The Homeless Millionaire

Thursday was an anticlimax. To begin with, when I got home around seven in the morning, Roch wasn't around. We had already started to develop a routine where we would have breakfast together, at the conclusion of which Roch invariably asked whether I'd be able to help him with renovation work on the house that day, and I invariably said no. I had the thought he might be sulking in his room because of my repeated refusals, but he wasn't there, either. So I ate breakfast alone and then went upstairs to try and get some sleep, and I actually succeeded: my body clock had finally switched to the new schedule.

I arrived at the Montrose twenty minutes early, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after nearly nine hours of sleep. Larry was shining with gratitude. We shared a smoke and talked and I let slip that I was surprised we were working eight-hour shifts. We could have easily managed ten hours, maybe even twelve, and then Henry Houghton-Briggs wouldn't need to sully his aristocratic image with reception work. Larry leered at me, and said:

"You're starting to like it here, huh? You'd like to work twelve-hour shifts? Well I wouldn't. I've got a family. Evenings, I got care of the kid, 'cause Susan works nights in a bar. We got nice neighbors and they look after the kid when we're both out, but I gotta collect him by ten-thirty. That's why I ripped your head off when you were late. Don't look at me like that. You thought I was keeping a family on my salary? Eighty bucks a week, you gotta be f.u.c.k.i.n.g kidding."

"Eighty? You mean you make like, what, over thirty in tips?"

"Yeah. Actually, when I think about it, that's as low as it gets. Most weeks I make around ninety, sometimes a hundred. See, I know some of the people who come here on a regular basis. I know who they are, what they do, sometimes where they live. They come here for a f.u.c.k on the side, an indiscretion from me and they'd be in a shitload of trouble. So they keep me sweet. Why, just today I got tipped five bucks by a guy."

"What!?"

"Yeah. See, my wife works in this bar, like I told you earlier. It's a posh place, she makes good money. Okay. So one evening, when we'd unloaded the kid onto the grandparents - her folks - I walk her to work, and stick around for a couple of freebies - Susan mixes a wicked Wallbanger, she's good at that, maybe that was one reason I married her. Anyway, that evening a bunch of guys in suits come in. They're relaxing after a long day at work, they've been relaxing for a while already, they're pretty pissed. I'm practically next to them, but half-hidden behind this column near the end of the bar, you don't wanna advertise you're drinking free of charge. So those guys are pretty loud, I can hear everything they say, and one of them says, one more round and we call the girls and hit the Montrose. My ears - it felt, as if they had grown to twice the size in the space of a second, man. They rib each other about their ugly wives and one of them says, f.u.c.k you guys, I'm making a call and then I'm off to the Montrose. I got a good look at this guy, at all four guys, actually. And guess what? Three of them rent a room here at least once a month. And Susan told me all about them. They're regulars at her bar, too. You're a pretty barmaid, you get to hear all kinds of stuff. One of those guys is actually a vice-president at a big company, an international company. When I told him nice to see you AGAIN, sir, he turned a little pale and started tipping me two bucks instead of one each visit. We smile at each other a lot, me and this guy - all the guys and girls that know I know smile at me a lot, and tip well. Hey, stop staring at me like that. You were born yesterday or something?"

"It's just envy," I said. "I wish I knew a couple of guests like that." I was lying: Larry had mentioned a pretty wife, and I just couldn't imagine him with a pretty wife: it must have shown on my face.

Larry waved his cigarette in a dismissive way, and said:

"Question of time, man. Work here for a while, and sooner or later you'll see a face you know from someplace else."

I didn't realize then how prophetic his words were.

I was half-expecting more trouble that night, after my event-filled previous shifts. But that night, everyone was calm and peaceful even though I checked in and out more guests than I had on the three preceding nights. Almost all guests fell into the cheating spouses category. They tried to act cheerful, but there were other, not-so-cheerful emotions lurking underneath - guilt, shame, anger, desperation, fear. The one exception was a p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e that chattered happily about the wonderful weather we were having and how sunshine made her happy. Her sunshine that night, a balding guy the wrong side of forty, was noticeably less glum when they both checked out: that whore was good value. I got a fifty-cent tip out of that. It wasn't the only tip, either: one couple actually tipped me twice. I got a tip when they were checking out, and another that they'd left in their room. They probably thought there was a maid hidden in the closet with the towels and the bed sheets. I wished there was, I had a lot of work that night getting rooms ready for the next batch of secret lovers. Luckily, overall they were a tidy lot: one couple even made the bed they'd used. Wasted effort, because I had to tear it apart anyway to put on fresh sheets.

Friday started as an almost exact replay of the previous day. But boy, did it ever end differently.

To begin with: once again, Roch wasn't around when I got home. I ate and had over eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and ate again. I f.u.c.k.e.d around with my pad and pencil for a couple of hours, thinking guiltily of all those classes I was missing. I managed a half-decent still life, composed of the remains of my meal and an apple that I intended to eat before going to work. It was half-decent because I was focused and thinking about what I was doing in more than just technical terms. I thought about the empty smeared plate, the breadcrumbs, the empty glass stained with wine, and the apple. The apple was the most tragic item. It was the end of a long a laborious process, it was life concealed - all those seeds inside - and shortly, I would eat it, converting it to shit. The apple in my drawing shone with the light that knows it's going to be extinguished, a light that knows it's going to fade away. But the rest wasn't as good and I ended up looking at what I'd done until I finished my cigarette, and then picked it up and tore it into tiny pieces.

I reported to Larry at a quarter to ten: Larry was starting to like me a lot. He went so far as to pat my shoulder. I was touched.

We didn't get to talk much this time, because the second evening wave had started. I was beginning to understand by then that guests, like everything else in the entire universe, came in waves. There was the lunchtime wave, relatively weak and timid. There was the early evening wave, after people left work: that was noticeably stronger. And then there was the third wave, the late evening wave, when people left bars and restaurants and wanted to end their day with an o.r.g.a.s.m.

It got pretty busy for me, that third wave, that Friday. I was running around like a cat with a lit firecracker stuck up its a.s.s. It was messy, too. I actually thought about getting those gloves from the kitchen a couple of times. The tips weren't great, either: I collected maybe a buck fifty from the five parties I checked in and out in the first couple of hours.

It was nearing a quarter to midnight when I saw Tracy.

She didn't look at me right away. When I opened the front door she was looking at the guy she was with. He was much older than her, maybe a wasted fifty something, maybe a regular sixty or a healthy sixty five; wisps of white hair showed under his hat. He was wearing a grey borsalino that looked so soft you could use it for a handkerchief, and a white shirt and striped tie and a grey suit that whispered money instead of shouting it. The brown oxfords on his feet could have been used in a picture advertising footwear. He was looking at them when I opened the door; my impression was that Tracy had just rebuked him for something. But who knows, maybe a moment earlier he'd told her he was about to have a heart attack or a stroke or whatever you got when you were a creepy old man, and got too excited about the p.l.e.a.s.u.r.es you were about to experience.

I put on my best voice when I invited them in and Tracy finally turned to look at me and her mouth fell open slightly with shock. I stood aside to let them in and close the door after them and it wasn't until I was back behind my counter that I got the chance to get a good look at her.

She seemed much older, but maybe she was just tired, and maybe the booze was exacting its toll: she was pretty drunk. Her eyes were glazed with booze, and they looked right through me, as if I were just an anonymous reception jerk. She was wearing a shiny black mac and her hair was down, parted by the spiky ends of the upturned collar. She looked like a s.e.xy whore and I finally had to admit to myself that this was exactly who she was. It was sad, because it meant that I was a romantic moron.

The old geezer then kept me busy for a while; he had been boozing too, he dropped his wallet twice when trying to pay me and scrawled his entry across two lines in the register book. He had a sense of humor, though. He signed in as a Mr and Mrs Spencer Tracy.

I gave them number four and led the way to their room and was at my most professional and courteous throughout the process. I acted as if I didn't know Tracy. She acted as if she didn't know me. At least we were both honest about that.

It gave me plenty of food for thought, more than enough to last me until the end of my shift.