The Homeless Millionaire

I woke up just after three in the morning or rather three at night: it was completely dark outside. I felt dark inside, too. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't: I'd already slept for over ten hours.

It was going to be a very long day, a day that would stretch for a couple of days. I was faced with a full day of classes at the Ecole, followed by a shift at the Montrose, followed by another day of classes. I had no fucking idea how I'd be able to handle all that. I really wished I could to go back to sleep.

I forced myself to get up, and took a long bath. Lying in the bathtub and looking dejectedly at my shrivelled dick bobbing around in the water, I realized that I hadn't dreamed about any women for weeks. I wasn't feeling horny either, although almost a full month had passed since that night with Tracy, at the cottage.

Something was seriously wrong. No, several things were wrong: there was a multitude of factors at work. The Tracy business. The museum robbery. My work and family and education and money situation—fuck, there was no end to it in sight, it was enough to stress out a stoic in a coma.

I got out of the bath and got dressed for fifty hours of action: shirt, tie, jacket, flannels and shoes. The kids in my class, the people I would meet that morning would think I was seriously retarded. They were sure to come in dressed as the artists they thought they were. And I would come in dressed like a fucking receptionist at a fucking guesthouse.

Everyone would look at me closely: I was showing up for classes three weeks late. And everyone would dislike me on sight. I couldn't really blame them for that. I disliked me, too.

I went downstairs and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes until my ears buzzed. The night was beginning to lift; birds cheeped and twittered in anticipation. I inhaled some smoke the wrong way and coughed my lungs out and that shut the birds up. The noises I made shocked them into silence. It felt like an omen for the day ahead.

I forced myself to fry and eat a couple of eggs and some bread and drank my fourth and fifth morning coffee. I could hear Roch begin to move around upstairs, and the last thing I needed was listen to the jokes he'd make at my expense. So I grabbed my knapsack, carefully filled with books and notepads and pens and pencils, and bumped into the postman on my way out. I stupidly looked through the mail he'd brought and found a letter from my parents. I put it in my pocket, and went on my way.

I arrived in front of the building where the class took place an hour early. I sat down on a bench near the entrance and smoked a cigarette and drank a Coke I'd bought. There were already some kids sauntering up to the entrance and going inside the building, and most of them glanced at me and quickly looked away. At least two or three couldn't help grinning. I felt like a clown.

I also felt a great hate for all of them. I didn't want to be one of them. I'd had enough of fucking school. I'd rather work at some shit job for living money and paint in the evenings and fuck the rest.

What the hell was I doing in that place? What the fuck had possessed me to work like mad for ten months to save money so that I could study at the Ecole? Assembling a portfolio that was good enough to get me a place had also cost a lot of effort.

All this effort, all this striving to end up somewhere I didn't want to be. It was insane. I felt like a total moron.

I shook my head, drawing a couple more curious glances from people passing by, and got the letter from my parents out of my pocket and opened the envelope.

Once again, the letter had been written by my father: my mother wouldn't lower herself to writing a few words. She was extremely hurt by my behaviour, my father informed me, and so was he. My refusal to call them after he'd practically pleaded with me to do so wasn't just inexcusable, it was nasty.

He commanded me to call them the moment I got that letter, right away. Cost wasn't an excuse; I could call collect, and anyway he'd sent me money. I could tell from his tone that he knew I hadn't cashed the cheque he'd sent me, and that it had made him angry.

I swore out loud, and startled a girl that had been passing by. It was obvious she was a student: the bag slung from her shoulder was bulging with books. She was wearing bell-bottom jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt and a richly embroidered brown kaftan. She was quite pretty and her eyes were heavy with contempt for the clown on the bench.

"Fuck right off," I told her, and she blushed and walked away as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run.

I tore the letter into tiny pieces and threw them under the bench. Then I got up and just walked away. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get back any of the money I'd paid for my courses; it was too late for that. It felt totally unimportant.

I couldn't stay still, so I kept walking. I attempted to convince myself into turning back, into doing the sensible thing. I couldn't fucking do it. Just thinking about it made me deeply unhappy.

I wandered around without any goal or purpose, chain-smoking cigarettes until it was well past ten and too late to attend the class. Then I just began walking straight ahead. I went on a total trip, full automatic. I stopped when the light was red and moved when it was green and walked without bumping into other pedestrians like a well-programmed robot.

I didn't know where the fuck I was going, and I didn't care. There were ten different voices chattering inside my head and they drowned each other out.

Around half an hour later an anxious, pleading, outside voice asked me if I wanted a ticket.

It shocked me into a stop. I became aware that I was in front of Montreal's Central Station, the place where Michel had left the Brueghel in a locker. I immediately evaluated the guy that spoke to me for plainclothes cop potential.

He gave off a vibe of being in trouble, so that worked against his being a cop. He had short sandy hair and wore a tie and a jacket just like me. He was my age, and had despair written all over his freckled face. There was no fucking way he was a cop.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Ticket to Winnipeg, man. A couchette on the Canadian. You're practically guaranteed the compartment to yourself. Leaving tomorrow. I'll let you have it for fifty bucks."

"Why are you selling it?"

"Can't go, and can't get a refund. I was just fifteen minutes late, man. Fifteen minutes. But no refund possible less than twenty four hours before departure, not even twenty three hours forty five minutes. Fucking assholes. Okay. Forty bucks."

"And what would I do with it?"

"What the hell do you mean? Go to Winnipeg. Or wipe your ass with it, I don't care. Come on, man. I got to be someplace like yesterday."

"You sure you can't get a refund? Hey, you should try selling it to someone lining up to buy a ticket. It's silly to try and sell it on the street."

"Oh man, don't fuck with me. Please. I tried. They threw me outta the station, fucking security took me away. Come on. Thirty five bucks."

"Twenty," I said.

"Thirty."

"Twenty. I have no use for your ticket. Except maybe to wipe my ass. I'm basically giving you a twenty to help you out."

"Twenty five."

"Fuck," I said, and reached for my wallet and gave him twenty five bucks. It involved a bit of manoeuvring so that he wouldn't see I had lots of cash: wages from the Montrose plus Michel's payout.

He didn't even thank me. He snatched the money from my hand, pushed the ticket at me and trotted off. He was definitely in a hurry to get somewhere, somewhere that wasn't Winnipeg.

I stood and looked at the ticket, feeling a complete fool. It was genuine enough. The train was leaving at ten sharp the next morning. Suddenly I had the intense feeling that this was exactly what I should do. That desperate guy was sent by Fate. Fate knew I needed a radical change of scene. It was all preordained by the cosmos.

I tried to talk myself out of it all the way home. I had already made one monumental mistake that day. I knew no one in Winnipeg, I had never been to Winnipeg. I knew people who had, and they agreed it was the armpit of the world. But you're not going to Winnipeg, said one of my inner voices. You're going to Vancouver, all the way to the Pacific. The West Coast, popularly known as Lotus Land.

My other inner voices stayed silent. They had no counterarguments. It felt like a respectful silence, the kind of silence that follows something very clever.

"Oh man," I whispered. Then I got going with preparations for my new trip.

Roch wasn't at home: he was working away at the aunt's house. I gathered up my belongings quickly, putting everything on the mattress: there weren't many. Then I spent three hours painting a watercolour of the view from my room. It showed Roch's backyard, trees, fences, and assorted bushes, and the roofs of the houses a street away.

When it was done, I glued it on top of the Rembrandt with water-soluble paper glue. It fit the frame well, in size as well as style. No one would be able to tell something was fishy without a very close look.

I packed and repacked my things, and wrote Roch a note. I told him that I'd received a letter from my parents and had to leave right away: all true. I said I would be in Toronto end of next day, which was also true. I didn't mention I'd be aboard a train going to Winnipeg.

I apologized for being so abrupt, and added that I would get in touch soon. I didn't know how to communicate that my departure wasn't caused by the cops. After some anguished thinking I wrote Roch not to worry about me, that everything was fine really, and that I'd give him details at a later date.

I left that note right in the centre of the kitchen table, and secured it there with the ashtray. There was no way it could be missed.

I smoked a cigarette hesitating about calling the Montrose to tell them I wouldn't be coming in. All the reasons I came up with sounded lame, and eventually I decided I wouldn't offer any explanation at all. I'd just tell them I was leaving town on urgent family business, had to leave right away.

I knew Henry Houghton-Briggs would feel greatly let down and disappointed. I was sure Larry was going to have a fit. I didn't care. I wouldn't ever see or talk to them again, along with Tracy. That was my fervent hope.

I finished my cigarette and opened the kitchen cupboard with the wine. There were two bottles, so one was rightfully mine; we'd split the cost fifty-fifty. I squeezed the bottle into my bag, checked whether the Rembrandt was secure, and conducted a quick review of my pockets. I had everything with me. I was all set to leave.

I left my keys to Roch's place beside the note I on the kitchen table and went out, letting the latch slip. I slung the bag onto my back. It felt fucking heavy. There was no way I could walk all the way to the station.

I caught the first free cab I saw, and counted my money once it deposited me in front of the station. I had just over a hundred and sixty dollars. So I went inside a station store and got a couple of packs of cigarettes and a paperback about the CIA-inspired Bay of Pigs invasion of Castro's Cuba. It was the only book available that wasn't a romance. I wasn't capable of handling a romance. Bay of Pigs was better.

Then I left the station and wandered around surrounding streets until I found a cheap restaurant. I sat there till late evening, smoking and drinking beer as slowly as I could. I also had the day's special: pork chops and fries with gravy.

Around nine, I paid my bill—just seven dollars with tip—and went back to the station. I called the Montrose from one of the station payphones at exactly half past nine. Larry was totally stunned, he didn't know what to say. So I wished him good luck, and hung up.

I equipped myself with a couple of Cokes and a bag of chips and found a comfortable seat in the station's lobby. By midnight, I was the only person there and deeply into the story of the fuckup in the Bay of Pigs.

I really felt for those poor guys.