The Homeless Millionaire

Winnipeg seemed to be full of drunken Indians. I saw the first one on the almost empty platform, when I got off the train: it was exactly a quarter to three in the morning. That Indian was hard to miss: he was over six feet tall and four across the shoulders. He was standing next to a closed newspaper stall. I made sure not to look at him as I passed: I had the feeling that he wanted to approach me, and that he would do so the moment I acknowledged his presence.

I ran into three more drunk Indians in the station washroom. I had been forced to go there by the pressing need to take a shit. I had been afraid to do that on the train, because it would have meant leaving my bag unattended in my compartment. If I lost my Rembrandt while defecating, I'd have no choice but to kill myself with my own fist.

The Indians in the washroom didn't as much as glance in my direction: they were huddled in the far corner over a washbasin, arguing about something in their native language. I squeezed myself into a cabin together with my bag and stood it on end; there was just enough space for my legs if I sat slightly sideways. It wasn't a comfortable position, and I spent a while on the toilet seat. The Indians took a while, too: at one point they started shouting at each other. Then there was the sound of a smack and they fell silent and left right afterwards.

I washed my face and shaved. The washbasin the three Indians had been standing by was speckled with blood. The mirror told me I should have cut my hair cut before leaving Montreal. Long hair was very fashionable, but that was why I wanted it short.

When I'd brushed my teeth and was putting everything back in my bag, my hand encountered one of the half-bottles I'd bought back in Montreal. It was the brandy. I pulled it out and pushed it into the rear pocket of my jeans. I had a heavily loaded ass: my wallet in one back pocket, the brandy in the other.

I also excavated and put on my black wool jumper and my jean jacket on top of that. It had been chilly on the platform, and it would be colder still when I left the station.

When I did, I ran into four drunk Indians: the guy I'd seen on the platform accompanied by the gang of three from the washroom. I walked away from them and towards a big intersection maybe a quarter mile down the road and heard steps behind my back: at least one of them was following me. I began walking faster.

"Hey."

I couldn't really walk faster without breaking into a run. I looked around me: no one else in sight, not a single fucking witness, and this was supposed to be one of Winnipeg's major streets, it was called fucking Main Street! It was around three in the morning, but still—

"Hey. Hey, you! Wait."

I could hear that he'd started running. It was no use trying to escape, I wouldn't be able to outrun a cripple with that fucking bag. So I stopped and turned around.

It was the big Indian from the platform. When he saw that I'd halted, he slowed down to a walk. He stopped right in front of me. His eyes were narrowed into slits and his mouth was twisted in a sour, cruel curve. I could smell the booze in his breath when he said:

"Give me a dollar. Two dollars! Give me two dollars."

I didn't wait for him to get up to five bucks. I said:

"I'm not going to give you a fucking quarter. I have no job and no home and I need every fucking cent I have."

That surprised him. He blinked and thought about it. So did I. I pulled the brandy out of my rear pocket and said:

"What I can do is share this with you. I need a drink. Would you like a drink?"

The cruel lips split into a grin.

"Hell, yes," he said. He glanced around and added, pointing a finger down the street:

"Let's go to and sit at that bus stop there. The cops drive by now and then. It's better to be sitting at the bus stop."

"But there are no buses. It's three am. We'll look just as odd sitting there when there are no buses running."

"There is a night bus every hour. Let's go."

We went to the bus stop and sat down and I opened the bottle after checking for presence of any law-and-order guys. I took a small sip and gave him the bottle and he chugged down half the contents in one go. I got paranoid there would be none left for me. But he stopped drinking and wiped his lips and said, handing the bottle back:

"That was good. Thank you, friend." He whacked my shoulder in what he probably thought was a friendly way. He had a hand like heavy-duty hammer.

"You're welcome," I said and drank as much as I could without choking. I managed about half of what was left. I was only half as good at drinking brandy as that fucking Indian; I was inferior. I offered the bottle to him and got a surprise: he waved it away.

"No, no," he said. "I've already had my share."

"You sure?"

He whacked my shoulder again, in exactly the same spot: it was getting painful.

"Sure I'm sure. You really don't have a home? Where you headed?"

"West coast. I was thinking of hitching a ride."

He nodded, slowly.

"West coast," he said. "Nice. Good idea." He did some more nodding, then added:

"But you ain't gonna find no ride here. There's a service station, BP, on the road out of town, a lot of westbound traffic there."

"Long way?"

He looked at me and pursed his lips.

"For a guy like you? No, not too long. An hour, maybe an hour and a half." He pointed to the intersection and added:

"You go there and head west on Broadway and keep going till you reach Portage. Keep going west on Portage and after a while you'll see a big hospital, it's called Deer Lodge. The BP station is four–five blocks west of there. They got a car wash and a big garage, you can't miss it. Hey, why don't you have a car?"

"I can't afford to run a car. You sure about that walk? How about I wait for the night bus?"

"The night bus doesn't take that route. You got good fuel inside you, walk! People were made for walking."

He seemed very pleased with that thought. I wasn't. I said goodbye and he wished me good luck and I got going. I hoped that he wouldn't follow me.

He didn't. I crossed the dead Main Street and started walking west on Portage, as instructed. I saw absolutely no one and nothing around for quite a while. A taxicab passed me after ten minutes or so; a few hundred steps later, I saw a cop car driving in the other direction, headed downtown. It was on the other side of the road and it slowed down to a crawl and I could almost hear the cops debating on whether they should turn around and give me a closer look. They didn't.

I got lucky just before I reached the BP service station—I could actually see it. It was nearing five by then, the night was retreating and there was a vehicle passing by every couple of minutes, mostly delivery vans and trucks headed downtown. When I heard a car approaching me from behind and identified the engine as belonging to a saloon, I looked over my shoulder expecting to see a cop cruiser. But it was an ordinary car and I stuck out my thumb in a reflex.

I didn't expect it to stop, but it did. It was a relatively new station wagon with fake wood panelling in the rear and I trotted up to it arranging my face into a grateful smile.

The car contained a retired husband-and-wife couple. They were going all the way to Calgary, and they were happy to give me a ride. I got in explaining I'd prefer to put my bag on the floor instead of throwing it in the back because it contained fragile items.

I had to answer some pleasant but pretty sharp questions from the woman, a plump blonde whose hair had been permed and lacquered into a mountain. I identified myself and generally told the truth except for the purpose of my journey. I said my older brother had had an accident (something I'd frequently wished on Josh), and required my assistance while recuperating in Vancouver.

Stan and Barbara—these were their names, their second name was a Polish tongue-twister—commiserated, and expressed wishes for my older brother’s swift recovery. Then Stan—a gaunt guy with a full head of close-cropped hair like iron filings—fell silent, and focused on the driving. Barbara told me that they intended to be in Calgary by the evening. Nine at the latest! A favourite TV program started at nine thirty, and you'll get us there on time, won't you Stan?

"Sure," Stan said, sounding sad.

Then Barbara got going on me. What was life in Montreal like? Wasn't it dangerous, with all those crazy Quebec nationalists running around? She'd heard that plenty of people were moving to Toronto, why did I choose to move the other way? Was it true you could buy alcohol anywhere in Montreal? I saw Stan's ears perk up when she asked that.

I answered her at length, making sure to sound more tired and sleepy with every sentence. When she couldn't ignore it any longer she called me a poor boy, and let me be.

I pretended to sleep so well I actually did nap on and off throughout the morning. We stopped for lunch at midday in a proper restaurant and they insisted on treating me: I turned red with embarrassment, which endeared me to them even further.

We ate steaks and fries—we'd already entered big beef country—and the portions were enormous. I was close to bursting by the time I was done. Barbara had polished off her plate without any trouble—she'd actually finished eating before I did—while Stan struggled to finish his steak. He left close to half of his fries uneaten too, and his wife plucked at them with her fingers while we waited for the coffee.

There were a few increasingly desultory utterances from Barbara when we got back into the car; then she went into full digesting mode and fell silent. It was a beautiful day, but the view was as boring as it could only get: a flat plain with crop fields and pastures and farms and the occasional cookie-cutter town. Stan drove on at a steady sixty-five; we still had nearly five hundred miles to go.

When I wasn't napping, I was staring at the monotonous landscape and checking the distance remaining to Calgary on all the signs we passed. It seemed it would take fucking ages to get there, every mile less was cause for a minor celebration.

Around six we stopped for coffee and snacks and Barbara had to go powder her nose. She powdered it for over twenty minutes and Stan was getting concerned and about to embark on a search-and-rescue mission when she finally reappeared. She seemed a little pale in spite of a thick layer of fresh powder on her face.

We reached Calgary around a quarter past nine despite Stan really going for it and hitting seventy, occasionally even seventy five. Then he did something that blew me away. Braving an increasingly hostile silence from Barbara—her TV show was starting any moment!—he drove me all the way out to a service station at the western road exit. He was sure I would get a ride there straight into Vancouver.

We said goodbye and I gave them a sketch I'd made one morning in Montreal. It depicted the view from my bedroom window and it had taken me all of fifteen minutes: I got everything down one morning and then touched things up a few days later, after I'd decided that it was worth the effort. They were very pleased, especially Barbara: she declared that I was a genius.

I watched their tail lights fade away. It was sad to see them go; they were good people.. Then I picked up my bag and walked up to the glass doors of the station building.