The Homeless Millionaire

I left Tony alone to grapple with his demons soon after he'd told me the chick at the front door was his wife. He kept saying 'oh fuck' and 'oh Jesus Christ' and called himself a fool and a stupid prick in the intervals. It didn't make for good conversation.

When I got back upstairs, I found out that I was too drunk and stoned to work, as I'd intended earlier. I tried to read The Hashish Smugglers. But I'd stopped reading when the story got boring—Valentin was busy examining his own insides, and continued to do that for another, full page, and I just couldn't handle it. So I put the book away and put on my infamous Canadian Tire outdoor jacket and went out.

It was really quiet downstairs: Tony had ceased to soliloquize about his mental deficiencies. But I did hear something that sounded like a muffled sob when I was opening the front door.

It was raining outside, not hard, just a drizzle that was extra unpleasant because sudden gusts of wind drove it right into my face. It was getting dark too—hardly the ideal weather to go for a walk—but I decided I'd show the weather who was the boss, and went for that walk anyway..

There was some traffic around; people were driving home from work. The soles of my boots slapped on the wet pavement and it felt like a slap in the face when I realized that I was basically following the advice I'd given Tony, a couple of days earlier: going for a walk to sober up. In the meantime, being drunk and stoned, I'd begun to fancy that my venture into the wet, dark outdoors was heroic, in a way, so the realization that I was simply doing the sensible thing felt very disappointing.

I wanted to turn around and head back but in the meantime I'd reached the small supermarket that I'd discovered on my first foray into North Vancouver; being on autopilot, I'd walked there without any conscious thought. I had the thought that I might as well buy a few things. There was an awning over the store entrance that offered protection from the rain, so I stopped there and lit a cigarette and started thinking about what I should buy.

It wasn't a good move. I'd barely managed to get some smoke into my lungs when I heard a whiny, rusty voice:

"Hey. Can you spare a quarter? Give me a quarter, man. Or fifty cents. Hey, maybe you could spare a dollar? I could really use a dollar, man."

"Fuck off," I said without looking at the voice. I instantly began to walk home and my cigarette got wet after a few steps and I had to throw it away.

It was properly dark by the time I got back to the house and it was dark downstairs, too: Tony was hiding from his wife. There was nothing he wanted more, really, than her coming back; but at the same time he didn't want her to come back because then she'd see what a sad loser he was, and instantly leave again. It was safer to sob in the darkness, for Tony. It was safer to sob in the darkness for everyone. Action always carried risks.

I went up to my flat and found that my walk indeed had a salutary effect: I was feeling sleepy. So I undressed and crashed, just like that.

I slept for a really long time but even then I woke up before half past four in the morning. It was totally dark outside and I could hear rain pit-patting on the roof and the window panes. I got up and switched on my kickass lamp, lowering it so it just cast a circle of light on the table and gave a soft glow to its surroundings.

I made myself a fresh pot of coffee and drank it smoking and sitting at the table and watching the minute hand on my watch moving to exactly four thirty one. That four-three-one business was going to haunt me for the rest of my life, I was sure of that.

I spent a long time sitting at the table, smoking and drinking coffee and going over everything that had happened over the past year and gradually getting increasingly paranoid. What freaked me out more than anything else was the fact that my paranoid pal was missing.

He always showed up on such occasions, eager to kick the shit out of me. Was he gone for good, or was he gone for bad? He made me feel worse, but at the same time he was comforting in a way. Well, that was always the way things were when you became close with someone. The people you were close to made you feel good and bad, all at the same time.

"I miss your company," I said out loud. He still didn't show up. Maybe he'd left for a holiday in Mongolia, inspired by the vacation my i & i had taken earlier.

By the time the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn I felt so tired from all that worrying that I crashed again, in spite of having drunk nearly two pints of coffee. Looking for missing personality parts was truly exhausting.

I woke up again at eleven in the morning: the proper, civilized time to wake up for an aspiring artist. What actually woke me up was the whistling of that fucking kettle of Tony's. It wasn't very loud, coming from two floors below, but it had a piercing quality that was as painful and irritating as the whine of a dentist's drill.

I decided that I'd just steal that fucking kettle. Take it from the kitchen when Tony was out, and dump it a safe distance away from home. This would necessitate buying a replacement, preferably one of those electric kettles that switched off when the water was boiling. It would be a superior kettle to Tony's whistling demon, and he'd be hard put to show anger or even ingratitude. The problem was kettles like that were expensive. Making the right move was always expensive. Life was very cruel in that respect.

I took a shower in the coffin-like shower cabin, tying myself into knots and going through contortions like a fucking fakir in order to get every single part of my body sparkling clean. I thought that would make me feel better and it did, but then I had to shave. Shaving necessitated looking at the mirror for a while, and this led to several unpleasant conclusions. One of them was the realization that it was the fifteenth day of February, and that in a week's time I'd be calling Chaz to set up a presentation of the stuff I'd done for my very own show.

I had at best eight or nine pictures I could show to Chaz, and he was sure to expect at least twenty. So I walked in circles around my flat, chain-smoking cigarettes and trying to come up with a good idea for my next picture. I couldn't. The image that kept popping up in my mind was Tony hiding behind the armchair, eyes bulging with anxiety behind his stylish glasses.

I really didn't have a choice. I began to draw that scene, knowing full well that if that picture was part of the show and Tony saw it, I'd be out on my ass on the street the moment he got a chance to speak to me. I tried to talk myself into abandoning that picture and trying my hand at something else, whatever—my bed, the view from the window, even James though I had several pictures of him already.

The problem was, that drawing of Tony squatting behind an armchair was turning out really well. It was rich in meaning—there was a vast multitude of stories lurking behind that scene. I didn't want to abandon it. So at the last moment, I compromised by giving Tony someone else's face.

I didn't give any thought to that new face, I drew it on automatic so maybe it was no surprise that it turned out to be my own face. And maybe it was no surprise that it was as frightened as Tony's. It was the face of a guy that had just realized that leaving home, falling in love with a whore, quitting his studies even before they began, threatening people with a gun while aiding and abetting a pot plantator, and finally killing someone—even if it was done in so-called self-defence— were all very stupid moves. It was the face of the retard called Michael Ryman, pissing himself with fear as he listened to the cop knocking on his door.

My first thought was that I'd wasted most of the day on a picture that I wouldn't show to anyone anyway. But it was a really good picture. My terrified mug worked even better than Tony's would have done. It was to be expected: my own face was the face I knew best. I knew all the stories behind that face; and because I'd drawn it well, other people would be able to guess what those stories were about.

I smoked a cigarette by the back windows. It was almost night, again. Another day gone; life was so short!

I wasn't going to rip up that drawing and throw it out. I spent over five hours on it, counting the breaks I took to rest my hand. And it was true. It was art. Creating art always required a sacrifice, and there was no better, bigger sacrifice than myself.

I hoped Detective Moore wouldn't see that drawing. He could basically take it to the crown attorney, and get an arrest warrant issued right away.

The tree right at the back of Tony's backyard had a very sturdy bough growing out at a right angle from its trunk, maybe ten feet above the ground. It was the perfect bough for tying a rope that ended with a noose. I could always hang myself in Tony's backyard, if nothing else worked out. It would stop me worrying—dead people didn't give a fuck about anything—and maybe my suicide would shock Tony into realizing his life wasn't so bad, not really. Nothing but advantages all around!

You're such a sorry little piece of shit, said a voice inside my head. It was a familiar voice, so I took a good look inside and almost laughed with relief.

My paranoid pal was back.