The Homeless Millionaire

It was raining when I woke up the next morning. I was determined to carry out my plan, anyway. If I arrived at her place soaked, maybe she would invite me inside to dry out? It was the polite thing to do, and from my travels I knew Canadians were the most polite people in the world. They sometimes said ‘sorry’ when you stepped on their foot.

I intended to just go up to her door, and knock. No creeping around to check things out: full frontal assault, right away.

I washed my hair and shaved and nearly changed my mind about going over there when I saw myself in the mirror. I was scowling like a psycho killer regretting that a couple of intended victims had escaped. I couldn't go over there with a face like that. I had to get myself a new face.

Accordingly, I had a beer and a joint before breakfast. It helped immediately; it always did. There was a lot to be said for drinking booze and doing drugs. If there wasn’t, hundreds of millions of people wouldn’t be drinking booze and doing drugs. It was a very valid coping strategy as long as everything stayed in control.

Sometimes, it was the only way I could stay in control. Deprived of a drink and a smoke when I really needed one, I'd likely end up running around naked with a big fucking knife, or maybe using the knife on myself, just to stop the thoughts going through my head.

Naturally, I’d thought about talking to a qualified professional about that. But then I became aware that a lot of people felt the same way. A lot of people went through a shitload of mental tortures every day. Most of them just grinned, and carried on. Yeah, everyone had their own cross to bear, and once I'd realized that, I stopped thinking about seeing a shrink.

Then I read an interview with one of those Sherpa guys who make a living as porters for people whose lives aren't complete without climbing a peak in the Himalayas. They asked the guy how he manages to get up there, miles and miles up where the air's so thin the slightest move makes you gasp and wheeze, all this while carrying a hundred pounds on his back. That Sherpa said he kept his eyes on the ground and concentrated on taking the next step. He said that he didn’t ever look up, because if he did and saw how far he had to go, he'd just sit down and weep.

It struck me as a good philosophy to follow in life. Just focus on your next step. No sense in looking forward and up, just keep going. It all ends badly anyway, everyone’s life ends badly, in fact as badly as it can get.

Before it does, there’s potential for nice surprises along the way. Michel gave me his remaining pot before leaving. He and Roch had a quick, quiet conversation in French just before they went out to the car. Then Michel walked up to me, and pressed the pouch with the pot into my hand. He grinned and said:

"That's to help you think while you're making up your mind. Bonne chance, mon ami. Choose well."

I didn't thank him, because his 'choose well' implied there would be unpleasant consequences if I chose badly. I resented that. But as I fucked around with the frying pan and eggs the next morning, I thought that maybe he hadn't meant it that way. Maybe he’d been telling me to make the right choice for myself. That was a plus of drinking a beer on an empty stomach: it made me think nicely of other people.

It stopped raining while I was eating breakfast. By the time I finished my post-meal cigarette, I saw patches of blue appear in the sky. I got myself ready for my trip, agonizing over what to wear like a neurotic debutante before the big ball. I should’ve put on my high tops for the trek ahead, but I chose my cowboy boots instead. Wearing them made me feel better. That was why everyone made all the bad choices they made: because those choices made them feel better, at the time.

It became quickly evident why cowboy boots were a bad choice as soon as I entered the woods. The leather soles kept slipping on the wet dead leaves blanketing the ground. I nearly ended up on my ass a couple of times. After a while, I realized that there had to be track leading to her house. I didn't have to go through all this Vietnam jungle shit.

I turned around and found the track to Roch's family cottage, then continued along it until I came to a turnoff. It was way back from Roch's place, I had to walk for a mile to get there.

There was another turnoff just a couple of hundred steps further on, and I smoked a cigarette while trying to decide on the road to follow. I figured that the new turnoff led to the cottage that had burned down: it hadn't been used in a long time, there was a lot of stuff scattered over the tracks.

I was butting out my cigarette in preparation to resuming my journey when I thought I heard a car engine. I froze and stood there with my ears flapping for a good half minute, but didn't hear a thing except for the wind and rustling leaves. A strong breeze had sprung up, and the sky was clearing fast.

The sun was shining with full force by the time I made it to my destination. The track that led to the house across the lake ducked and weaved all over the place, making me glad I hadn't chosen the cross-country route. I was starting to understand why the whole holiday resort scheme had been abandoned; it would be hell to try and build anything in this terrain. It wasn't a hot day, not even with the sun out, but I had sweat running down my face when I finally saw the roof of her house between the trees.

I stopped and wiped my face and had a cigarette. It was nearing eleven by that time, but I still needed to convince myself it wasn't too early for springing a surprise visit on someone I hardly knew. Then I tried to think of something good to say when she answered the door, and found that I couldn’t.

In the end I decided I'd just tell her I came up because I wanted to find out her name. It had the advantage of being the truth. Of course it wasn't the only reason I wanted to see her, because there never is just a single reason behind anything.

A single reason is just a trigger for all those other reasons to kick in, spurring you on to take action and do stuff you’ll regret at some point in the future. That gloomy Kierkegaard guy had it right. Sooner or later, everyone got to regret every single thing they ever did. You could win a million in a fucking lottery and next thing you knew, everyone was hitting you for a handout, everyone hated you because you’d had too much good luck.

I actually knew a guy that had won a million in a lottery. His name was Gabor: he was a Hungarian who had immigrated into Canada following the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He worked as a mechanic at the garage that took care of my parents' car. He had immigrated with his whole family, including a couple of aunts and uncles, and he was a generous guy. After he won that million, he treated himself to a new Aston Martin—his dream car—and then distributed most of what he'd won among assorted family members, a hundred thousand apiece.

His only son ended up in jail, where he was finally cured of an expensive drug addiction he'd acquired in the meantime. His wife started a hairdressing salon that went bankrupt barely a year later; an uncle drank himself to a heart attack, and an early death; Gabor's own father, a stately gentleman in his sixties, developed a gambling habit that ultimately wiped out all the money still left over from the lottery win. For Gabor, it was that or having a crippled father on his hands. The loan sharks his father had borrowed money from told him as much. They were planning to put his dad against a wall, and drive a car into his knees.

The only person that put the money to good use was one of the aunts. She spent what she got from Gabor on a condo in Florida, and moved there. It had been a model family, and it was destroyed by all that extra money. Gabor had told me winning that money was the worst thing that had happened to him in his entire life. He'd had to sell the Aston Martin too, the creditors accumulated by his wife's hairdressing business were getting nasty and he needed the cash to pay them off.

I was still sweating when I finished that preparatory cigarette prior to approaching her house. I decided to have another preparatory cigarette. Halfway through, some smoke went down the wrong way and I started coughing. So I said fuck it and threw away that cigarette and walked up to her door.

I knew something was wrong right away, because her car wasn't in the driveway. But I knocked on the door, anyway. It had a big brass ring knocker that made a hell of a lot of noise. I waited a while, and used it again. And again.

After a while, it became absolutely clear she wasn't in. I stood there for a while, tempted to walk around the house and maybe do some peeking through the windows. I wondered where she had gone, and if she was gone for good.

I waited for maybe half an hour. Nothing happened, save for a grey squirrel that suddenly appeared on the branch of a nearby tree. That squirrel took a good long look at me and let out a dismayed squeak and ran away.

I started walking back home. I was still hopeful, all prepared to smile and wave when her car appeared from behind a corner. It didn't.

When I got back home, I realized that somehow, during my long walk, I had made the decision to go along with Roch and Michel, and rob the museum.

That evening, while I was eating supper, the light in the house across the water didn't come on. I sat on the deck and smoked and looked at the lake for a long time. I was about to turn in when I thought I heard something. The wind had died down in the afternoon; everything was perfectly still.

After a while, I made out the faint buzz of a faraway engine. I saw headlights slash the darkness over the other shore. I ran inside to get the binoculars and when I returned with them, a light had appeared across the water.

She was back, and I would be going back there, too.. First thing in the morning.