The Homeless Millionaire

It turned out that I'd lied to James. Fate didn't want me to play with James.

Fate grabbed me by the scruff of my neck next morning. It dragged me out of bed and forced me to smoke five cigarettes while drinking scotch and coffee. Feeling refreshed, I whizzed through my remaining morning routine and examined my picture of Mr. Chance. It was what gallant Battle of Britain pilots called a wizard prang. I'd scored a spectacular hit, right on target.

Mr. Chance was so real in that picture I could almost hear him snore. It was magic, and I was a wiz. It was time to score again.

I painted two more pictures of Mr. Chance that day. I would have done more—I did around a dozen takes—but I was deluded into fucking around with his wardrobe. In one take, I gave him a pair of pince-nez glasses. They were meant to emphasize he was a moron, but he still came off looking too intelligent.

The two pictures that made the grade formed a triptych with the painting that showed the sleeping, sweating Mr. Chance. The first picture I'd painted became the last in the series.

The first picture in the triptych was the one I painted last. It showed Mr. Chance holding a glass of clear liquid that wasn't water. He was about to throw the dice and he was determined to squeeze in a sip before he did. His lips were stretching for the glass rim: his dice hand hung limply. It was going to be yet another of his careless, I-don't-give-a-fuck dice rolls.

He was reaching out to retrieve the dice in the second picture. He'd thrown a seven: a four and a three. They combined for an average of three and a half, a symbol for a life lived with nose just above the water. Well, it was still better than an average of one. An average of one—two ones, known as snake eyes—meant coming up for air only when about to drown, or maybe not coming up at all.

Mr. Chance was tired and disappointed. He'd thrown sevens so many times. One hand reached for the dice; the other was raising the glass to his mouth. That was all he could do: have another drink. The die had been cast.

He would do it again, of course. He would roll the dice again and again and again. But first, he had to take a nap. It would help him recover after another disappointment. Maybe he'd dream of something nice.

I had three more pieces I could show Chaz. They came at a cost, however. By the time I'd finished painting, I'd killed off the first big Johnnie Walker and began working on his brother. I'd also smoked two packs of cigarettes and half a dozen joints. I made wheezing noises whenever I took a deep breath. This sitting-down-while-painting stuff was dangerous. I could drink and smoke and paint, all at the same time.

I ate a just-add-hot-water spaghetti and it gave me heartburn. Luckily, I had baking soda. Along with aspirin and a box of Band-Aid, it was part of my emergency kit. I sprinkled some soda on my toothbrush when my teeth turned yellow from smoking. It was also good for relieving miscellaneous itches and heartburn.

I dissolved some baking soda in a glass of water and drank it all. It tasted fucking horrible, but it helped. I made myself a mug of triple-teabag tea, and pondered my situation.

I had one full day of work left before Friday's meeting with Chaz. If I stopped drinking now, I'd spend the next thirty hours so hungover I'd be wishing I were dead. It would be a totally unproductive day.

To stay productive, I had no choice but to go on drinking and smoking pot. I was meeting Chaz at six in the evening: hopefully, having most of Friday to recover would be enough. I didn't want to present my work to Chaz while looking like Jimmy Carr on the day he got admitted to hospital. I didn't want Chaz drawing any parallels between me and Jimmy Carr.

I decided I'd treat myself to another baking soda cocktail. Unfortunately, this involved refilling my kettle. I absolutely didn't want to run into any of the Noyces. They'd already returned home, and I could hear them prowling downstairs.

I had to wait until they were all glued to the TV screen. I spent that time walking around my room and smoking and drinking that godawful tea. It was stale when I'd bought it, and it seemed to have become twice as stale since. I needed to get a fresh pack of tea. I needed to get a fresh carton of cigarettes. Maybe I could pick up a pair of new lungs while I was at it.

I walked around my room, smoking and fretting when the fuck the Noyces would finally start watching TV so that I could safely refill my kettle. I had the rather uninspired idea that I'd paint a family watching TV: my i & i were still holidaying in Mongolia. I'd show that family seated on a sofa, with kids in the centre flanked by their parents. Two kids, of course a boy and a girl.

I mucked around in my mind with various angles and settled on a point of view above and behind the TV set. It would have to be high enough to let me show their hands, but not so high that their faces became abbreviated. I wanted to show their eyes watching the action on the TV screen, or maybe glancing at something else. I wanted to show their mouths. Maybe someone would be saying something?

It was a good idea, even though it wasn't particularly inspired. I could show this family's whole history, and hint at its future. It could all be told through the way they sat together, and the way they were looking at the screen.

It was a good idea, but I knew it would be impossibly hard to execute. Before I could start painting, I had to invent that whole fucking family in my mind, give them a common past and individual personalities so that the picture could show how they felt about each other. It was a hell of a lot of work unless I cheated, and painted a family I knew—like the Noyces. I definitely didn't want to paint my own family.

However, I couldn't paint the Noyces, because that picture would hopefully end up on display as part of my spring show. There was a high chance they'd go to see that show. They'd find out I was making money from their faces, and they'd dislike the way they appeared in the picture. Everyone, myself included, tended to idealize themselves.

If not the Noyces—who? There was no way I'd be inventing an imaginary family. It was too much work, and I had little time: a single day. I would start painting those people before they were fully formed in my imagination. I would keep changing my mind, and end up hysterical with many half-assed efforts torn up and trashed.

I just had to take a shortcut, and I grudgingly decided that I would paint Roch's family. I knew them well enough to do a good job without too much thinking beforehand.

It took me all day Thursday to get that done. It was fucking hell. It began with a couple of hours of intensive therapy to get myself into shape for work. This involved numerous coffees, shots of scotch, cigarettes and joints. I was buzzing like a electric transformer that's fed too much current when I finally picked up my brush.

It took me two hours and three trashed paintings to realize I was getting nowhere. It was too difficult. There was too much work involved. I'd never seen Roch's family watching TV. My i & i still hadn't returned from Mongolia.

So I cheated big time and took a major shortcut, and painted the Caron family feeding at their picnic table at the cottage. I was there, too. I was seated at the lakeside end of the table and turning away to look at something across the water. I gave myself an extra big hank of hair swooping down the side so that I wouldn't have to fuck around too much with my own face.

I did a lot of fucking around with the Caron faces, though. It really was a lot of work in spite of all the cheating. But it was worth it.

Papa Caron, the efficiency expert, was feeling bad about the efficiency measures he'd introduced on his last assignment: he'd learned they led to plenty of people getting fired. He was wondering how much longer he'd be able to do his job. He knew he would have to keep doing it as long as possible because there were all those parasites seated around him at the table, feeding off him.

Mama Caron was happy she could watch the whole family sitting and eating together, so far without any casualties. Her happiness made her stupid: she was totally unaware of undercurrents. She was extra happy because that friend her son had invited, the glum guy that kept turning to look across the lake, did a great job on her vegetable patch.

Heloise—Roch's pimply sister—was sulking over her steak. She was secretly drunk, and her fork was slipping from her fingers. She was busy hating Roch for something that had happened earlier; she was leaning away from him on the bench. Her forkless hand lay on the table, twitching to grab the steak knife and plunge it into her brother's neck.

Roch was unaware of that. He was on automatic, eating and conducting conversation while thinking about something very deeply. It was something dangerous and exciting. He was scared. He was going to do it anyway.

It really turned out well. Almost too well: when I looked at it, Tracy's ghost seemed to float somewhere in the background. People would pick up on that. Almost everyone had ghosts floating somewhere in the background. Almost everyone could relate to that.

It was past eight in the evening before I was done, and I called it a day. I was hungry. Also, I was too drunk and stoned and tired to do anything more.

I ate whatever food was handy. It involved opening a can and I cut my thumb while I was doing that. The cut bled like crazy and I kept sucking on it while I ate.

I rounded off my meal with a baking soda cocktail to spare myself at least some grief when I woke up in the morning. Then I put an adhesive bandage on my thumb, and went to sleep.