The Homeless Millionaire

I remember the next day very well, because I woke up with the worst hangover I'd experienced until then. There were a couple of guys working with steam hammers inside my head; also, while I slept, an old, dirty, smelly cat had crawled into my mouth and died there. I could feel its fur with my tongue.

I opened my eyes with some difficulty, and saw an unfamiliar, dirty white ceiling with a damp spot in the corner. I was lying on a big mattress that had been laid on the floor of a large room, and there was someone lying next to me. I turned my head and saw a mass of wavy black hair; a couple of strands had strayed onto my shoulder. Judging by the smell, it was a girl. I was still wearing my T-shirt and my underpants, but I didn't know whether that was good or bad.

I slid off the mattress, careful not to wake up the girl. I had absolutely no recollection of bringing her up to my room, no recollection of what had happened the previous evening. I needed a drink very badly. There was a can of Coke standing on a small metal folding table by the big bay window that overlooked the backyard. I tiptoed up to the table and found out the can was empty.

I picked up my jeans off the floor, and looked at the sleeping girl. I couldn't see her face, it was covered by her hair. She was sleeping in her clothes, a T-shirt and a long, black skirt with a pattern of red flowers whose edge had slipped out from under the blanket. The hand on the pillow next to the jungle of black hair had short, stubby fingers. That usually means short, stubby legs, and I felt glad we had been sleeping with our clothes on.

I tiptoed out of the room, closing the door very softly, and looked around. I was standing on a big landing that featured several closed doors, all badly in need of some fresh paint. I tried the door next to mine, and hit the jackpot: it was the bathroom.

It was like something out of a goddamn museum. The far wall was occupied by an enameled bathtub with brass taps and a handheld shower whose grip was porcelain or maybe even ivory; it was hard to tell, because it wore a thick layer of dirt. The hand basin had been crafted to resemble an overturned seashell, and had separate taps for hot and cold water, the way it's done in Britain. When I was living in London, I found that many British bathrooms were equipped with a T-shaped rubber hose: you pulled the short ends over the taps to get a single heat-adjusted stream of water. F.u.c.k.i.n.g insane, if you ask me. But then the Brits have this reputation of being kinky in the bedroom, and maybe that mysterious rubber hose had many roles to play.

The tap squeaked miserably when I twisted it open; I took the precaution of letting water run for a while before drinking any. I wanted to wash my face and realized that my soap, toothpaste and toothbrush were still in the bag. I had to locate my bag; that was the priority. I splashed cold water over my face, stepped back onto the landing, and went down the stairs. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but the stairs creaked, g.r.o.a.n.e.d and m.o.a.n.e.d like something out of a horror movie. They actually moved under my feet: I felt as if was treading on something that was alive.

When I finally made it downstairs, I couldn't see my bag anywhere, yet I could swear I'd put it near the staircase, right after I'd arrived, when I was stone-cold sober. I was hit by anxiety and fresh shame: I needed a cigarette. Luckily my jeans contained a crumpled pack of Rothmans, and the pack contained exactly one broken cigarette. I tried to look on the bright side: instead of just one cigarette, I had two. I lit the half - pardon me, the cigarette with the filter - and inhaled deeply.

"Pssst!"

I turned and saw Roch standing at the far end of the entrance hallway; I remembered the kitchen was located at the back of the house, with a door leading straight into the backyard. Roch beckoned for me to come closer, raising his other hand to put a finger to his lips. So I crept over as quietly as I could, letting Roch usher me inside the kitchen. As soon as he'd closed the door I said, keeping my voice low:

"Roch, I'm sorry... I'm really ashamed. I - "

He cut me off with an imperious wave of his hand.

"Did you f.u.c.k Martine?" he asked.

"Martine? Who is Martine? You mean the girl with a haystack of black hair?"

"Yes, yes, yes. Did you f.u.c.k Martine?"

"Actually," I said, "I think I didn't. Can't remember a lot from last night, but I'm positive I didn't. I mean I would remember something like that, for sure."

"Did you check your d.i.c.k?"

"What!?"

"Did you look at your d.i.c.k this morning?"

"Uh? Yeah, sure. When I was taking a leak. Look, Roch, I had to piss into the hand basin. I was afraid of using the toilet. It looked too dangerous. But I washed out the basin really well."

"Very smart," he told me. "That toilet's blocked. Jean-Pierre dropped his glasses in there when he was throwing up. The idiot that found him with his face in the bowl flushed it right away, he said it seemed a good way to wake Jean-Pierre, and now the pipe's blocked. I'll fix it later today. But f.u.c.k all that. Listen, Martine has crabs. She's already passed them on to a couple of guys. She swore solemnly to me that she wouldn't f.u.c.k you when I let her into your room, but she's a s.e.x maniac and a liar. So you didn't f.u.c.k her? Smart. I always knew you're a smart guy. How do you feel?"

He talked like a f.u.c.k.i.n.g machine gun, firing hundreds of words a minute.

"I don't feel too good," I told him.

"Right." Grinning maniacally, he pulled out a folded paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and sprinkled a thin line of white powder on the kitchen counter. There was a plastic red straw lying on that counter, and I instantly knew how Roch's machine-gun act came about.

"It's great speed," he told me. "Pick you right up. Go on." He handed me the straw.

I believe that kind of thing is called peer pressure. I snorted up the speed, putting half the line up each nostril, thinking about my single broken cigarette. No, TWO cigarettes. My nose burned. Whoosh! I could suddenly hear birds singing in the backyard. When I turned around to Roch, I was grinning maniacally, too. But I still felt this great need to apologize for getting hammered into oblivion, so I said:

"Look, Roch, I'm really sorry that - "

"Pffft. You did nothing out of control. Did you see what Jules did? No you didn't, I had already taken you upstairs. Jules climbed that big tree in the backyard. Then he took off all his clothes and threw them down and hung from a branch making monkey noises. I laughed so hard I pissed myself, I had to go change my pants. Man, you should have seen that. People were in hysterics. But then this asshole next door came out into his backyard and started shouting something about the police. Most people left right after that. Some went to sleep."

"What about Jules?" I asked.

"Oh, he fell off. He was swinging from the branch holding on with just one hand and making o.b.s.c.e.n.e gestures with the other."

"Was he hurt?"

"No, he wasn't high up, his feet were maybe a couple of yards from the ground. A couple of girls were tickling his soles and he fell on top of them. It was hilarious. I think he's sleeping in the room next to yours."

"You're not renting out any rooms?"

"Not here. This house is like a hundred years old, man. And it's never been renovated. The city catches you renting a place like that, they'll fine you so heavily you'll be crying all the way to the bank. It's not worth it. It's gotta be fixed up, first."

"I haven't seen much furniture," I said and instantly regretted it, because it seemed to make Roch uncomfortable.

"My aunt, the aunt that died, did not live here," he said. "I don't know why she kept that house, she became a little crazy when she was old. It was costing her a fortune in taxes. There wasn't much furniture here, just the bed I sleep in now, some tables, chairs..."

He broke off and looked me in the eye and grinned.

"I sold some," he said. "This guy comes around, says he'll buy the downstairs sofa and the matching armchairs. And a few other pieces as well. You know the deal, you buy a broken chair for a buck, fix it up, and suddenly it's a valuable antique, because it's seventy years old. Or something. Whatever. I made nearly two hundred dollars, man. Two hundred, you dig? And got rid of some awful shit at the same time. You should have seen that sofa. There were at least two families of rats living in there. How's your hangover?"

"My hangover? What hangover?"

He grinned even wider, and slapped my shoulder.

An hour or so later, I left the house looking very respectable. I was wearing a shirt and a tie - a narrow black knit number with the knot loose. My collar was unbuttoned, I didn't want to appear TOO respectable. I needed a job, any job, washing dishes and serving beer was just fine, I already had some experience.

My bag and boots had been successfully located in in a downstairs closet; Roch had put them there while I was busy getting drunk. He took off my boots before dragging me up the staircase because I kept kicking him and saying I don't want to go to sleep. Martine and the others were waking up by the time I left; actually, that sped up my departure. I didn't want to face any of these people after making a fool of myself and getting catatonic halfway through the party. I was very grateful to Jules for putting on his little show. That would be the thing people remembered about the party, and not the asshole from Toronto falling over himself in a corner.

After a couple of hours I was dead beat - the speed wore off - and ravenously hungry. I hadn't found a job; people's faces froze up when I talked to them, as if I were insulting them by considering myself worthy of a stupid little part-time job doing stupid little tasks that could be handled by a congenital moron. When I came to my twelfth or maybe thirteenth bar/restaurant, I didn't ask about a job. I sat myself down at a table by the window, lit a cigarette from my fresh pack of Rothmans, and ordered a beer. Then I ordered another, and pastrami bun with a side of potato salad.

While I was eating, I tried to work out why people acted offended when I asked them about a job. I suspected it was because I was looking hungover. No one would want to employ a guy who drank himself stupid in the evenings. Who knows, maybe they could smell booze on my breath even though I could not. I decided I'd put off job-hunting till the next day, and instantly felt better.

I had a relaxed third beer and three cigarettes after my meal, looking at life go on through the window. The sun was beginning to set and the light was just beautiful, warm and soft. I felt a twinge of regret that I couldn't start painting there and then, but quickly returned to watching other people go about their lives. There was something different in the way they walked and talked, a certain swing that was missing in Anglo-Saxon, dull, plodding Toronto. I had lived for a while in Rome and Paris, and Montreal was a little like that, even though it had the standard shitty North American architecture. But I didn't enjoy Paris. Paris was the shits, literally, The pavements were covered with dog turds. Walking down a street in Paris was like stepping through a minefield, and the stink was f.u.c.k.i.n.g awful.

My bill in that restaurant eventually came to nearly nine dollars. I felt obliged to leave a ten. The waiter had been nice to me, and I'd worked in a restaurant myself and knew that these guys depend on tips. The place where I worked lunchtime shifts had this Armenian waiter, a guy that arrived fresh out of the Soviet f.u.c.k.i.n.g Union. How he managed to get out of there was a mystery. Anyway he basically lived from tips: they paid him five bucks, under the table, for ten hours of running around and getting abused for the shitty food that was served to people, and which the poor guy didn't cook in the first place. I'm sure that he'd have been a better cook than the one they had, a fat middle-aged woman who was always mildly drunk. The restaurant's specialty was cod in beer batter, and boy, did she ever use a lot of beer for that batter. But she overcooked everything, everything tasted like shit, the famous beer-battered cod was always frizzled into a blackened little plank. She would hide it under a thick layer of tartare sauce, and yeah, I have to admit it, she made great tartare sauce. But that was about it.

On the way home I stopped off a at a depanneur, which is what they call convenience stores in Quebec, and bought some food that didn't need refrigerating: a bag of apples, a few candy bars, and a sliced loaf of wholewheat bread. After some consideration, I also bought a sixpack of Labatt's 50. At the checkout, I added a pack of strong mint chewing gum and a couple of packs of cigarettes. It came to nearly eight dollars! At this rate, I 'd be out of money within a couple of weeks. I promised myself that I would go down to the university administration building the very next day, and pay the tuition in full.

There was nobody home when I got there, which was a big relief: I had been dreading another party. I wanted to get a good night's sleep, and then embark on a fresh job hunt bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

I went to the bathroom and cautiously tested the toilet: it seemed to work okay. My respect for Roch and the quality of his speed took a big leap. I tested the bathtub's hand-held shower and it seemed to work okay too, so I got a can of Ajax, some steel wool, and a couple of rags from the kitchen and spent over half an hour getting that bathtub clean. When it was all nice and shiny, I stepped in and washed myself thoroughly. My d.i.c.k looked okay, and there weren't any invading crabs in the undergrowth. I thought about some of the girls I'd seen that day and my d.i.c.k started to stiffen. So I thought about Martine, and immediately my d.i.c.k started to shrivel.

"You're a smart guy," I said to my prick. Then I went to sleep.