The Homeless Millionaire

It was raining when I woke up the next day and it was foggy, too; when I looked out of the window I could barely see the pier. I capitalized on that and lit a proper fire without worrying about anyone spotting the smoke, and sat in front of the fireplace while going through my usual coffee-and-cigarettes morning routine.

My chemical toilet experience of the previous day had motivated me to use it as little as possible. So when the time came, I got dressed and took a wad of paper and the shovel and went for a walk in the woods.

It was very peaceful in there. I smoked a cigarette while squatting over the hole I'd dug, watching the smoke I blew out dissolve in the milky grey mist. There was next to no wind, and all the birds were quiet. The whole world seemed to be sleeping under a thick, soft blanket. I was almost done when there was a rustle and a squirrel suddenly appeared no more than an arm's length away. It reared up on its hind legs and gave me the beady black eye. It seemed pissed off by my presence.

"I'm sorry," I told the squirrel. It didn't seem happy with my apology and bounded away into the mist. It crossed my mind that maybe its home was nearby, and that it didn't appreciate big, noisy, stupid animals taking a dump by the front entrance. I was sorry that I hadn't taken along a shortbread or something to leave by way of making amends.

I took extra care to cover up my crime, and went back inside the house for a quick hot shower and did the breakfast routine. It was tiresome, really, shoveling all that food inside just to shit it out the next day. I was getting really sick of the baked beans. I'd eaten enough of them in the past couple of weeks to last me for the rest of my life.

The weak, watery light inspired me to try my hand at a watercolour. I decided to paint my breakfast debris: the plate smudged with sauce and spotted with bread crumbs, the dirty knife and fork crossed in an argument over who got the bigger share of the food. I scraped out a couple of beans surviving at the bottom of the can and put them next to the warring cutlery, and poured some of my remaining coffee into a small cup and set it down next to the plate.

The dark pool at the bottom of the cup shone faintly with reflected light, and I knew I'd have a hell of a time capturing that reflection. There was a thin gold band running along the rim of the cup too; if I managed to get all that right, it would be one hell of a painting.

Some people drew an outline in hard pencil before painting a watercolour, but I didn't. I could always see the faint pencil lines later, and they seemed to imply the picture had been painted by a retard who had to follow the dotted line. I used a brush dipped in water instead; the outline evaporated leaving no trace.

Getting the shape of the plate and the cup with the paintbrush turned out to be fucking difficult. I tore up my first two attempts, hissing with impatience. I took a cigarette break, and wondered whether a shot of rye would improve things: alcohol often gave my hand the fluidity of movement required to get something right with a single, decisive stroke. I was about to get the rye bottle when I heard footsteps approaching the front door, and I froze.

It was Harry. He came in, and suddenly the house was full of noise. I wished he hadn't shown up. I had been getting on all right in my misty bubble.

He picked up on that right away and I had to lie, explaining that I was trying to paint something and fucking it up time after time. I asked him how the hell he'd managed to find his way with all that fog outside.

"It's easy," he told me. "I always go along the shore and hit the pier. Hey, I've got news that will put a smile on that life-is-shit face of yours."

"Oh yeah?" I said. I immediately thought that maybe Chaz had sold a couple of my pieces even before they were put on display. It was stupid to think so, but I couldn't help it.

"Yeah. I tracked the guy that boat, you know, that cruiser is registered to. Bigshot corporate executive. Further investigation revealed that he has two birdbrain teenage sons, one of whom is most likely the guy that took daddy's boat. But I wrote letters to both of them, just in case. Explained what could happen if they try to steal pot from other people. People who get upset easily, and know how to use a gun."

"Jesus, Harry. That's heavy. What if the cops trace the letters back to you?"

"They won't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"My old man was a cop, man. I know how they work. And I didn't use the post. I hand-delivered those letters right after daybreak. Had a hell of a time finding the place in this fog. Then I did a bit of shopping, and drove down to the boat at twenty fucking miles per hour. Man, it's fucking terrible down in the city. No wind, the air stinks so badly you can hardly breathe. It's a real pleasure to be out here. But hey, you don't look too pleased. What's the matter? And don't feed me bullshit it's your fucked-up painting."

"You need a drink first," I said, and got it for him. I got myself a drink, too. We sat down and tossed the rye back and lit up and I told him about the visit from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I mentioned that they'd been accompanied by some of the guys from the cruiser, and that one of those guys was called Joey.

"But that's one of the guys I wrote," Harry exclaimed. "Joseph Stanton, Esquire."

"Esquire?"

"Sure. Always pat their ass before applying the boot. More shock value."

"You don't seem to be bothered by those cops."

"I'm not."

"You realize you've got a shed full of illegal drugs?"

"Inadmissible evidence."

"What?"

"We are living in a civilized country, man," Harry told me, pouring himself a fresh shot of rye. "A cop needs a search warrant to present anything found as evidence. Search warrants are issued by a judge. Those guys that came here had no grounds to apply for a search warrant. And anyway, if they had one, they'd have just broken down the door. They didn't. The conversation you've just described suggests Joey boy gnawed their asses about you and being the son of a local bigshot, he actually managed to get them to have a look. That's all there's to it."

"You aren't worried he's going to run to them with that letter you wrote?"

"No. I typed that letter on a typewriter in the university library. I still got my card, it comes in useful. If the cops bother to trace the typewriter, which they won't, it's basically evidence that it's all a hoax. That Joey guy will really get his ass in a sling if he tries to work a number with that letter."

"I need a shot," I said. I drank it and lit a fresh cigarette and said:

"Harry, how the fuck did you manage to find all of that out and get it done, too? In the space of a single weekend?"

"You shitting me? It took a total of three, maybe four hours. An hour on Friday with the boat registry and the phone directory, and that includes a couple of calls to people in the know. An hour and a half Saturday to get those letters typed. And nearly an hour of driving around in this fucking fog to find the house. That's all."

"You're fucking amazing."

"Thank you. I think I deserve another shot of that excellent rye. And what have you been up to, apart from hiding from cops?"

"I emptied and cleaned the chemical toilet," I said, giving him the heavy eye—after all, I'd been dealing with his shit too.

"No! My hero! Did you remember to put in fresh powder?"

"Oh shit! No. I don't even know where you keep it. But you know something, I haven't used it in the meantime. So everything's okay."

"You've been shitting in the woods?"

"Yeah."

"Brave man."

We swapped wisecracks for a while and then Harry said he needed some shuteye: he'd gotten up before dawn that day. I told him I'd unpack the shopping—the bags stood right where he'd dropped them upon entering—and he fucked off to his room. I had another shot of rye and capped the bottle and put it away before taking it out and pouring myself another shot and putting it away again.

The shopping included the weekend edition of the paper. It was called the Sunday Sun and the big headline was that the Viet Cong had said they'd stick to a recent peace accord, and stop killing people. I didn't believe that and neither did the guys in the accompanying photograph, you could see it in their faces. There was nothing at all about Peter Schmidt and the mysterious hitchhiker eagerly sought as a conversation partner by the cops.

I couldn't return to painting the breakfast debris; I'd felt compelled to clean up with Harry around. My mood had changed too, I no longer felt all fired up to paint something. So I ended picking up Sabatini's Scaramouche fairy tale.

This time around, I was dealing with a lawyer who also happened to be an expert fencer. Captain Blood had been an expert fencer, too. Sabatini seemed to have a soft spot for professional men who were also good at killing other people in a gentlemanly manner. It made for good reading.

Harry emerged from his room mid-afternoon, bearing a chess set. I batted him away with my paperback, but he kept twisting my arm during dinner. So we had a few games of chess after we'd eaten, and he beat my ass every which way every single time.

"You're losing on purpose," he said, after his fifth victory.

"No," I said. "I'm really doing my best."

It was the perfect answer, because it was both the truth and a lie. I was doing my best, but just had no inclination to play chess. So my best amounted to very little.

I wanted to return to my fairy tale.