The Homeless Millionaire

I started the weekend badly. Hungover and frozen stiff—I was scared of lighting a fire because of the RCMP business the previous day—I drank coffee and rye while attempting to warm myself up by the kitchen stove. I lit all four burners, and thawed out within a few minutes. I remembered that there was a spare tank of gas and decided I'd use the stove for warmth during the day, and light a fire only after nightfall, when the smoke from the chimney would be invisible. The windows all had wooden shutters on the outside, and once I closed them I wouldn't be showing any light.

I made myself breakfast: eggs fried with sausage, and a can of the immortal baked beans. The window over the sink gave a view of the tool shed behind the house. I almost broke a plate when I remembered that this was where Harry had put all the pot. It was padlocked shut, true. But if the cops came round again, and started sniffing around that shed—

I smoked a tense cigarette by the front window, making sure no boats were about to dock at the pier. Then I slipped out of the front door, and slunk along the wall to the back of the house.

The shed's walls showed numerous cracks between the planks, some wide enough to peek inside: luckily it was really dark in there. But it didn't really matter, because the drying buds stank to high heaven. Over ten pounds of pot were drying in there, and I could easily smell it while standing several steps away. The cops or anyone else equipped with a working nose didn't need to enter the shed to know what was inside.

I panicked so badly I felt like running into the woods. After a while, I forced myself back inside the house. Of course I crept there as if I were a burglar, eyes popping and ears flapping. I could hear a couple of faraway engines buzzing like mosquitoes: it was Saturday and it wasn't raining—not yet—so some hardcore sailors were out on the bay. I hoped for a thunderstorm, soon. The heavens looked as if they might grant my wish.

Unfortunately, all they delivered was a drizzle that lasted through the rest of the day. I spent that time in the kitchen, drinking coffee and rye and smoking and trying to draw something. When evening rolled around, I had about a dozen pieces that I could use to get a fire going.

I went out and got some firewood in and closed the shutters on the front and side windows. Then I heated a big can of stew for dinner and ate that with some bread and had a beer. It was definitely dark enough to hide chimney smoke, so I finally lit a fire with the help of the day's artistic output. It was such bad shit that I flinched whenever I caught a glimpse while feeding it to the flames. My paranoid friend was mercifully quiet; he'd taken a really bad beating from Mr. Walker the previous night.

So did I, and it barely a quarter past nine when I hit the sack.

Sunday started with a storm—the thunderstorm that I'd been hoping for. I was drenched by the time I got the shutters open, and after a short hesitation put a couple of sticks of firewood atop the embers and got a small fire going even though it was daylight. I told myself there wasn't a chance of anyone seeing the smoke in that weather. When I ran outside for a quick check, I could hardly make out any smoke even when standing right in front of the house.

My guts felt heavy and when I went to unburden them, I found that I'd have to empty the chemical toilet. I still had over half a quart of Johnnie Walker, so I went for a quick consultation. Two drinks and a cigarette later, I was ready to tackle the toilet business. Johnnie told me it would be wise to get it done before eating breakfast.

He was right. Dealing with that toilet turned out to be a fucking horror. I'd never done that kind of thing before, and I was doing it with rain pouring down so hard it almost sounded like a waterfall.

First of all, I had to open the whole thing up to split it into two parts. Then I had to carry the tank into the woods, and dig a hole. The tank needed to be washed out with a hose, but I balked at that. I left it behind the tool shed, positioned to catch plenty of rain. With any luck it would do the job for me.

I had a quick hot shower and dressed in dry clothes and went into the kitchen for a coffee and rye and a cigarette. I had one and a half bottles of rye left, which made over a quart: things were safe and secure in the rye department. The storm went on and on, it got really gusty and the raindrops drummed on the windows so loudly I wouldn't be able to hear a fucking squadron of cruisers coming to land. I told myself there was no way anyone would be coming to the island in this weather. I could relax.

The light was too poor for drawing or painting, so after breakfast I went through the bookshelf and eventually chose a thick paperback entitled Captain Blood. It was written by a guy called Rafael Sabatini and it was a fucking good story, even though the titular captain Blood bore very little resemblance to real pirates. He was a good man, and handsome to boot and oozing chivalry from every pore. He was a trained doctor and experienced soldier, equally good at ending and saving lives. And he was always clean and well-dressed, which was a big feat in the seventeenth century and basically impossible in the tropics.

He got sent down to Barbados as a convict and became the most successful pirate of all times. Subsequently pardoned and promoted to governor, he'd also managed to capture the heart of one of the top beauties in the Caribbean. It was fairyland all the way, and I stayed there all day. The rain had changed into the standard drizzle by the late afternoon; I let the fire in the front room go out and stayed in the kitchen, reading by the kerosene lamp, with breaks for fresh tea and fresh plates of shortbread.

My paranoid pal had completely abandoned me; it felt odd not to have him around. I was expecting him to get plenty of mileage from the pot in the tool shed, but didn't hear a single peep. Maybe he was reading about the adventures of Peter Blood along with me. Or maybe he was so allergic to fairylands he made himself scarce.

I had been using a large jar as a piss pot, and when night started to fall I went out to empty it and check on the chemical toilet. My plan had worked: the rain had washed it clean.

Eating another canned-stew-and-bread dinner, I wondered about my chances of getting some of this fairyland business working in my own life. I imagined myself living in my own house overlooking a warm ocean, leisurely producing a brilliant picture every day, with a bag of prime pot in the freezer along with plenty of ice for the Johnnie Walker. There would be a box of that in the pantry, that was for sure.

After I'd completed another masterpiece, I would go and eat a good meal in a restaurant nearby and all the pretty waitresses would compete to serve my table, and then converse in excited whispers while stealing quick looks. I imagined having a show of my own at the gallery, and making enough money to live on for at least a year without financial worry.

I knew all that would never happen, because I'd already found out that imagining anything guaranteed it would never happen, at least not in the imagined way. All kinds of unexpected shit would take place, and even if I reached my goal it wouldn't feel the way I'd been expecting it to feel. There would be no feeling of accomplishment or even satisfaction. It would become the new normal, right away.

There was another Sabatini lurking on the bookshelf, and I picked it when I was done with Peter Blood. The second Sabatini was entitled Scaramouche. It promised to be a fairy tale set in France.

The France I'd known featured plenty of dogshit.. I was looking forward to seeing how Scaramouche handled that.