The Homeless Millionaire

The next day, I was woken up by the telephone. It rang and rang and stopped and then started ringing again. There were three phones in the house - hallway, living room, the adult Noyces' bedroom - so they created quite a racket when the house was quiet and peaceful. I was pretty sure someone was calling to wish the Noyces a merry Christmas, so I tossed and turned around in my bed and tried to ignore all that ringing. But after a while it just wasn't possible and I got up and rushed out of my room, gnashing my teeth.

Of course the phones stopped ringing the moment I reached the first floor landing. I decided I'd capitalize on that, and went into the bathroom and did my morning thing. I did it as quickly and efficiently as possible, because I really needed a coffee and a cigarette.

I'd barely sat down to consume the above when the doorbell rang. I almost spilled my coffee. I forced myself to relax and took a sip from my mug and a hit from my cigarette, and the doorbell rang again. I had the thought that it was Detective Moore, and dismissed it because this was Christmas Day. Then I thought it would be just like him to issue me with a brand-new pair of handcuffs as my Christmas present. So I tiptoed to my front window and looked outside, making sure to flatten myself against the wall next to the window and showing as little of myself as possible.

There were no police cruisers in the street, but then Moore likely rode around in an unmarked car. There were about a dozen cars parked within my field of vision and I looked hard at them, one by one, and noticed the grey Volkswagen a split second before I saw Harry walking away from the front door. I opened the window and stuck my head out and called:

"Harry!"

He stopped and turned round and raised his head and saw me. He grinned from ear to ear and I felt huge relief because he wouldn't grin like that if he was bringing bad news.

"I'll be right down," I called. I ran down the stairs, and let him inside.

"I must have called four or five times," he said right away. "Doesn't anyone here ever answer the phone?"

"I heard it ringing," I said. "But I was sure it was meant for the Noyces. And they're away. They're in Barbados."

"Nice," he sighed. "I wish I was there, too. Anyway, I'm here because I wanted to give you your Christmas present."

My jaw didn't hit the floor, but I definitely felt my lip sag. I said:

"Oh. I didn't expect that. I mean, shit! I haven't got anything for you."

He grinned and dug into a pocket and pulled out a nice, big Ziplock bag of weed.

"This is the half I owe you," he said, handing it to me. "And this - this is your Christmas present."

He dug into his pocket and produced another bag that was much, much smaller. It contained pot too, not a lot of it - a couple of grams, maybe. It was different from the pot in the big bag, and looked faintly familiar.

"The killer from Cambodia," grinned Harry. "I still had some stashed away, so..." He shrugged.

I was so overcome with emotion I hugged him. I wished him the best Christmas he'd ever had, and said:

"How about a drink? I have several very attractive bottles to choose from."

He shook his head.

"I can't," he said. "I'm on my way to the airport to collect my sister, asshole stockbroker husband attached. I'm late already, which is fine: let them wait a little. But not too much, because my Mum's waiting, too."

"I understand. Thank you so much for coming by. You've made my day."

We assured each other of our undying affection and friendship and he fucked off to his car and I to my room. I conducted a close examination of the two bags I'd received from Harry and decided that since this was Christmas Day, I'd treat myself to a joint rolled with the Cambodian stuff.

However, prior to that I ate breakfast, treating myself to a bottle of Tuborg - what the hell, this was Christmas Day. I kept it next to my back window, so it was reasonably chilly. I had a coffee and a small glass of scotch and a cigarette after that and boom, my paranoid pal popped up instantly. He immediately laid a major guilt trip on me, pointing out that my parents were my parents whether I liked it or not, and that I really owed them a phone call right away.

I didn't call them right away. I had a second scotch first, and armed myself with another before going downstairs. I lit a cigarette and called the operator and had to call again to connect - the line was busy. I asked for a collect call, and gave my parents' number and waited and waited for it to go through. Christmas Day was National Collect Call Day, no question about it.

Finally the operator came back on the line, and told me that my collect call hadn't been accepted. In other words, my parents weren't willing to pay for my call. My pal was absolutely delighted.

I was fucking stunned. I thanked the operator on automatic and replaced the receiver and drank the scotch I'd brought down with me in one big gulp. Then I went back to my room with my tail tucked in between my legs. I instantly refilled my glass and put out my cigarette and lit another. It was time for some heavy-duty thinking.

It took me two scotches and three cigarettes to work it out. Josh had answered the phone and being Josh, he'd told the operator he was refusing the call. Things weren't as bad as they seemed, they were about normal. I decided I'd call again in a little while.

I went up to the front window and sipped whisky and smoked and looked at the Christmas lights hung on the eaves of the houses along the street. The supposed anniversary of Christ's arrival in this world meant increased electricity consumption. It meant increased consumption across the board actually, with people stuffing themselves silly with food and drink. It had very little to do with Christ's birth, it was simply that time of the year.

The twenty-fifth of December was just an arbitrary date, set by a clever pope who had calculated that timing Christ's birth with the traditional annual pagan party would work out well. Because long before Christ's appearance, people in the northern hemisphere sat down to the biggest party of the year exactly around that time.

The harvest had all been taken in, and the grain or roots or fruit or whatever had had enough time to ferment, and produce alcohol. The meat of the domestic animals they'd slaughtered with the onset of the winter had aged enough to be at its best; the day was at its shortest, the nights at their longest. It was the perfect time for a really major party.

With the advent of Christianity it got called Christmas, and that name gradually displaced all of its older, tribal names. It was also supposed to gradually erase all the tribal differences, and gather everyone into one big Christian family. But in real life most murders are committed by family members - a clear case of the hedgehogs concerned not getting the distance right. And of course that was how it played out on the global scale, too.

Naturally, everyone involved always claimed God was on their side. The German soldiers shooting people left, right, and center in World War Two had GOTT MIT UNS on their belt buckles.

When I'd found that out from a history teacher, I definitely and irrevocably stopped believing in God. I had been baptized of course, and went through First Communion and some subsequent ones, usually on big holidays like, yeah, like Christmas. But empirical evidence clearly pointed to God being a major asshole, not the goodness personified He was supposed to be.

God left plenty of corpses, plenty of misery in His trail, while priests of assorted religions rolled their eyes and mumbled about the mysteries of faith. They had something there; it was mysterious, this continued faith. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe people simply wanted to believe they were special. It was nice to believe you were special. It also made you stronger.

I stopped believing in God - he was such an asshole - but I kind of agreed with the Creation bit. If the entire universe was conceived as a result of a single event, from a single seed, then yeah - there was plenty of creation involved. But it sure as hell took a lot longer than seven days, and attributing sentient intelligence to an explosion was going a little too far, for my taste.

The Christmas lights gradually grew brighter in the encroaching darkness. I looked at them and really regretted I didn't believe in God, any god. God was like a light glowing in the darkness. It had all started with a single explosion, a flash of light in total darkness. There was a tiny, tiniest bit of me in a star or planet or cosmic dust billions of light years away, and there was a tiny bit of that dust in me.

By the time I finally turned away from that window I'd smoked three cigarettes and night had fallen for good or maybe bad. I reflected on that choice while reviewing my array of bottles. I eventually I went downstairs and called the Chinese takeaway and found out they were open, and happy to do business. I put some their way, went back up to get a drink and then moved to stay downstairs, smoking and drinking a scotch with plenty of ice stolen from the Noyce refrigerator. I thought about calling my parents again, but didn't because emotionally I felt as remote as that star or planet or dust billions of light years away. It must have been that this particular part of me was acting up.

The food arrived, and I tipped the guy lavishly and went upstairs to do the Christmas thing: eat and drink. It promised to be kind of boring and I picked another paperback from my newly acquired collection, and read it while I ate.

This time around, the book cover that had enticed me showed two guys paddling a canoe down a river running through a jungle. There was an anaconda or some other snake of the big, economy-size variety: it was giving the two guys the evil eye from a tree branch overhanging the river. It was clear the guys in the canoe would pass right under that branch, and complications would ensue.

The title suggested an abandoned city of gold in unmapped territory and I was looking forward to a good adventure yarn. But the story began with a guy agonizing about a girl that had left him and the job he'd just lost and generally in deep despair. He did all sorts of stupid things while being in despair and was getting his ass kicked black and blue when a guy he hadn't seen for years appeared, and offered him a job in, you guessed it, the deepest tropical jungle.

The job basically consisted of shouting at the locals who did the work, and the despairing hero thought it would be neat to kick some ass instead of getting kicked. So he went along with it, even though he had misgivings about the presence of large snakes and other forms of life that might dislike him on sight, and view him as their next meal.

The jungle in question was located in South America and the two friends went down there and sure enough, they met an old Indian who told them about the advertised city of gold. He was a very talkative Indian, he went on and on for several pages and I got bored and thought I'd better try calling my parents once again. The moment I thought that, reading on became a much more attractive choice. But my paranoid pal became active and eventually I armed myself with cigarettes and a fresh scotch, and went downstairs.

I had an easier time connecting with the operator, and I hardly waited at all before she came back on the line saying the call had been accepted and I heard my father say:

"Hello? Michael, is that you?"

It was a fucking stupid thing for him to say, the operator had just told him who was calling. I said, equally stupidly:

"Yes, it's me. I'm calling to wish you and everyone the, a merry Christmas and so on. You're all spending it at home?"

"Yes. We're leaving on Boxing Day, though."

"Really? Where are you going?" I was half-expecting him to say Barbados or Jamaica or some other place like that. But he said:

"Josh has this big New Years' Eve party in New York. So he's going to stay with a friend of his over there for a week, and then do some skiing in Vermont before he hits the books again. And us, well, your mother and I are going to stay at a friend's cottage for a couple of weeks. We could use a change of scene."

I thought they both could use much more than a change of scene, but I kept it to myself. I said:

"That's nice. I'm sure you can both use some lazy time."

"Yes, we could," he said with feeling that indicated he'd really had enough of Christmas, even though it had just started. I guessed he'd gotten an earful from my mother about her distress at my not being there, and his shortcomings as a father. She wouldn't be able to go on like this in the company of other people. I said:

"Could I talk to Mum too? Or maybe it's not a good idea?"

"It's a good idea," he said. "But first, I'd like to know how things are going with you. Is everything okay?"

"More than okay," I said. After short but careful consideration, I lied:

"I'm working my ass off. I'm supposed to turn in twenty mind-blowing pictures in a month's time. And that's just the first batch. I guess I'll have to have at least sixty for the gallery to choose from when they're assembling my show."

"Your show?"

"I'm supposed to have a show of my own in the spring," I said. "The show that took place a couple of weeks ago, I shared that with two other artists."

"That's a step up now, then."

"It is," I said. "And I have to watch it so that I don't fall flat on my face."

He surprised me then. He said:

"Well, maybe quitting college before you started wasn't so stupid after all. You can always return to college, but an opportunity is only available once."

I instantly became suspicious of this new understanding. We were getting too close for comfort. I said:

"Well, we'll find out. Can I talk to Mum?"

"Of course! Of course."

There were no surprises in the conversation that followed. Broadly speaking, my mother told me how unhappy she was, and I commiserated and lied that I was sorry several times. I was sincere when I said I was sorry for the first time, but it quickly grew old.

Eventually all that started drawing to a close and I started to get all uptight about asking to speak to Josh - it was kind of mandatory. But then my mother said those beautiful words, the first words I heard from her that warmed my heart:

"Josh is out. He's been invited to a Christmas party. He's very popular."

Her comment clearly indicated that I wasn't, and would become even less popular as time went by. I didn't mind. I didn't give a flying fuck about being popular with that whole crowd. I said:

"I'm glad that he's found people who like him."

The conversation stalled after that and I assured my mother, once again, of my best wishes. Then we said goodbye and I didn't even have to run the line about my feeling guilty about the call costing them money.

I'd done my duty, and I returned upstairs with a glass full of stolen ice cubes and rolled a joint from the Cambodian killer weed. I sprawled in the chair by my table which I'd tastefully decorated with a glass of scotch on the rocks and a pack of cigarettes and cigarette papers and the sachet of Cambodian weed. I gave my paranoid pal a cautious look before lighting up the joint.

He'd had it. I'd literally kicked the shit out of him. It seemed he was responding, once again, to medication with Johnnie Walker and other controlled substances. The secret lied in the dosage. It now required a stronger punch to knock him out, it was simply common sense.

After all, he was growing up along with me.