghostly outline created by the wet, soft brush would evaporate and disappear within a few minutes, but that was okay. It was meant to help me determine proportions and placement - what went where, and how large it should be. His face was tricky because he had this plumpness around the jaw, the softness that indicated a well-fed, prosperous life. If I made it part of his face, he would appear soft, and he definitely wasn't that. If I tried to merge it into his neck, it would make his jaw too slender and his neck too solid. I was fucked both ways, but I just had another drink and stopped caring about that.

I began to paint and kept on painting for the next hour, taking frequent short breaks for more scotch and smoke. I had to change the water in the containers several times; I dumped the contents into my piss bottle and refilled them from the kettle. My piss took on interesting hue: a greenish brown suggesting severe kidney malfunction and a rotting liver. I was pretty drunk and stoned by then and got plenty of entertainment out of that.

The portrait wasn't turning out badly, all things considered. I made a particularly good job of his hair, giving him the hairstyle he had in the Christmas table photograph. His hair there was longer than in the boardroom portrait and it wasn't being tousled by the breeze the way it was in the picture with the fish. I was putting the finishing touches on his eyes and touched the paper with the tip of my brush just a little too hard and fucked up the pupil - or so I thought, at first.

I swore and took a closer look and then another from a distance. I had made an error, without any doubt, but suddenly everything about Fiona's father clicked into place. He was a charismatic, hard, and ruthless man - true. He had a good sense of humor and was warm-hearted - that came through, too. But there was also something new. His eyes hid great pain, an enormous hurt he'd suffered in the past. And his entire face was like a map of all the battles he'd fought to get over that hurt and get on with his life. Everything clicked into place. It was the best portrait I'd ever done. The plump jaw didn't matter any more. It wasn't fat, it was scar tissue.

I looked at the photos and saw the hurt was there, too - I could see it now that I knew how to look. It was present even when he was grinning, holding the big fish he'd caught; it was even present in the boardroom picture, it was the force behind that strong, determined look. It was most evident in the Christmas picture, where the mouth confirmed what the eyes were hinting at. The shape of his lips suggested he could be discussing a bygone Christmas when someone close was still around.

There was nothing more for me to do except sleep on all that, and take another look the next day. I cleared the table, and embarked on a bathroom run to fill the kettle and empty my piss bottle. Birgit emerged from the bedroom just as I was about to reach for the bathroom door.

"Michael," she croaked. I let my hand drop; my piss bottle was in plain view, but I wasn't worried about that.

Birgit looked like one of those witches in TV sagas, starring in an episode where the director let the makeup artists run wild. The colors present on her face ranged from purple to deathly white, with greenish shades of grey richly represented. She had eyes like a veteran homeless wino. She was wearing a robe over her pyjamas that had been fluffy and white when new, and her feet were encased in slippers rimmed with fur that looked very comfy. Her expression suggested they were about as comfortable as Spanish boots.

"Hello, Birgit," I said. I very nearly asked if she was okay, the standard retarded question when someone's obviously unwell.

"Are you planning to go out tomorrow?" she asked, looking at the piss bottle in my hand.

"Yes," I said. "Can I get you anything?"

"Yes, we could use your help. I talked to the doctor today and he wants us to try something we don't have at home and there are a few other things as well... Do you mind?"

"Absolutely not," I said. "Glad to help."

"Thank you." She was still staring at my piss bottle, eyebrows knotted.

"What's in this bottle?" she asked.

"Dirty water. I've been painting with watercolors," I explained.

"Oh. So that's what has been keeping you busy... That's great. I'll leave a list for you on the hallway table. I'll make sure not to even breathe on it when I'm writing it out."

"I think I'll be going around noon."

"I'll make sure it's there."

I wished her a swift return to health and did my thing in the bathroom and returned to my room. The little witches began talking about something. They had uttered next to no sound over the past couple of days, so I really didn't have any cause for complaint.

I ate a dinner of cold baked beans and sausage and bread and drank a couple of mugs of that shit-awful tea and smoked a number of cigarettes sipping scotch and admiring my painting. It still looked very good. I wanted to have my paranoid pal's opinion, but he'd disappeared. He tended to do that when I'd drunk a lot of booze and smoked a lot of pot, and managed to get something done in spite or maybe because of that.

"I'll show you yet," I said out loud, in case he was hidden somewhere but listening.

Downstairs, Dave started coughing.