The Homeless Millionaire

There was no one inside the laundromat, which suited me just fine. There was a row of washers and dryers along one wall, a scattering of ugly metal chairs with padded plastic seats and backrests along the other, and a couple of long, Formica-topped tables in the middle. At the far end there were a couple of huge sinks on metal legs. These were probably intended for masochists who insisted on washing stuff by hand.

I set up camp deep inside the laundromat, as far from its windowed front as I could get. The less people saw me, the better. I put my bag on the table and opened it and it immediately became apparent everything in the bag was at least moist. The clothes I'd washed or rather attempted to wash in the creek were sopping wet.

I threw them into one of the washers, bought a small box of detergent from the vending machine near the entrance, and got things rolling. Then I turned my attention to the rest of my clothes, most of which were strewn on the table. I tried to sort them into soggy, not-so-soggy and almost-dry, but I quickly gave up and threw the lot into two washers and bought more detergent.

My bag needed a wash, too, so I activated the fourth washer. I had four washers going, and it had gotten pretty noisy in that laundromat. I examined the rest of my belongings strewn on top of the table. The sketchpad in my haversack was dry, and none of the tubes of paint had burst: bonus. I pulled out the Rembrandt from its own plastic bag.

Thankfully, the T-shirt I'd wrapped around it was dry. I removed it and examined the watercolour I had glued onto the Landscape with Cottages. It was intact, as was the paper I'd glued over the back. I made a mental note to paint over the museum's catalog number at a future date: as it was, anyone who peeled the paper off the back of the painting would immediately see that it had been stolen. I wrapped up my million-dollar treasure and put it away and reviewed the rest of my possessions.

There seemed to be very few of them. They, and the stuff in the washers, were everything that I had in the whole wide world. I picked up the plastic box with my soap, and turned to the nearest sink.

There was a smudged, blotchy mirror hanging above the sinks and when I caught sight of my face I gasped. It was dark with dirt and spotted with crusts of blood here and there, and my hair clearly identified me as a madman from a long way off. I got going with soap and water. I kept glancing in the mirror to check on the entrance, the noise from the washers made it impossible to hear anyone coming inside, and I was properly paranoid after seeing what my face looked like.

By the time I was done washing and combing my hair I had an awful sour taste in my mouth—from the fear, the Coke, the candy that I'd eaten earlier. There were some newspapers and magazines on the table closer to the entrance, left behind by people who'd read them while waiting for their laundry to get done. None were fresh, and I had a hard time deciding which one to use as my plate.

Eventually I picked a two-day-old newspaper called the Salmon Arm Observer and carried it back to my chosen table, sneering at its name. I opened a tin of luncheon meat and the bag with the sliced bread and began to eat.

I had no utensils and I had to use my knife to eat the meat. It was warm and did not slice properly and I ended up with an unholy mess of fat-speckled pink slime all over the face of the guy that was a policeman of some sort. A photo of him standing next to another, solemn-looking guy occupied a full quarter-page. The article was about a couple of teenagers that had disappeared while hitchhiking their way east; they had intended to go to Toronto of all places, the stupid fucks. Most likely they'd reached their destination and looked around and then killed themselves from shame and despair.

I didn't connect that article with Peter Schmidt until after I'd finished moving my stuff from the washers to the dryers. I was almost out of change and was counting the coins I'd left and then it hit me, out of the blue: it could have been him. He'd told me he drove the western coast route pretty regularly, it paid well because of the distance involved, he made more during a three-day haul from Ontario than he would in a full fortnight of fucking around with short trips. He didn't say anything about picking up other hitchhikers, but then he wouldn't if he was raping and killing some of them.

I was instantly convinced that it had been him behind the disappearances. I lit a cigarette, and was about to start congratulating myself on ridding the world of a rapist and a killer when it struck me that I wanted him to be that rapist and killer. It absolved me of blame in killing him. It felt better to be the avenging angel instead of a panicked moron with a knife.

I just couldn't trust my own judgement any more. I looked back on the events of the past couple of months and it immediately became clear I should have used my knife on myself instead of Peter Schmidt. To begin with, I broke off all ties with my family, a family that most likely was far better than the average union of genetically-related misfits. I'd almost fallen in love with a whore. I had thrown out over a thousand dollars in hard-earned savings and a place at the Ecole, an art school that had at least a dozen applicants for every available seat. I'd gotten involved in a major theft, a robbery that involved firearms even if no one had died.

But all that wasn't enough for Michael Moron Ryman, oh no. Why not go all the way while you're at it? So I rounded things off by killing someone.

I tried to console myself with the fact that I had the Rembrandt, my very own, authentic, million-dollar Rembrandt. Suddenly, it struck me that life was a zero sum. Every gain had to be counterbalanced by an equivalent loss: birth with death, joy with sadness, hope with fear, love with apathy. Not hate, because hate was frozen love.

Whenever you thought you'd scored big —big, big credit!—and that you were ahead, you weren't really. You simply weren't aware of the hidden debit— not yet. If you were lucky to be stupid enough you'd never find out, and then you could go on living thinking that you were a winner, without the faintest idea of what you'd lost.

When you chose option A instead of option B, you automatically lost out on whatever option B had to offer. And nothing ever came free. When it seemed that way, the bill to pay came later—often with huge interest tacked onto the original price.

I was a millionaire, stuck in a million-dollar mess. That mess was the price I had to pay.

I really went off on one in that fucking laundromat. I stood there and smoked cigarettes staring in front of me and saw nothing but calamity. I came to my senses only when the first of the dryers stopped running with a long, drawn-out wheeze.

I examined the clothes I'd worn during the killing when I was folding them. I thought I could still see faint stains, but my eyes couldn't really be trusted, I was seeing all sorts of things. When the last dryer, the dryer with my bag, stopped running I packed everything very neatly. I took great pains to fold everything just right.

I rolled the shopping bag that had held dirty clothing into a tight ball, and threw it into the dustbin. I also threw out the half-full bottle of Coke; it was warm and horrible and I could already feel it splashing against the back of my teeth. I drank a couple of handfuls of water and gave my face and hair the final touch, drying off my hands. Then I swung my newly clean traveling bag onto my back and put the strap across my chest and left the laundromat.

I stopped almost immediately; it dawned on me I didn't have a plan. So I put down the bag on the ground and lit a cigarette, looking at the parking lot. It was almost empty, as empty as my head.

I still wanted to go to Vancouver, that much was clear. I had to get there, one way or another. And before I set out again, it would be wise to lay in some supplies: non-candy food, something neutral to drink. It would also be wise to get moving on all that right away, because I was starting to feel really tired.

I picked up my bag and slung it across my back and got going.