The Homeless Millionaire

I woke up just before dawn and lay there for quite a while, thinking increasingly hard about that light across the water. By the time I got up I was determined to check things out at close range. I didn't feel too enthusiastic about the prospect of walking a couple of miles through the woods to get there, and another couple of miles to get back. It would mean at least three hours spent traipsing among insects, snakes, and shit. I had to go, twice, all the way around the end of that lake, watching every step for camouflaged traps, like those guys fighting in Vietnam. My curiosity simply wasn't big enough to propel me through all this shit.

I drank coffee watching the sky grow pale and had the thought I could try my hand at fishing: it was early morning, which had been advertised by Roch as the best time to catch a few bass. I got one of the rods, the shorter one, out of the closet - it had the right lure, a bent tin disc rotating around a turd-like metal body, with the hook half-hidden in a bunch of red bristle. It had a fancy spinning reel with something like a dozen gears, more than a racing bike. You could probably handle sharks and small whales with that f.u.c.k.i.n.g reel.

I went out and walked down to the pier carrying the fishing rod, a bucket, and the binoculars. There were a couple of bottles of beer in the bucket; I was hoping to exchange them for a couple of fish. But it had been a long time since I last went fishing, at least four years. My first attempt to cast into the lake ended with the lure stuck in the boardwalk. On my second attempt, the lure hit my back and the hook went clear through my jean jacket, T-shirt, and skin.

I gave up. It took a couple of minutes to get that f.u.c.k.i.n.g hook out - the barb kept catching, that was its purpose after all. When I had finally dealt with all this I sat down on the edge of the pier, legs dangling over water, and had a beer and a cigarette. And it was while I was sitting there, smoking and looking around, that I had the idea I could swim across the lake to take a look at that house, instead of trekking through the woods.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I looked along the shore and picked out what looked like good spots for launch and landing, using the binoculars. They weren't that far apart, two hundred and fifty yards tops. I could easily swim a quarter mile with the crawl, and a full mile using b.r.e.a.s.tstroke.

I became a good swimmer in my early teens, when I was staying in Stockholm, Sweden. There was absolutely nothing to do on summer weekends except go to the beach or a lake. The a.d.u.l.ts would get drunk on the shore, while us kids spent most of the time in the water. There just wasn't anything else to do. My parents were delighted I'd found something to keep me busy on those weekend trips, and bought me fins and a diving mask complete with a snorkel. At first the old man made a show of watching my progress with a furrowed brow, and barking out stupid advice sprinkled with equally stupid warnings. When he finally saw that I was doing okay, he gladly returned to drinking and conducting conversations that gradually increased in volume and became punctuated by shrieks of laughter. That's where my interest in booze came from: my parents. The only time they seemed to have a good time was when they were throwing booze down their throats.

Anyway, by the time I finished my second beer I decided I would give the swim a go. I gathered up all my gear and went back to the house and fixed myself another heavy-duty breakfast of meat, potatoes, and salad. Roch's salad was gone so I made my own, it really isn't rocket science. I liked Roch's dressing, so I copied it by adding a teaspoonful of English mustard to a mix of oil and vinegar. I ate myself stupid and then spent nearly three hours on the couch in the living room, facing the glass doors that led to the deck. I could see the house across the lake through the glass and after a while I made the effort to get up, and fetch the binoculars before lying down again. It was a very comfortable couch and I dropped off a couple of times, dozing for a few minutes and waking up when my head began to slide off the armrest.

The second time I woke up, I thought I noticed movement on the deck of that house. I got the binoculars and saw a red stain moving around. I fiddled with the focus knob but the picture remained distorted. By the time I'd worked out there was a fault in the door's glass and moved my stupid head, the girl in the red one-piece bathing suit was going back into the house. She was tall and slender and had a long blond ponytail swinging between her shoulder blades. She slid the door shut behind her without turning round, and almost immediately rotated the standing blinds so that I couldn't see inside.

That did it, I was absolutely committed to going or rather swimming over there. I had to find who she was, and what she was doing in that house. And yeah, I wouldn't have been so interested if its inhabitant had turned out to be an old guy with a beer belly. Chances were that I had seen the wife of the guy that owned that place. Chances were she was around forty, had a tired, lined face, and would offer me a cookie when I showed up hoping for romance. But I wanted to believe that it was the guy's daughter, same age, an incipient student like me, getting some fresh air prior to getting thoroughly polluted by booze and drugs during the course of the academic year. She would be liberated s.e.x.u.a.lly, of course, and at least good-looking if not outright beautiful. I started getting a hard-on lying on that sofa, and that motivated me to get up and begin preparations for the journey.

I didn't have my fins and diving mask, of course. I'd left them at home in Toronto. Montreal was a major port, with sea-going sh.i.p.s coming up the river and releasing all the shit from their waste tanks into the water. If you went for a swim in that river, you could be going for a swim in sailor piss. That was why I left my specialist Swedish swimming gear at home. I didn't anticipate staying alone on a lake shore with a girl in the house across the water, a girl that inflamed my imagination.

I did have my swimming trunks with me, though. They proved very hard to find. I went through all my things twice and even checked the bathroom before I finally located them, pushed deeply into the pocket of my spare jeans. My belly felt heavy, not a good thing when you plan to do some serious swimming, so I went to the kitchen and lubricated my insides with a beer and two double espressos. I managed to take a shit and showered and was leaving the bathroom when I heard a loud thunderclap. It sounded close, and I half-ran to the deck to check things out.

Huge dark grey clouds were racing in over the treetops, wiping out sunlight from my world. The house across from me was already in deep shadow that spread with an alarming speed. Raindrops started pocking the water at the other shore, and then the sky lit up and there was a deafening crack, followed by a deep rumble. Well, that was it for my planned swim. I wasn't going to attempt it in this weather.

It rained cats and dogs for the remainder of the afternoon. At first I kept pacing round the house, nipping out to look at the sky and swear every few minutes. Eventually I realized doing that was a stupid waste of time and smoked a cigarette, then followed it up with a joint and another of those lethal coffees. I put a triple amount of ground coffee into the espresso machine and I swear I felt my hair stand on end a few minutes after I drank my cup. But the hash was mellowing me out, and I got the urge to draw or paint something. I ended up spending nearly three hours in the kitchen, drawing a bottle full of beer standing on the table. It was f.u.c.k.i.n.g difficult because the beer inside the glass meant the light was broken up with plenty of extra highlights both in the liquid and on the glass.

It took a long time. Using charcoal always requires a lot of deft fingerwork: you smudge the lines you've drawn to show shade. I had to get it exactly right the first time around, like a surgeon cutting a body open on the operating table. That evening, my every move was perfect, totally unlike the previous day. In my drawing, the bottle of beer seemed to dance on the table, though of course it was perfectly still. It just jumped off the page. It was one of the best things I'd ever done, and after smoking a second joint I cooed and clucked over it late into the night. I tried to remember exactly what I had done to get that effect, even though I knew very well I'd fail. A moderate success can be repeated, but truly big success is always unique. You can't pull it off a second time just by copying all the moves.

As you can guess, that evening I forgot all about the girl in the red bathing suit. But I was very forcefully reminded of her the next day.