The Homeless Millionaire

On the morning that followed, Fiona's party was very much on my mind, and not in a nice way. It was like this practically from the moment I woke up. I stopped thinking about Fiona's party only to analyze why I was thinking about Fiona's party all the time.

I couldn't find the reason. I was neither excited nor apprehensive about meeting new people that most likely included several nice girls. I was neither excited nor apprehensive about visiting the home of a prominent Vancouver mogul. I had been extensively trained in that area. My father's diplomatic function occasionally obliged him to bring his whole family to various high-profile social gatherings. For me personally, that always meant many hours of horror.

They began with far-reaching and uncomfortable adjustments to my appearance. I was groomed like a dog for a dog show. On a few occasions, I'd actually been sent to get my hair cut on the preceding day. Many people don't look or feel their best immediately after a haircut, and I was one of those people. The process wasn't pleasant either. I disliked my head being viewed and treated the way a gardener views and treats plants - a cut here, a snip there. The plants had it better, actually - they weren't asked to turn or tilt or even worse, grasped by the chin and forced into the required stance.

When my hair was okay, Act One of the horrorshow began with a thorough cleaning and nail-clipping. It was followed by putting on a white shirt and a tie and then dressing in my best suit, meant specially for such occasions. When I was five to seven years old, I got away with a small bow tie on a rubber band hidden under the collar of my shirt, and a V-necked sweater instead of a jacket. I graduated to a normal tie when I was eight, and initially my father helped me out. He decided I knew how to do it pretty quickly and left me to my own devices and it sometimes took me an hour to get that fucking tie right. It inevitably began to looked mangled after many botched attempts, and I would have to take time out to press it on the ironing board.

All those tortures were merely preparations for the main event. The main event involved many hours of being bored to tears while trying to remain on my best behavior. Other kids got away with murder, but not me. I could expect many unpleasant consequences if I stepped out of line. They would begin with a summary of my misdeeds on the way home from the party, and sometimes continued for days because of a ban on some of my favorite activities. I even got my watercolor box confiscated once! Really, it wasn't surprising I didn't like my family much.

Given party training like that, going to Fiona's gig was a breeze. There was no reason for any anxiety. I chewed on that until my post-breakfast cigarette. I was about to put it out and light another when the answer popped up. I felt the way I did because of all that painful training. It was a Pavlovian reaction. Big, formal parties meant plenty of misery, for me.

Of course, while I was doing all that thinking I repeatedly checked for my paranoid pal. He was absent. It was funny, but things really felt better with him around. They felt familiar, and I could bounce ideas off him and once in a blue moon he'd help me out in a really major way. Last time he'd done that was when I was struggling with Fiona's father's portrait. My pal's suggestion that I try watercolor made all the difference. I knew he'd made it because he'd hoped I'd fuck up even more spectacularly, but that didn't matter. Intentions didn't matter, the end result did. Some roads to heaven were paved with bad intentions.

It was around noon by the time I'd stopped turning myself inside out, and I tried to draw something. I was expected to have twenty mind-blowing pieces in four weeks' time. Unfortunately, all that earlier business had sucked up any inspiration I might have had. I tried doing a charcoal sketch of my room first, and it was so bad I switched to pencil, and attacked an apple. I was an old, experienced hand at apples. They ranked way up, together with beer bottles, as my favorite subjects.

But the apple I drew that morning wouldn't ever become anybody's favorite. It was one of those apples that are condemned to lay in the grocer's tray until all the other apples are gone. No one would ever want to pick it up, turned off by its appearance even though it hadn't been damaged in any way.

I tried to get around that by making the apple damaged. I gave it a bruise and a dent and a cut and it was still all wrong. I ripped up the apple drawing and the room sketch and dropped the pieces into the waste paper basket while looking at my bottles and cursing. I walked around the room and smoked a couple of cigarettes attempting to convince myself to try watercolor. I failed.

I switched mental tracks, and decided that I'd call Roch. I owed him a call. Calling him collect felt cheap. It wasn't snowing and it wasn't raining and overall conditions were perfect for a quick run down to the Park Pub. I reviewed the contents of my wallet and added a banknote from my night table drawer. I assembled my gear - address book, cigarettes, lighter - and got dressed, and left.

The air outside smelled odd, maybe because it wasn't full of tobacco smoke. I could smell the rotting leaves and the briny seawater and caught a sharp whiff of cat shit as I turned the corner. The temperature was a couple of degrees above freezing and it was really damp, I had difficulty with my lighter when lighting a cigarette. My trusted Zippo gave me a good whiff of lighter fuel that made me immune to other scents and as I walked I composed various innocent-sounding questions in my head, questions that I wanted to ask Roch. I was really curious how the robbery loot situation was working out.

The moment I thought that, I checked for my paranoid pal and he continued to be absent. This was extremely strange.

I reached the pub and went to the bar first to get a pint and some change for the payphone. There maybe a dozen people inside and Jane of the mobile lips was one of those people. She was facing me when I came in and noticed me instantly. Our eyes met and she immediately looked away and said something to the guy she was sitting with and laughed. His back was turned but something about his head and pose suggested he was older than Jane, definitely quite a bit older than myself.

I ordered a pint of Toby and chugged a third of it down the moment it arrived and finished my cigarette while the barman was getting my change. I did not look at mobile lip Jane, but fancied I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck a couple of times. I did look at her on my way to the payphone, determined to nod hello before she could look away. But she was totally into something the guy at her table was saying to her. I noticed that he had a bald spot forming on the top of his head.

I checked the time right before dialing the number of Roch's house and it was around half past one. I had the feeling he wouldn't answer the phone, and he didn't.

After smoking half a cigarette, I called his parents' place. His pimply sister answered the phone and told me he wasn't there, either. She sounded as unpleasant as she had been back at the cottage by the lake, and I didn't tell her I hoped she'd enjoyed her Christmas and didn't wish her a happy New Year, either. I told her I might call again and made it sound like a threat.

I went back to the bar and exchanged my empty glass for a full one and the barman told me they had wicked shepherd's pie, made inhouse by their cook who specialized in wicked shepherd's pies. I agreed to consider that carefully and drank beer for a while, making a point of not looking at mobile lip Jane. I decided I'd try to call Roch again at his house. I'd go for a walk in the park if he wasn't in, and return to the pub for that shepherd's pie and call Roch again following its consumption.

There was no need for all that planning, because he answered the phone on the third ring.

"I've just come in," he told me after we'd gone through the how-are-you ritual. "I was out getting candles and batteries for my flashlight."

"Why?"

"I'm doing some of the wiring in the house myself. And with the power off it's so dark inside that sometimes I can't see what I'm doing."

"Why don't you get the electrician to do it for you?"

"Money. And it's not like I have a lot to do right now. The old man's telling me he expects me to pay taxes on this dump next year. Man, I'm beginning to regret I inherited this house. There are constantly problems that need solving and maintenance is fucking expensive, too."

"Are you going to rent a room or two?"

"No other choice, man. No other choice. That's why I'm fucking around with the wiring. It was so old that it's a miracle the dump didn't burn down in the meantime. I'm sorry it didn't. I'd have just collected the insurance money, and waved goodbye to all this crap."

"Why don't you sell it?"

"I have to fix it up before selling, too. I don't know. I might sell it. But my parents would kill me if I did."

"Why should they? It's your house."

"Yeah, and they're my parents."

A short but very meaningful silence ensued.

"How is everyone? How is Michel?" I asked finally.

"Everyone's fine, and everything is pretty much the same. No new developments. Fuck! I hope there'll be a few, next year."

"There will be a few at my end."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm moving. Bigger place, my own bathroom."

It wasn't the best thing to say. I could feel Roch envied me the freedom to move around. So we exchanged lots of good wishes and promised to keep in touch and all that crap and then I went for that walk in the park, after all.

I had barely been there for five minutes when I saw a big dog expelling a long yellow turd while the owner - a big woman muffled up as if it was twenty below zero - looked on approvingly. I went back to the pub and saw that mobile lip Jane had left in the meantime, together with her balding guy. I ordered the famous shepherd's pie with another pint and the barman hadn't lied, that pie was fucking good.

It was dusk when I left the pub for good, feeling both full and empty. I definitely didn't need to eat or drink for a while but I needed something else. Something important was missing from my life.

I didn't want to think what it could be. I wanted to have a pleasant, relaxed evening.

I went home, promising myself to roll a joint as soon as I got there.