The Homeless Millionaire

The next morning was so quiet it was unbelievable. I stayed in bed for almost a full hour after waking up, basking in the silence. The Noyce gang were busy wreaking terror in Barbados and it was a Sunday and Christmas Eve and I heard maybe three vehicles passing on the street while I was lying in bed.

I smoked a joint with my coffee before doing my bathroom thing just to make things more interesting: doing the same thing over and over again became depressing. The pot made my bathroom session more interesting, all right, but not in the way I wanted it to. Instead of going into mystic raptures over the foam forming on my toothbrush I had a punch-up with my paranoid pal. He told me this was the calm before the storm and I had no counterarguments, because how the fuck was I supposed to argue about something that hadn't happened yet?

I was also taken aback by my pal's new strategy. Previously, he'd haunted me when I was straight and sober: sometimes, a simple cigarette shut him up. Lots of smoke and lots of booze were guaranteed to put him in a happy mood. Now it was the other way around: he was mostly silent when I was as straight as an arrow, and attacked as soon as I'd had a toke or a drink. It made getting stoned and drunk less pleasant and I was really bothered by this development.

Of course I told myself it was all for my own good, but that's the desperate argument that always gets brought up whenever things get truly awful. I seriously considered going completely straight at least until New Year's Eve - I mean, not getting hammered on New Year's Eve amounted to a sacrilege - everyone got smashed to welcome the New Year. Staying sober on New Year's Eve would be like defying Mr Chance to give me a really bad run.

My paranoid pal was grinning from ear to ear as I ate breakfast and didn't stop even when I heroically restrained myself from reaching for one of my numerous, attractive bottles. Something bad was coming my way, yet again. I tried to draw something, and it was so bad it made me depressed. I walked around my room for a while smoking and looking at my bottles and thinking how nice it would be to wipe myself out, just drown in alcohol and disinfect my brain.

Eventually I decided I'd do something constructive for a a change, and got dressed and went to mail the Christmas cards. It wasn't snowing or raining and I'd told myself a little physical activity would do me good, and I intended to walk all the way to the nearest post office. It wasn't near at all, it was the same post office where I'd mailed Robinson & Klein's registered letters and it was at least a mile and a half away. I told myself I've give myself a reward, and get a couple of hot dogs if the hot dog guy was there.

I didn't find out whether he was there or not. I passed a convenience store along the way and went in and bought a bunch of stamps and mailed all the cards from the Canada Post box on the corner right outside the store. I was hungry again by then and I decided I'd go to the Park Pub for a pint and a bite. Then I'd go to walk in the park and try to work out why the fuck I couldn't draw any of the park scenes the other day.

On my way to the pub I also decided I'd call Roch and maybe even my parents - if I were to call my parents, I'd be fully justified in having an extra pint before I called. It was good motivation. I entered the pub composing various opening speeches in my mind and so I failed to notice G. Papadopoulos until after I'd collected my pint, and was looking around for a table to sit down.

He was alone at his table, and there were no tables free: Christmas Eve was boozing time at the Park Pub. I could have stayed at the bar counter, but that free chair at G. Papadopoulos's table was an invitation I couldn't ignore. He always popped up in my life for a reason. I'd been led to him by the number of his office and when I ran into him in the park he gave me the number for Jane Moore and overall, he'd been a good guy to me. So I went over to his table, and asked if he'd mind if I joined him and after initial surprise he agreed, a little grudgingly.

I sat down and offered him a cigarette, which he took. He was drinking beer, his glass was half full and I decided I'd catch up with him and then offer to buy a round. We went through the standard Q&A: I asked how he was and he said he was fine and asked how I was and I said I was fine. A short silence ensued, and he felt obliged to break it because he was smoking one of my cigarettes and felt the need to make nice. He said:

"You wanted contact with that chick, what the fuck was her name. The chick that rented the office before me. I gave you her phone number, right? You talk to her?"

He was pretty drunk. He'd probably come inside the pub because the bottle he'd taken for a walk had died. I said:

"That's right. It turned out to be a misunderstanding. I thought she was someone else, and she thought I was someone else. She told me she'd kill me if I called again."

He giggled.

"Did you call again?" he asked.

"No."

"I would, just out of curiosity what she'd say next," he said. "People tell me they're going to kill me all the time. I hear it at least twice a day. People are so full of shit."

"I fully agree with that," I said.

He practically bloomed when he heard that. He said:

"Let me tell you a story. An authentic story. A cross-my-heart kind of story. You know I work in uh, it's called the entertainment business."

"Yes, I kinda gathered that," I said.

"So Friday, I was interviewing a bunch of nice-looking girls. Really nice-looking girls."

"Sounds good," I said.

"The problem was, they'd formed a band. A girls band. And they looked great. They all looked great. They had great moves. I'd have had no problem at all hiring them out as the best team of peelers ever on the West coast. But - "

"Peelers?"

"Strippers. Women who take their clothes off while they dance. Ever seen any?"

"I think I have," I said.

"Good. So those girls, they look great and they move great but the tape they gave me sounds like shit. There's no way I'll try to get them booked to play anyplace, I'd just lose a client. I tried to be nice about it. I said that maybe they need to practice a little more, or get a new sound engineer. That's a nice way of telling someone to get lost. They knew that, and they got angry. Know what they said? They said I was a sexist male chauvinist pig. They threatened to sue me. Sue me! I haven't even signed them, and they want to sue me!"

"What did you do?"

"I told them I would love a chance to make some money on them, but that I can't see that happening. I told them new bands were dime a dozen, there was a new band forming practically every day of the week. I told them to get a singing coach and practice a lot and see me again in a year. You know what they did? They sued me!"

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. I got a call from a lawyer before the end of the day. I told him to go fuck himself. I get calls like that every week. I get all those guys and girls begging to give them a chance and when they hear they won't get one because they're no good they want to kill me. As if it was my fault they can't sing or play an instrument. I'll give you a bit of advice, pal. Whatever you do, steer clear of show business."

I could tell G. Papadopoulos was really drunk. I could also tell he had no friends left. Why else would he talk to me? I said:

"How about I buy us a round?"

"No," said G. Papadopoulos. "I have to get home. I have to walk my dog."

And he got up and left almost instantly, before I could ask if his dog's name was Johnnie or Jim or Jack or something like that.

I got myself another pint and went to the phone and called Harry's mother house. No one answered. It was depressing. So I went all the way and called my parents and no one answered there, either. No one wanted to talk to me, and I didn't even attempt to call Roch.

I finished my pint and found I wasn't hungry and went for a walk in the park before it got dark. I had no idea why I'd felt so inspired there the other day. The first thing I saw upon entering the park was a dog turd and I saw several more before I'd walked a hundred steps. I smoked a couple of cigarettes among the naked trees and rotting leaves and tried to locate the views that I'd found so captivating on my previous visit. I found a couple and they were boring as hell and I really couldn't understand why I'd found them to be so interesting, earlier.

It was getting dark and I went home and somehow it wasn't as much fun as when the Noyces were there, and I had to do all this commando stuff to get back into my room without being intercepted. I undressed and lit a cigarette and picked up a pencil and tried to draw G. Papadopoulos. I couldn't. I couldn't draw shit. I tried drawing a fucking apple, and it resembled a pear. Whatever talent I had was taking a holiday somewhere in Argentina.

I tried to read one of the paperback bestsellers I'd bought the other day. The cover copy said it was full of penetrating insights. The only penetrating I found was when the hero was fucking the heroine. They were both married to other people and planned to kill them, as if they couldn't get a standard divorce. They succeeded after about two hundred pages of doubts and moral crises that I skipped over, and ended up escaping to Spain on a plane that crashed midway in the Atlantic. That scene concluded with the hero seeing the corpse of his beloved floating on the waves and deciding that this was the way to go, for himself.

His plans to become a love martyr were rudely interrupted by a ship that picked him up. After he'd slept and eaten, he began looking for a razor blade to slash his wrists and I found myself hoping he'd find one quickly. But onboard that ship was the daughter of the guy that owned the shipping line. They fell in love and she was beautiful and rich and had recently lost her handsome husband in a car racing accident. They were planning to get married when the story ended, in another glorious triumph of hope over experience.

I really regretted dropping a buck and a half on that paperback. I had been lured by the jacket. It featured an illustration that was a collage of images - the guy and both of the girls, the plane crashing into the waves, and so on - and whoever drew them was a really talented guy. He seemed to be much more talented than me and he was illustrating shit.

I told myself that people loved my work, and that I had a show of my own coming at the Space gallery. But my pal told me it was all tinsel wrapping. I had just boarded a plane and was flying first class but that plane would crash into the sea sooner or later.

"Then I might as well have a drink," I told him.

He didn't answer.