The Homeless Millionaire

I woke up before dawn yet again on Monday morning: I'd gone to bed very early. I was feeling wonderfully rested, and full of energy, I was ready to move mountains. The difference a single day could make was just amazing.

I jumped out of bed, and got the coffee going. While waiting for it to brew, I marveled inwardly at the great way I felt - it was magic! Then I happened to glance at the Johnnie Walker. The bottle was almost full. There was no magic involved in my sparkling health. It was caused by abstinence: the previous day had been the first day, in quite a while, on which I didn't drink any alcohol.

This realization instantly spoiled my mood. I liked booze a lot, and enjoyed getting drunk. But I liked feeling well a lot, too. By the time I was on my second coffee I worked out a compromise: I'd drink no more than twice a week, preferably once. Once a week was an absolute necessity to wash out all the bad shit that inevitably accumulated with time.

The Noyces started coming to life just after seven and I was reminded that I wanted to borrow their vacuum cleaner. I ate a traditional breakfast - bread, corned beef, and an apple - while listening to them move around. It sounded things were back to normal in the Noyce household: I heard Birgit chiding the little witches for tardiness in getting ready for school.

I decided I'd ask about the vacuum cleaner while they were eating breakfast. They wouldn't want to start a conversation with their mouths full of scrambled eggs. My pal woke up at that, and informed me that my fear of engaging socially with the Noyces went beyond being neurotic - this was serious mental illness, something that ought to be treated.

I waited until all the activity moved to the ground floor, then gave it another five minutes and left my room. Dave gave me a shock by opening his bedroom door just as I was turning on the landing.

He didn't look sick, but he didn't look good either. He was pale, and there were shadows under his eyes. He wasn't wearing a dressing gown, and his striped pyjamas evoked German concentration camps.

"Hi, Dave," I said. "Still got the flu?"

"No," he croaked. "Just stuffed up. Kept me awake all night."

"I'm sorry."

"Did you want to use the bathroom?"

"No, go ahead. By the way, could I borrow your vacuum cleaner? I mean I've been using the broom and the dustpan you've kindly provided, but it doesn't really do the trick"

"Of course. It's in the closet under the stairs, next to the can. Now please excuse me."

He went into the bathroom, and I went back upstairs. It seemed Dave wasn't going to work that morning. Well, he could probably afford to take an extra day off. He was working at the town hall, a place where people had their thumbs up their asses most of the time. Working for the government and working for a private company were two different stories. Private corporations were about maximizing profit. Governments were about winning the next election. A government that put too much pressure on its servants was a bad government, due for a change.

I drank coffee and smoked until Birgit shepherded her little flock out of the house. I heard Dave return to his bedroom and thought he'd probably try to get some sleep, and would find it difficult if I was fucking around with the vacuum cleaner. I decided to postpone that until the afternoon. It wasn't raining, and I had the idea that I'd go for a walk and maybe see something that would inspire me to paint a picture. And I could go round to that Greek place with great souvlaki for lunch, they didn't serve booze so I wouldn't be tempted.

I got dressed and went out and automatically turned to go to the park and realized that wasn't a good idea. The Park Pub was called the Park Pub for a reason. I didn't want to spend my time in the park hankering after a pint of Toby. So I turned around and walked towards East Hastings and turned into the second side street I came across because I didn't want to walk past the Robinson & Klein office. I had been reminded of my time there while eating my classic breakfast, and it had nearly brought a tear to my eye.

After walking a block west I turned south again and then went along East Hastings to the store with art supplies. I bought two boxes of charcoal sticks and a couple of H3 pencils and a new sketchpad. They gave me plastic bag big enough to accommodate the sketch pad. The bag was white and displayed the store's name in fire-engine red followed by the words Art Supplies in a flowing script. I felt like a wanker carrying that bag, it drew a couple of glances from people I passed on the street and I ended up carrying it under my arm to obscure the text.

My paranoid pal was delighted, and got busy taking notes. I really regretted making that purchase, it put paid to any pleasurable walking and I decided to go that Greek place and eat and then go home and put those fucking art supplies to good use.

I didn't remember where the restaurant was exactly and spent nearly an hour locating it, thus getting a proper walk after all. It was closed. A sheet of paper taped inside the glass door informed me it was due to illness. I got out a cigarette and cursed Mr Chance for a while, smoking and trying to think of another place to eat; all that walking had made me really hungry in the meantime. I even felt a little weak and got a little alarmed about that but my cigarette helped me chill out, and realize this was a natural consequence of cutting out booze. I was getting something like a thousand calories less a day, about half of what I needed.

I definitely didn't want to get even more skinny. I ended up going back to East Hastings, and found a nice steak place. They were licensed to serve booze and I drank three coffees and smoked three cigarettes while they prepared my food.

I'd ordered the biggest steak they had with a mound of fries and washed it down with a Coke. It made me so full I staggered when getting up from the table, just as if I'd had a few. I stopped at the payphone by the entrance and called Harry to confirm our breakfast the next day, prior to visiting Detective Moore at the police station.

I was lucky: I caught Harry just as he was preparing to walk out of the door. He was in a hurry and we hung up after less than half a minute. I thought about calling Roch and then picked up my bag and hoofed it home, stopping at a convenience store for bread and coffee and cigarettes and half a dozen other items I didn't really need. I always ended up buying more than I needed when I had plenty of money in my wallet, and I made a mental note to put most of it in the night table drawer, leaving no more than twenty bucks. That was more than enough to last me for a couple of days.

I got the newspaper too, I still had the Sunday paper at home and I thought I'd go through the rental ads in both and maybe find a new place to live. I was really sick of living with the Noyces, I was prepared to move anywhere and even buy my own vacuum cleaner just so I could be on my own.

I got home around two and was relieved to find Dave awake, and moodily sipping tea in the kitchen: I was free to go wild with the vacuum cleaner. I engaged Dave in a short conversation to make doubly sure, and had the impression he was putting on an act and pretending to be more miserable than he really was. He probably had had a good time, being alone in the house for the first time in an eternity. I should have stayed out a little longer.

While I was vacuuming my room, I tried to calculate how much of Dave's time was spent acting and pretending to feel things he didn't actually feel. Basically, all time spent in the company of other people involved a pretense of some kind. People couldn't be honest with each other all the time: if they did that, the streets would flow with blood. And then there were all those lies they had to tell to themselves in order to stay sane. Alcohol! That was the answer.

As if on cue, I discovered I had three bottles of Toby hidden in my cupboard. They were left over from the seven I'd carried out of the Park Pub after my last session there. I'd forgotten all about them! It just wasn't possible to come across a better excuse to have a drink.

But I gritted my teeth and carried on with the vacuum cleaner and when I was done I took it downstairs feeling so virtuous it almost made me dizzy.

Dave had shifted camp to the big room: the TV was on. An announcer was babbling about something and I caught the word 'Vietnam'. Then he shut up and there were gunshots and explosions and I wondered how many people actually got killed while they were filming that stuff. There definitely had been a few, from the sounds of it.

I finished putting the vacuum cleaner away and on an impulse, I knocked on the door and stuck my head inside the room and said:

"Dave, is that a newsflash from Vietnam? Have they started up again?"

I could see he was uncomfortable, getting caught with a big glass of scotch in his paw. It didn't fit his role. He was supposed to be suffering so badly he couldn't leave the house. He said:

"No, they're playing a clip from the battle for Da Nang. They think the commies are using the ceasefire to prepare another Tet offensive, or maybe even two or three. Hell, they've won this war. A bunch of commie peasants in black pyjamas defeated the mighty US of A."

"It's not over yet," I said. Dave waved a weary, dismissive hand.

"It is," he said. "What people don't get is that the guys ruling the Republic of South Vietnam are even worse than the communists in the north. They're all crooks and they'd have been out a long time ago if it wasn't for the Americans. This fucking war has been going on for longer than World War Two. It's gotta end soon."

It was clear he also meant my visit. I thanked him profusely for letting me use the vacuum cleaner, and went back to my room.

The first thing I did upon returning was to take out my wallet and take out all the banknotes to count out twenty dollars and hide the rest in the night table drawer. I came across the piece of paper with the phone number belonging to Jane of the talented lips. I wasn't going to call her, not after I'd seen her in the pub with her guy. But I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. It just seemed the wrong thing to do, and I knew why. It was because her number started with 4-3-1.

It was beyond stupid. I put Jane's number at the very back of the night table drawer: maybe it would disappear forever in a hidden crevice.

Then I made myself a coffee, and sat down to look through the rental ads.