The Homeless Millionaire

I was out of the house before nine the next morning. Roch was very soundly asleep: I could hear him snoring from the far end of the first floor landing, where the master bedroom and the only bed in the house were located. I knew he had come in very late; he woke me up when when he was climbing that horror-movie staircase. He went straight to his bedroom and I fell asleep again instantly.

I had concluded the whole tuition business by midday. It totally cleaned me out, even though I only took the courses mandatory for my degree. After I wrote out the check to pay for those, I had twelve dollars in my wallet, and eleven in my bank account. I had just enough to survive for a couple of days, and for a bus ticket to Toronto. But I didn't intend to return to Toronto, ever.

My parents were likely expecting me to call with news of how I was getting on. Calling them wouldn't cost me any money, they'd gladly take a collect call from me. They'd gladly pay for a chance to remind me how unreliable, naive, and generally childish I still was, and lecture me on what I should and shouldn't do. I didn't want to call them. I didn't want to talk to them. What I wanted was a job.

I spent a dollar on a hamburger, fries and Coke in a McDonalds. That left eleven dollars in my wallet, to match the eleven in my bank account. I sat down on a bench near the McDonalds and lit a cigarette. I had bought two English-language newspapers - the Montreal Star and the Montreal Gazette - and started to look through the Help Wanted ads. There were quite a few, but I needed an evening job. I would be starting classes right after Labor Day weekend at the beginning of September, and that meant a busy daytime. This narrowed my choices to maybe half a dozen bar/restaurant jobs. There also was an opening for a night receptionist at a small hotel, but they wanted someone for eight hours and six nights a week, from ten in the evening till six in the morning. If I took that job - sorry, if those guys were compassionate enough to give me a job, I'd be busier than a whore with three beds: nothing but work, sleep, study. So I thought I'd try the bars and restaurants first, jobs like that had a big advantage: they came with a free meal attached. I had already equipped myself with a handful of change in preparation for my job search, so I wandered around until I found a payphone in a spot that was relatively quiet, and started calling.

The first two calls were a washout: they'd already found someone. No one answered the phone at the third number, although I called twice, and waited for a full minute the second time around. My fourth call was answered by a guy who coughed so hard I felt his spit travel up the telephone line and land on my cheek. He kept saying hello and then coughing himself stupid for at least ten seconds. We went through that routine three times before I surrendered, and hung up on him.

The fifth number was busy. The sixth call started promisingly: it was answered by a woman with a nice, melodious voice. I told her why I was calling in a voice dripping with sweetness and goodwill. She had a question for me. Did I speak French?

"Un petit peu," I told her.

She instantly started to speak French, very fast: I understood a word here and there, but couldn't make sense of what she was saying.

"I'm sorry," I said in English. "I didn't catch that. Like I told you, I have a little bit of French but I'm not fluent. Could you please repeat what you said in English?"

There was a silence on the other end that felt hostile.

"I learn fast, though," I said quickly. "I'm sure that I'll be able to get by within a week."

There was another silence. Then she slammed down the receiver just as I was opening my mouth to speak again. Maybe she wasn't as nice as her voice.

That left the night receptionist job. I smoked two cigarettes standing next to the phone, thinking hard. Forty eight hours a week, another thirty six of classes and lectures, and at least twenty for studying on my own. Add twelve hours for commuting, and twelve for eating, shitting, pissing, washing. 128 hours. F.u.c.k! There are 168 hours in a week. Count them if you don't believe me. I would have to survive on 40 hours of sleep a week; more realistically, it would 35, five hours per night. I could do that for a week or two, maybe a month, but after that I would turn into a zombie.

Halfway through my second cigarette, I decided I didn't really have a choice. I'd cut a lecture here and a class there, do less studying on my own, eat fast food only, and train myself to take a shit in sixty seconds. I finished my cigarette and called the number for the 'small, family-run hotel with a tradition of excellence'.

I waited a long time for someone to pick up the phone at the other end, I was actually about to hang up when there was a click.

"Montrose Hotel," said a voice straight out of a movie featuring English aristocrats of the Victorian era. It was a man's voice, reedy and trembling with a curious mix of anticipation and resignation: the voice of someone used to being disappointed, but still hopeful. I was so startled by that voice I couldn't speak.

"Hellew," said the voice patiently.

I immediately launched into a detailed explanation of who I was and why I was calling, in my best imitation of a British accent - I'd picked up a bit of that while I was living in England. The voice said 'yes' and 'mhm' and 'aha' sounding increasingly pleased. When I fell silent there was a longish pause. Then the voice said:

"Mhm, yeeees... This sounds promising, yes, quite promising, I must say... When can you shew yourself?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Shew yourself. You know, toddle over so we can take a look at you. Are you presentable?"

"Yes, I think so, I mean I hope so."

"Jolly good! Can you pop in this afternoon? Before four, mind you. We serve tea at five and things get quite busy, very busy in fact."

"I can come over straight away, if you like."

"Excellent! Toodle-oo," said the voice, and the connection was cut. I swore; I was about to ask for the address.

It was already past two o'clock and I spent a couple of anxious minutes leafing through the telephone directory that hung from a chain next to the phone. As I might have guessed, Montrose Hotel was located on Montrose Avenue, west of where I was; I'd have to spend money on a bus fare, it was too far to walk. Luckily I was wearing a jacket in addition to my shirt and tie; I had put it on that morning because I needed the big inside pockets for all that paperwork I had to carry around.

I arrived at my destination at half past three. Montrose Hotel was a big nineteenth-century manor converted into an upscale rooming house; it had definitely seen better times. Its function was very discreetly advertised by a small hand-painted sign that said ROOMS in red letters. I climbed the three cracked stone steps to the front door, and pressed down on the big brass handle. The door was locked.

There was a bell push by the side of the door. I pressed the button: silence. After a few seconds, I pressed it again: more silence. I was about to press it for the third time when the door opened and I instantly put on my best I'm-such-a-nice-person smile.

I found myself smiling at an East Indian, or maybe Pakistani guy who was no more than five feet tall: the top of his head was below my chin. His oily black hair was parted in the middle and he had a pencil mustache, a smudge of sparse black hair over thin, liver-colored lips. He was wearing grey flannel trousers and a matching waistcoat, a white shirt, and a tie with diagonal black and red stripes. He looked up at my face and there was a hostile glitter in his eyes. I said quickly:

"I'm awfully sorry to bother you. I'm the chap who called earlier about the job. Michael Ryman."

He became all smiles.

"Ah yes, yes, of course. Please, do come in." He stood aside to let me pass, inviting me in with a dramatic flourish of his hand. I went in, hiding my face from him by pretending to look around the interior - I was in shock. The voice on the phone belonged to that guy! F.u.c.k.i.n.g unbelievable.

"Very nice. Beautiful, in fact," I said, looking at a living room that had been converted into a makeshift hotel lobby. It had a counter right in the center with a big fat book that I guessed was the guest register. The counter had a stone top, which was odd; it was shaped a little strangely, too. I realized I was looking at a bar counter adapted to a different purpose.

There was a sofa and armchair set to the right of the counter, complete with a standing lamp and a coffee table that actually looked like an authentic antique. A small wooden breakfast table stood to the left, with two chairs across from each other. Right in front of me, a wide staircase led to the first floor; it had a vaguely Persian-motif runner secured to the stairs with thin metal rods. I turned to the guy that had let me in and said:

"Absolutely lovely."

He beamed at me. I beamed back at him.

"Excellent," he said. He turned round and opened the big glass panel door behind him: i looked over his shoulder and saw chairs neatly arranged around a massive dining table.

"Can you cook a decent plate of eggs and bacon, and brew a nice pot of coffee or tea?"

"Uh - yes, of course."

"Jolly good. You see, some of our guests like to breakfast early. You would be expected to attend to their needs. There's a kitchen in the back. Two slices of bacon per egg, two eggs unless specified otherwise. And a fried tomato, naturally. And toast. Think you can handle that, old chap?"

No one had ever called me an old chap before, not even while I lived in Britain. But I recovered quickly and said:

"Of course."

"Marvelous." He turned back to face me, and there was some more beaming back and forth. He said:

"I shall shew you around the kitchen another time. It's nearly tea time, and it gets very busy, yes, extremely busy. The lobby is over here, of course, please follow me, my dear fellow. That's where guests sign in. Here, let me show you -"

He went on like that for a while showing me this and explaining that. I felt joy: it looked as if I had the job.

When I left twenty minutes later, I wasn't quite so joyful. The job paid a dollar an hour - eight bucks per shift, which meant just forty eight dollars a week. I was told I could also count on tips, but I didn't anticipate much guest traffic: I calculated there were no more than six-seven bedrooms upstairs. But the big problem was something else: I was to start work on the 18th of September.

"The chap we've got now has to work out his notice, you see," Mr Houghton-Briggs informed me. "And we like to start new people on a Monday. Gives us plenty of time to ease you into things, old horse." Yes, he actually called me that, and yes, that's how he called himself: Henry Houghton-Briggs. Albert Einstein once said that there was just one thing that was bigger than the universe: human stupidity. Personally, I'd say vanity. But they are two sides of the same coin, after all.

There was no way I could survive until September 18th on the money I had left. I walked all the way home - an hour and a half! - and smoked half a dozen cigarettes along the way. I had to find another job right away! Or maybe I could ask Roch to lend me a hundred bucks? He'd said he'd collected two hundred for the rat-infested furniture he'd sold.

Roch wasn't home when I got there. I was hungry. I wolfed down two apples and most of the bread I still had left, sitting on the folding metal camping chair that went with the table in my room. Then I went downstairs for a beer - I'd put my six-pack in the kitchen fridge. I discovered that Roch had drunk one; there were just four left. I instantly felt better about asking him for a loan. I sat at the kitchen table with a cigarette and a beer and waited for him to come home. I read the brochures I'd taken from the university. They told me I was going to have a great time, and that I would acquire valuable skills and knowledge.

I remembered the time when my school invited a real painter - a guy who made a living from his art - to talk to those of us who wanted to study for a Fine Arts degree. He started his talk by informing us most of his income came from making advertising ill.u.s.trations. Then he said something which has stuck in my mind ever since:

"Being a professional painter has one great advantage," he told us. "You'll never experience extra hardship because there's been an economic downturn, a recession. This is because in this job, there is always a recession. And there's no such thing as a boom."

Two beers and three cigarettes later Roch still hadn't come home, and I was really tired after that long walk home. So I brushed my teeth and went to bed; the beer had made me sleepy. I planned to hang around in the morning, and talk to him then.

But next morning, things took an unexpected turn.