The Homeless Millionaire

It took only a couple of minutes for Harry to show up. Naturally, he showed up the moment I stopped waiting for him to show up. When he said 'hey' I jumped as if it was Detective Moore speaking.

"Hey you," I said with some asperity, turning round. "You gave me a start."

Harry grinned.

"That's all good, man, isn't it?" he said. "A good start is what everyone needs."

This reminded me of Tony giving me psychotherapy so I changed the subject. I said:

"How's your mother?"

It had the desired effect: Harry became thoughtful. People always became thoughtful when you asked them about how their parents felt. It was a loaded question.

"She should be out by the end of the month," he said finally. "It's not very good news. It means she'll stay in bed at home for another month or so while I change her diapers. I love my mum a lot, but it's a heavy price to pay."

"Diapers? Really?"

"She can't move with that broken hip. Anyway. If you take a step towards me and turn around I can deposit stuff in your pocket in a discreet manner."

"Hold on," I said. I dug out my wallet and successfully kept from grimacing while taking out a ten and handing it to Harry.

"Cheers," he said. "Now turn around."

He slid something into one of the cavernous side pockets of my Canadian Tire outdoor jacket. It felt bigger than I thought it would be. I turned back to face Harry and said:

"That's for ten bucks? It feels like twenty."

"Correct," Harry said. "You got half an ounce. I charge at least twenty for a half, but what the hell—you've given me art worth a few hundred dollars." He grinned.

"You know something, Harry?" I said. "I'll try real hard to make sure that the art I've given you is worth thousands of dollars."

"Attaboy. That tube of yours, is that the magic tube whose contents are worth thousands of dollars?"

"Yeah. I'm seeing Chaz next. He wants to see what I've got."

"Go for it, man," Harry said. He pointed a finger at me and added:

"I believe in you."

And he fucked off to rejoin his mother, leaving me basking in a new, warm glow. Being told that I was a great artist, and getting twice as much pot as I'd hoped for—life was good sometimes. Not all the surprises it sprung on you were bad.

The swift conclusion of my business with Harry meant that I arrived at The Space at a quarter to four. Melanie gave me a smile when I entered. Her vamp fingernails were painted purple and she was wearing black leather head to toe, so I guessed I was really lucky to get a smile instead of being whipped across the face.

After we'd exchanged greetings she told me Chaz was waiting for me and asked if I'd like coffee or something else to drink. She gave me a meaningful look while she was saying that so I said:

"Thanks for now. I want to die sober."

I heard her giggling as I walked up to the closed door to Chaz's office. I knocked and he called out:

"Not now!"

"It's Michael," I said, feeling stupid. "Shall I come around in fifteen minutes or so?"

"No! Fuck. No! Hang on. Okay, you can come in."

When I entered Chaz's office, he was busy adjusting his pants. He caught my questioning look and said:

"I've got fucking hemorrhoids. Can you believe it? I lead a healthy life, plenty of good food and exercise, and I get fucking piles. Sorry to keep you waiting, I was trying to get a look at those guys because they feel like they want to kill me."

There was a pocket mirror lying on his desk, and I guessed he'd been trying to view the disaster scene periscope-wise. I said:

"My father gets them sometimes. He says the best thing to do is to have a bath with plenty of salt sprinkled right under your ass."

"Yeah well I can't take a bath here," said Chaz. "Never mind. I see you're carrying a tube. I assume that tube contains pictures that will make me forget my pain. Let's have it. Sling everything onto the table, man.'

His choice of words was likely influenced by the fact he was hitching his pants up as he spoke, like a gunfighter preparing for a duel.

"Just don't shoot me," I said.

Then I slid the rolled-up pictures out of my tube and thanks to the fact that Chaz was still busy fucking around with his pants, I got the chance to display them in my planned order.

"Oh my God," Chaz said, when he looked at the picture of Timmy, RIP, climbing out of his home in the mug. "This is fucking great. But you know something? It could be improved. Make it one of those I LOVE YOU mugs."

"No," I said, shocked by the supernatural connection Chaz had made with Tony's mug. "I love you? Really?"

"Yeah. It will give it plenty of extra depth."

I thought about that for a while and came to the conclusion Chaz must have been disappointed in love. I said:

"No. I'm not going to do any of that cheap double-meaning bullshit."

"No I LOVE YOU?"

"No."

"Pity," said Chaz. "Or maybe not. I mean I'm not the fucking genius, you are. Okay. What's with all the monkeys? Been feeling atavistic?"

"It's actually one monkey," I said. "Okay, there is another monkey in one picture. But otherwise, it's all James."

"James?"

"James. You know, as in James Bond."

"Mister Bond doesn't seem to be doing so good," said Chaz. "I mean, you've got him behind bars here, and he's pissed himself with fright."

He pointed at the picture of James inside the cage, with the tell-tale puddle in the background.

"You don't like it?"

"I like it. It's great. You know something, shut up and let me review all of these in peace."

I got out my cigarettes and smoked one, watching Chaz examining my pictures in perfect silence. He grimaced a couple of times: I hoped it was just his piles kicking his ass.

He spent a very long time staring at the Tree of Life. Eventually he said:

"You know, I thought I'd never see a pencil drawing that could fetch a a couple of thousand bucks. But I think this one could."

I laughed with relief.

"That's great," I said.

"Yeah. It's fucking great. But tell me, how much time did you spend on that?"

"Three full days."

"Just three? Looks like a whole fucking week. It's fucking outstanding. I'm going to make it the centrepiece of the whole show."

I was so happy I couldn't speak, just stood there grinning like the village idiot. But then things took a turn for the worse. That was Life: one moment you were pissing yourself with joy, the next you got a boot up your ass.

"Where are the acrylics?" Chaz said. "If my memory serves me correctly, I specifically asked you to paint in acrylic, and you promised you would."

I took a big hit from my cigarette and faked a bout of coughing. It bought me some time.

"Don't you try pulling that poor-artist-dying-of-tuberculosis bullshit on me," Chaz said. "Where are my acrylics?"

They were already his, not mine. I said:

"I don't have TB, but I am broke. I just didn't have enough money to buy the paint."

"You're fucking kidding me."

"No."

"I gave you a fucking big cheque a month ago! What's happened to that?"

"I moved to a new place," I told Chaz. "It was expensive. You know, an extra month's rent in advance, transportation costs, getting set up… It came to a lot of money."

"Oh yeah. I remember you mentioning that. Where are you now, North Vancouver?"

"Correct."

"Oh man," said Chaz. "Just don't start painting stags in the woods bellowing over a stream. You bring me shit like that, I'll just have to shoot you. Okay. So you're short of money. How much do you need?"

"As much as I can get," I said truthfully. Chaz turned pensive.

"Okay," he said eventually. "I'm going to give you a thousand bucks. I'm buying that tree picture for myself. I'll still include it in the show, priced at two and a half, with a nice orange SOLD sticker in the upper right corner."

"You're pricing it at two and a half thousand, but you'll only give me a thousand?" I asked, doing my best to sound disappointed. Inside, I was dancing with joy.

"Yes. You'd have gotten what, a bit over twelve hundred after the gallery cut and my personal cut and framing expenses. But you're getting the money at least three months in advance. Am I right or am I right?"

"You're right," I said.

It was the right response. Chaz said:

"I'm not going to fuck you as hard as I'd like to. My hemorrhoids won't let me. So I'll give you eleven hundred. Deal?"

"Deal," I said, and couldn't stop myself from grinning.

"All right. I'll write a cheque for the thousand and give you a hundred in cash, so you don't die of starvation before you can make it to the bank. Hang in here, I've got to have a word with Melanie."

I hung in there and fifteen minutes later, I left with a cheque for a thousand bucks and an extra hundred in cash in my wallet. It came at a price: Chaz made me swear on my mother's grave I'd show him at least twenty acrylics on my next visit. The fact that my mother wasn't dead didn't seem to bother him.

I treated myself to a cab home. Midway there, I spotted a liquor store and told the driver to stop.

He waited for me patiently, meter ticking, while I purchased two forty ouncers of Johnnie Walker. When he finally dropped me off home I gave him a two-buck tip.

"Thanks, man," he grinned.

"Thank you," I said. That included him and everyone else and the world in general.

Tony was already home. The ground floor windows blazed with light. I went inside the house and closed the front door and called out:

"Tony! Tony! Where are you? I've got news you'll like."