The Homeless Millionaire

We had a great time, Tony and I. We killed that bottle of scotch and then I ran upstairs and returned with another joint and then Tony delved into his secret reserves and produced a bottle of twelve-year-old Glenfiddich.

We ordered Chinese food around ten o'clock and that was a mistake, because the nourishment kept us going until nearly two in the morning. Tony actually wanted to go on; he kept muttering about a bottle of very special rum he'd concealed somewhere.​​

I reminded him he was supposed to go to work in a few hours and he mumbled he'd call in sick and it sounded very convincing when he said that. But in the end reason prevailed, and we both went to our respective beds. I had to help Tony up the stairs, and propel him gently into his bedroom.

I was absolutely too drunk to sleep. So I smoked a couple of cigarettes by the open windows. After that, I smoked a joint and of course I set up the easel and got all the gear ready and started painting without having a fucking germ of an idea of what I was going to paint.

An invisible hand seemed to guide mine. I painted a bar scene. And in the middle of that scene, cigarettes aloft and elbows on the bar counter, were Gina and Jane. It took me a while to realize I was painting a scene that I'd seen earlier.

I remembered writing that letter to my parents in a bar, a letter that was full of half-truths and outright lies, and seeing Jane of the leaking sailboat enter together with a girl so beautiful and brainy and rich no one ever stood a chance.

That was the first time I saw Fiona.

Fiona!

I felt as if I were in love with her while I was painting her face. Her lower lip was perfect. She loved Jane, Jane was her best friend, but the way Fiona's lower lip jutted out as she was blowing smoke said: you're my favourite among all the apes climbing the ladder behind me. You're my bestest, most favourite ape of all times. Pity you'll never become a full-fledged human like myself, but life is cruel. I love you anyway.

Her money and her privileged upbringing were visible in every little line, every little shadow that fell across her face. The cigarette in her hand was like a magic wand. She could wave it around and boom: you were promoted to a duke, or you got your head cut off. Fiona McKay ruled; ordinary people obeyed.

This was when I realized that I'd done another good picture that couldn't be included in my show. Fiona would see it; Fiona was sure to come to my show in the spring. Or was she?

While the paint was drying, I smoked a couple of cigarettes and conducted a review of my relations with Fiona.

The results were pretty unsatisfactory, so I smoked a thin joint and conducted another review of my relations with Fiona.

That joint was a big mistake. I became convinced that I was in love with Fiona. I knew that was bullshit, that it was some weird pot-magnified offshoot of taking so much care when I was painting her face. But I felt as if I was in love with her anyway.

I remembered that Chad had told me she'd felt insulted by my disappearance. I also remembered I'd constructed a small web of lies with the Filipino maids that had answered her phone. If the maids had passed on the messages, Fiona believed I'd called her repeatedly with no result. It wasn't true but that didn't matter. Truth didn't matter. Beliefs did. What people believed mattered, and that was it.

I thought about fucking Fiona and it was instantly clear my dick was a big fan of that idea. Fucking Fiona would be heaven. It would also be the first step into hell.

Fiona wasn't someone who could simply be fucked. Fucking Fiona involved developing a relationship. And a relationship with Fiona would instantly cast me as a flunkey, the little servant that could.

I knew I'd hate that. I knew I'd even be capable of killing Fiona for that, after a while. Time was supposed to be the great healer; time was supposed to heal all wounds. But sometimes, it worked the other way around. Sometimes time made wounds fester and become unbearable and that was when people turned into sick fucks and did sick things.

My psychological makeup made a relationship with Fiona impossible even if it were possible. I'd have to serve, protect, and obey. And I couldn't stand anyone telling me what to do, or pressuring me into doing something. I might even want to do exactly the same thing myself. But the moment I felt outside pressure to do it: NO. Even when it had been my idea to do it in the first place.

I felt totally fucked up and smoked two cigarettes before I had the thought I might as well read about Valentin. He made me look as if I were the ultimate self-disciplined genius.

Although some time had passed, I was still flying high on Tony's Glenfiddich and I had great difficulty finding where I'd left off. I remembered that Valentin had been waiting to hook up with his chick in the tavern but he seemed to be doing that every twenty pages or so.

After a while, I located the right spot: Valentin was gorging himself on goat stew in preparation to telling his beloved he wanted her to leave with him. He wanted her to abandon her life for a new life shared with him. Of course Valentin thought that was a hell of an offer, he had a very high opinion of himself. When he asked people to stick around they were supposed to wet themselves with joy.

Valentin's chick didn't. She simply failed to show up. Valentin vigorously interrogated a number of people, and found out his chick was sick. That was why she'd taken time off from work but that wasn't the only way she was sick: the people Valentin talked to gleefully informed him she also had a dozen different strains of syphilis and gonorrhea, acquired from assorted sailors who came into port in more ways than one.

I really applauded that twist in the plot; it was finally becoming somewhat realistic. It was totally at odds with all that earlier bullshit about sunsets and sand dunes and all that sickly desert romantic stuff.

I squinted at the cover page and found out that there were actually two people involved in writing that story. The big credit went to Baron Whatever, but right under that there was a tiny 'with' and an even tinier name that was impossible to read. I guessed that the unexpected twist in the story meant that while it was still being written, Baron Whatever had fucked off to do stuff barons do, and the guy with the tiny, unreadable name finally got in some creative input.

Come to think of it, Baron Whatever likely had nothing to do with the book. He'd be sitting in his club in London or wherever and an old pal would offer to buy the next round if the Baron agreed to put his name on the cover.

"Nothing to it, old boy," the old pal would say. "You might even make a couple of guineas extra along the way. Think of the fame! All those females breathless with the desire to suck your cock. An aristocrat with enough brains to write a book!"

And the Baron would agree to the deal, because all he'd really wanted all along was that next drink, free of charge. I was sure the Baron had never had a single thought about Valentin. He hadn't written or read a single word about the tavern chick, the hashish, the retarded cobras. The Baron was innocent. He just wanted to have another drink.

And so, halfway through the co-author—the tiny guy with the tiny, unreadable name—took over. It was striking. Following the revelation about his beloved's venereal diseases, Valentin went through some serious introspection aboard his ship. It was deep enough for a couple of psychology doctorates. Valentin didn't give a fuck about his motley, mutinous crew, he didn't give a fuck about carrying tons of contraband that meant a death sentence, he didn't give a fuck about anything including sunsets and sand dunes. Eventually, it turned out he didn't give a fuck about his poxed chick either. It was refreshing. Then it turned a bit stale, because it became obvious Valentin cared only about himself.

The new, improved Valentin executed three or four of his crew for throwing dirty looks at him. This immediately improved discipline, they made port in record time, and Valentin delivered the cargo and collected the money and didn't kill anyone or fall in love.

It was one of those fat paperbacks and I was roughly halfway through. I stopped reading and thought about it for a while and discovered that what had turned me off the story was Valentin being reasonable. I wanted him to be stupid and do crazy things. Otherwise, he just wasn't interesting.

I had a meal—beans from a can, bread, half a pack of raw wieners, tea—and I had a cigarette and I knew that the next thing I'd draw—not paint, draw!—would be a portrait of Valentin. Or maybe it would be a portrait of the little guy, the invisible coauthor. Who knew. Time would tell.

It was beginning to get light outside when I finally climbed into bed. That was when I realized it was Valentine's Day.