The Homeless Millionaire

Sunday morning was very quiet and peaceful. When I woke up, the only noise I could hear was the rumbling in my stomach. It wanted food. I'd only eaten half a loaf of sliced bread, one can of corned beef, and another of the infamous beans with pork (meaning piece of lard) all day Saturday.

I often woke up hungry but usually, a couple of mugs of coffee and a few cigarettes took care of that. They didn't this time, even though I'd put plenty of sugar into the coffee. I was fucking starving.

All I had left was the surviving half-loaf of old sliced bread, a single can of corned beef, the two apples that had opted for early retirement, and one of those just-add-boiling-water meals that I'd purchased while I was still living with the Noyces. It claimed to be spaghetti and it had survived that long because I knew it was fucking nasty.

I ate it anyway. I was at the stage where I felt like eating the cardboard packaging too, just because it featured a picture of beautiful-looking spaghetti.

Of course that picture was captioned 'Suggested Serving' so that no one could sue the guys that made it for the ugly mess that resulted from adding boiling water. It tasted just as bad I remembered, but I had no choice. I wolfed it down together with the remaining bread and then ate both surviving apples, brown stains and wrinkled skin included.

I made myself another coffee after that and lit a cigarette and tried to think of something that I'd like to draw. Painting was out for the simple reason that I'd run out of white paint, and almost run out of black and yellow. Those were the colours I used most often when mixing new colours. There was no way I could complete a new picture without any white paint, even though I was painting on paper.

I needed two tubes of white, one of black, and one-and-a-half tubes of yellow, which meant another two. That would see me through a couple of pictures, and then I'd need blue and red as well. There were no art stores in North Vancouver and I'd have to go downtown and it would be a major pain, because there was no way I could afford a cab. I'd have to take the fucking bus and it would take forever.

Of course I was excused from doing all that right away because it was a Sunday, but that was little consolation: I had an exceptionally shitty Monday coming up. It would be an expensive day, too.

And so instead of drawing something I got my wallet out of the drawer, and counted my money. I still had nearly forty bucks but that was supposed to last me until the end of the month. I had practically no food and just two packs of cigarettes and exactly six cigarettes left in my current pack. I was also running low on coffee and sugar.

And to cap it all I had to go out anyway, right away, and buy something to eat—meaning I'd have to shop at the small supermarket that was open seven days a week, and where everything was more expensive. I felt like a penniless beggar and then I felt my stomach beginning to act up after that fucking spaghetti so I drank a baking soda cocktail that tasted like shit.

I brushed my teeth but didn't shower or shave: if I was going the beggar route, I was going all the way. I got dressed and snuck downstairs and realized that Tony was out. He was at work again because of that Monday deadline, he was working after spending Saturday night sober and he would be in one hell of a bad mood when he got home. I made a mental note to steer clear of Tony for the next few days.

It wasn't bad outside, it was just short of being nice: greyish clouds stretched as far as I could see. The air had a sweetish smell that meant approaching rain, so I walked as fast as I could without slipping on the wet, rotting leaves scattered everywhere.

It was good that I kept my eyes on the pavement and my head down because when I finally looked up just as I was approaching the store, I saw Roy Maddon going in. I saw his face in profile and there was no mistaking that beak of a nose coupled with an almost inexistent chin.

I came to an abrupt stop and fortunately he didn't see me, he was already stepping inside through the store entrance. I turned around and walked away and turned at the nearest corner and stopped to light a cigarette, hands shaking.

If he was shopping at that supermarket, he had to live really close by. And Tony had said he'd seen him at The Black Dog, too. Two major, important locales in shitty little North Vancouver were denied to me forever. I didn't dare enter either because of fucking Roy Maddon.

I had to walk several blocks before I found a corner store that was open for business. Everything was so expensive I actually thought about buying a few cans of dog food.

In the end I bought a box of rice and two cans of red kidney beans and, after a lot of thought, a pack of cigarettes. There was always the possibility that the weather was going to be so awful the next day that I'd be forced to stay home, after all. I wasn't going to ride the bus to downtown Vancouver and back in pouring rain and wind halfway up the Beaufort scale.

I also bought bread and a few apples, taking utmost care in selecting the best specimens I could find. I paid five dollars and change for all that, nearly double of what I'd pay in the big supermarket at the mall. I was down to one spare flint for my lighter and maybe a spoonful of lighter fluid, so I took a booklet of matches and the Chinese guy behind the counter gave me a nasty look. He was about to ask me to pay a penny for the matches when I turned and walked out of the store.

I walked home skulking like someone with a bad conscience, carrying the paper bag close to my face and keeping a sharp eye out for fucking Roy Maddon. I made it back safely. Tony still hadn't returned home.

I undressed and unpacked my shopping and took the bigger pot of the two that came with the flat and cooked a lot of rice, throwing in the two cans of beans and my remaining can of corned beef when the rice was ready. It added up to enough food to see me through several meals.

I ate a big bowl of that, feeling like a Mexican peasant. There was no question of my painting or drawing anything that day; I was too depressed for that. Anyway the food knocked me out, all I could do was sit and drink tea and smoke and swim in self-pity. I was broke and banned from the only decent bar in fucking North Vancouver and forced to skulk around like a criminal.

But that's exactly who you are, said my paranoid pal. You're a criminal.

He had been quiet all day, although I could feel him hovering in the background. He hadn't said anything when I saw Roy Maddon enter the store. He'd been pretty easy on me following his reappearance, and I fancied this was because during the New Year's Eve party we'd established a better, nicer relationship with each other. But what he said now was a real kick in the balls.

I was a fucking criminal, and would remain a fucking criminal to the end of my life, regardless whether I was caught or not. It was good that I'd eaten because if I had that thought on an empty stomach, I'd have probably started blubbing like a baby.

I had been so full of hope at that party! The famous Ludo had implied I was on my way to fame and riches! And Fiona—

I narrowed my eyes and took a deep hit from my cigarette.

Chaz had told me Fiona was pissed off at me in a major way. But he'd also told me she wanted to commission a picture from me, maybe even two. And this time around, I sure as hell could charge a pretty dollar.

I wondered why I didn't keep on calling her until I actually got her on the phone. But I didn't wonder about that for very long, because deep down inside I knew why I hadn't done that.

I was scared of falling in love with Fiona. She was beautiful and rich and she had style and a personality that would flatten mine like a road roller. Any relationship I formed with Fiona was bound to end very, very badly.

Actually, it had already ended badly. So what did I have to lose?

I decided that I'd call Fiona the next day. I decided that I'd also call my parents. After two cigarettes of hesitation I went downstairs—Tony still hadn't returned—and placed a collect call to Toronto.

I got lucky. No one was home.

I went back upstairs and smoked cigarettes and thought about Fiona and developed a hard-on that was so hard it was painful.

History was full of stories about guys that lost their heads for various females, and sometimes lost them very literally. Well, at least no one was going to cut off my head or hang me for fucking her—if I managed to get to fuck her at all.

Tony returned home just as I was going to bed; I wanted to make it a very early night so that I could get going with all my ambitious plans at the crack of dawn the next day.

I lay in my bed listening to him move around downstairs and was reminded that on my first evening in the flat, he'd returned late accompanied by a giggling female, and that later he'd told me splitting up with his wife had worked wonders for his ability to pick up new chicks. He'd told me that getting divorced, being divorced was just great! And just a couple of weeks later, he was all cut up about it, and there were no giggling females around.

I'd have to question him about it at the earliest opportunity, in a very tactful way of course.

My last thought before falling asleep was the wish that I'd dream about Fiona.