The Homeless Millionaire

My room was flooded with sunlight when I woke up the next day. It really was freak weather for winter on the coast, and I felt like a freak getting out of bed. Everything was a question of lighting.

James was still impaled on the pen placed in my mug; I had to remove him before drinking coffee. I'd really put James through the paces the previous evening: it eventually involved pushing a pen into his backside in place of the windup key. Together, we produced two paintings and one drawing. Most importantly, all three were good.

The final piece—the drawing—showed James about to drop into the drink. He was falling, ass first, into a glass containing alcohol. This was made clear by the fact that it was a martini glass. It was two-thirds full and contained a fat olive on a toothpick. If James was smart, he could use that to climb up and over the edge of the glass and escape.

But it all depended on what he'd do upon landing in the booze. I'd changed the proportions, and the glass was big enough to accommodate James comfortably stretching out on his back, his chin just above the cocktail's surface. He'd only need to bend his head a little to take a slurp. There was a very high chance he'd enjoy this situation.

The two paintings featured James locking eyes with a caged chimp. I showed them in profile. In the first painting, they were both standing up: their arms were raised, their hands gripping the vertical steel bars. James was outside, and the chimp was inside the cage. James's windup key was sticking out of his back, just above his ass. I gave it a delicate blur, as if it was in the act of turning.

The chimp's cage featured a small pile of shit and a pool of piss in the far corner, almost out of sight, visible only to people who were actively looking for that kind of stuff. There were also some shredded pieces of banana peel lying around, and an overturned tin water bowl decorated with numerous dents. I had a hell of a time getting the light reflexes on that bowl just right.

In the second painting, the roles were reversed: James was inside, the chimp was outside. They were both sitting. James's arms were frozen, stretching out but failing to grasp the cage bars. The windup key was missing from his back. Well, at least his cage was clean.

The chimp sitting outside the cage wasn't even bothered to return James's glassy stare. One of its arms rested in its lap; the other was holding up a colourful, crumpled candy wrapper for inspection. The chimp was eyeballing it with either hope or disappointment or both.

The wrapper it held was an empty promise, but it was still a promise. Someone somewhere was enjoying candy. It was within the realm of possibility.

I had three pictures I could show to Chaz. Feeling braced, I ran through the bathroom routine, shaving with extra care. I had to go to the bank to deposit that cheque. It was an errand I didn't mind.

But when I actually left the house, I turned to go to the park. I'd gorged myself on corned beef and bread and wanted to walk it off so that I'd be in shape for an A&W burger combo on the way back from the bank. It was just a few minutes past noon, and I had plenty of time. There was bite in the air, but at the same time the sun felt really warm.

There weren't many people in the park. Unfortunately, the people that were present included a dark-haired, witch-like woman in a long, unbuttoned red coat. She was walking a dog, a white poodle, on a long leash. She seemed to follow me around. Whenever I stopped to smoke a cigarette, she'd heave into view within a couple of minutes, dragged along by her stupid dog.

I thought it was stupid from the way it sniffed at things and jerked around on the leash. I was probably wrong. Poodles were said to be really intelligent. Maybe it picked up alarming scents that I couldn't sense.

On the way to the bank, I walked past the old office. The posters advertising it was for rent were still up. A couple of sparrows or starlings or whatever—they were small birds—were hopping around on the pavement in front of the entrance, pecking at something now and then. Maybe they were checking out the neighbourhood prior to moving in.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the bank almost empty. A teller beckoned me over before I had time to think about whether I wanted to withdraw any cash. I needed to, before my move: there would be a very long cab drive involved, plus the costs of setting up camp in a new place.

In the end, I just deposited the cheque. There was a full week left before I moved. If I withdrew the money for the move right away, I'd have to do it again just before the move, most likely hungover and twisted by remorse and full of self-loathing. There was an extra trip to the bank involved, either way. It was best to make sure it wasn't unpleasant.

Naturally, that put me in a very bad mood. Doing the sensible thing almost never failed to put me in a bad mood. After I'd paid a visit to the A&W and did some shopping—coffee and tea and sugar, food for a few days, a couple of cartons of cigarettes—I was down to forty dollars in my wallet, plus change. A lot of change, but still only change.

I went home to deposit all that stuff with the intent of leaving again for another walk in the park. To my surprise, Dave was home.

He stayed silently hidden in the kitchen until I was about to mount the stairs. Then he suddenly said hello behind my back, and I nearly had a heart attack. I turned round and said:

"Jesus, Dave. Don't do it to me ever again. I nearly pissed myself."

My confession failed to produce any joy. Dave was looking really down in the mouth. It was as if all the sorrows of the world had suddenly dropped into his mind. He said, in the bleak manner of someone determined to commit suicide:

"I'm sorry, Michael. Are you going to stay in?"

"What?"

"Are you, uh, going to stay in? In your room?"

"I was actually planning to go out again," I said. "Why? What's the matter?"

"Well, it's about John. You know, my brother. He's about to come by to look at things and do some planning and he might want to go inside your room."

"That's fine," I said. "John can look inside my room any time. But wait, wasn't he supposed to do that a few days ago, already?"

"It never came around to that. He came over, and we had an, uh, discussion about how and what should be done, and when. The whole concept's changed."

"How?" I asked, intrigued.

"Well it's basically that John doesn't want to run pipes all around the house. So we cannot put a bathroom inside the room, we'll have to build an extension to the room. There's plenty of space on the landing."

"That's a great idea," I said, as if I cared. "Well, John is free to do his thing whenever he arrives. I'll be going out inside half an hour."

"Thank you," he said, sounding like someone who'd just been informed they'll die quickly and painlessly. I hesitated briefly, and asked:

"Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No," Dave said hollowly.

"I'd invite you for a drink, but I'm all out of booze."

"That's okay."

Once again, Dave sounded as if he was assenting to the hood over his head prior to hanging. I gave him what I hoped was an encouraging smile and went up the stairs.

What was going on? I wondered about that while unpacking and putting away my shopping. Quizzing James was out of the question. I'd really given him a hard time the previous evening.

True to my word, I was out of the house in twenty minutes. A breeze was stirring the dried leaves on the pavement. The fine weather wouldn't continue for much longer: it was about to change.

The park was mercifully empty this time around. The only person I encountered was an old man walking with the help of a thick bamboo cane. He was wheezing like a decrepit steam engine when we passed. He wore a thick overcoat all buttoned up and a hat and a scarf that covered his chin. The scarf was light blue and as we passed I saw it was stained dark by the spittle dropping from his mouth.

Maybe he went out because he figured this was his last chance to take a walk in the sunshine. Maybe he went out to enjoy the fact that he could still move. Maybe he was going to die the moment he got home, and maybe he'd die by his own hand. You never really knew, with other people.

What was going on with Dave?

I stayed out until well past four o'clock, and smoked all my cigarettes patrolling the park. I failed to see the old man again, and failed to work out what was the matter with Dave.

I went home and Dave was no longer there. I had a splendid view of the setting sun out of my back window. I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes and made myself a coffee and watched the show. It was great and made me feel like painting something but I was simply too tired from all the walking I'd done that day.

When the Noyces all returned home it was an anticlimax. I ate my cold takeaway combo and drank the last of the godawful tea. I'd bought a fresh pack after sniffing it over like a dog. It promised to be better: it smelled like tea even before I'd opened the pack.

I'd also bought a newspaper and thought that I'd read it for a while, but I couldn't. When I looked at the front page, it was like walking into a village full of paranoid chained dogs.

Everyone was yapping at someone else. Everyone was criticizing everyone else. Everyone was unhappy with the exception of a couple of politicians who didn't give a fuck, judging by their pictures. They were well-fed and rich and everyone else could just go fuck themselves.

In a way, I could understand that. I was human, too.

With that comforting thought, I went to sleep.