The Homeless Millionaire

When I woke up the next morning and thought that I'd be there for another month, it made me feel depressed.

It was a classic Noyce morning. There was a lot of rushing to and fro between the bedrooms and the bathroom, punctuated by snarls and snappy remarks that happily I didn't understand. I didn't need to piss, so I stayed in bed until they'd all had breakfast and left.

I got up when the sound of their car died away. This was to be Day One of my big work effort. Problem was, that required a sturm-und-drang kind of mood, and I was feeling incredibly lazy. It took me nearly three quarters of an hour to be done with the bathroom. Brushing my teeth and shaving basically ate up whatever energy I still had.

While I was shaving, I noticed that the cut on my cheekbone had completely healed. I pondered that over numerous coffees and cigarettes back in my room.

It had been three days. I had sliced through maybe a couple of thousand living cells with my razor—death and destruction on a massive scale. Seventy two hours later, all the damage had been completely repaired by an organism that was also busy dealing with repeated, big doses of various poisons.

It was fucking amazing. The thought of all that incredible work made me feel completely exhausted. After all, it was me who got that done, wasn't it? Wasn't I entitled to a rest?

I lay down on my bed and finally realized that quite simply, I was hungover like hell. That was what was wrong. I tried to work out why I hadn't thought of that right away, and came to the depressing conclusion that being hungover was kind of normal, for me. I was either high or suffering from the consequences.

I could feel my pal's presence, and didn't need to look to know that he was grinning from ear to ear. Being hammered or hungover so often that I ceased to be aware of it—yeah, that was undoubtedly a new low, or maybe high.

I told myself it was high time I straightened out my act, and kept sober for a change. It was easy to stick to that plan for the next hour or so, because I didn't have the energy to move the handful of steps to where Captain Morgan was leering at me from across the room. Unfortunately, I became increasingly uncomfortable on my bed.

My pal began making comments about my Day One of The Great Work Push turning into Day One of The Great Fuckup. My new plan to stay sober for a while had a major flaw: it required me to stay sober for a while. I told myself I'd feel so much better but of course it didn't work because I was currently feeling like shit.

What was worse, I knew that consorting with Captain Morgan would instantly make me feel better. Only temporarily, true, but wasn't life in general temporary?

I knew that staying any longer in my room would end with my getting hammered yet again. It wasn't too bad outside—lots of clouds, but no rain or snow or strong wind—and I was also starting to get hungry. So I forced myself to get up and got dressed and went to eat a nice, hot breakfast somewhere.

It felt nice to be outside, to my surprise. The chill in the air was bracing, and I could feel myself perking up considerably after a few steps. It inspired me to hoof it all the way to East Hastings, where I ignored several enticing bar entrances before coming across a small place that had a breakfast special all day. I reasoned that if they cooked nothing but breakfasts all day, they had to be good at it.

I was right. I ordered eggs with bacon and sausages and home fries and it was all as good as the food at that place Harry took me to, across from the police station. While I was eating I was reminded that my new place had a kitchenette; I'd be able to make myself hot breakfasts in the mornings. It put me in an excellent mood.

Unfortunately, all that food made me feel even more lazy. There was no way I'd be working that day. I didn't want to go home, where Captain Morgan was waiting to pounce. So I strolled around until I came across a cinema where they showing a Hitchcock movie. It was called Frenzy and from the poster I gathered it was about a psychotic killer. The first afternoon show started in just over an hour so I bought a ticket and then killed time by walking around and looking at the store front displays.

They were all having sales. They all had signs saying Save, Save, Save, usually 50%. It was such a fucking lie. The Save 50% sign actually meant Spend 50% less. But it still meant Spend, not Save.

I ended up buying a toy, a clockwork monkey that bounced around when wound up, emitting tinny screeching noises. It was dressed in a T-shirt and denim overalls with suspenders; that made it a child-friendly, humanoid monkey, with genitals safely out of sight. It reminded me faintly of Detective Moore, but this wasn't the reason why I bought it.

When I was settling into my seat at the cinema, I had the thought that I bought it because of all the Save signs. They were all telling me to save so I ended up spending money on something I didn't need. That monkey was full price too, it wasn't on sale and cost over two bucks that could have been profitably invested in alcohol and cigarettes. It felt heavy in the pocket of my Canadian Tire outdoor jacket.

My monkey turned out to resemble one of the main characters in the movie, a down-on-his-luck former fighter pilot hero who was unjustly suspected of strangling women with neckties. The murders were in fact committed by a close friend of his, who got off on killing women instead of fucking them. The stage would be set for sex and then he would go into the titular frenzy and get all fucked up and strangle them.

I really wondered about that when I was walking home after the movie. I tried to work out why he did that, why people did things like that. Something had to be seriously wrong with the wiring in their brains.

My pal said: and what about you.

What about me, I asked.

He reminded me that I'd imagined myself machine-gunning my whole fucking family numerous times. Some of the things I'd had in mind for Josh would have made medieval torture experts go pale with admiration and envy.

You didn't need to stick your knife into Schmidt's neck, my pal told me. You'd already fucked him up badly enough to grab your bag, and make your escape. You basically chose to kill him.

And that was where he was wrong. I didn't choose to kill Schmidt. That fatal knife jab was like a reflex action. I didn't plan it. I had no idea what I was doing, I just did it instinctively.

Just like the guy in the movie, my pal said. That was your true self, free of control.

No, that was bullshit. That wasn't really me. It wasn't my fault.

That's what all the convicted killers believe, said my pal. It wasn't their fault. It was just the way things turned out, somehow.

It felt terrible, but I had to admit he had a point. Everyone just had to think they were good. It was impossible or at best extremely painful to live with the belief one was evil, one was bad. Every evil deed ever committed was richly justified. The justifications were just as true as the Save 50% signs.

Because of all this, or maybe in spite of all that, I found myself making a small detour to take a look at the Robinson & Klein office. Night had fallen by then and it really was a totally stupid thing to do. But I relinquished control—a little experiment to see what I would do next?—and that was where my legs took me.

I stopped at the corner across the street and looked at my old place of work. It looked better at night, the flaking paint wasn't in evidence. The big change were the posters stuck to the inside of the windows. They said FOR RENT, and were underlined by contact information. Someone new would move in sooner or later, and Robinson & Klein would disappear forever.

I stood on the corner smoking a cigarette and staring at my old office; from time to time, a car passed by. One of these was a police cruiser and it slowed down noticeably as it went by and suddenly it was full paranoia time. I actually took the long way home, zigzagging between blocks.

When I got there, the lights told me the Noyces had already returned from the day's travails. But the house was remarkably silent. No one was watching TV, they were all in their bedrooms and very quiet. They were probably all licking their wounds after their first day of so-called regular life in a while.

I went up to my room as quietly as I could and undressed and took out the monkey. Suddenly, I knew why I'd bought it. It was a present for Julie, the witch who had lost her Charles. I'd tell her his name was Juju and that he was a prince among apes and that although he wasn't pretty as Charles, he was more cuddly. And he could also walk and talk, which Charles couldn't do no matter how hard he tried.

My free-of-control mind was giving me all sorts of crazy ideas. I decided to end my experiment, and go to bed early.

I was pretty fucking tired from all the walking I'd done, anyway.