The Homeless Millionaire

I was still wondering what the f.u.c.k had possessed me to throw my life away when I climbed aboard the train.

I'd spent most of my twelve-hour wait for the train wondering about that, and didn't even get close to an answer. All I knew was that I simply couldn't go on the way I had done. Studying and working almost around the clock for at least three years just so that I would get a degree seemed much more stupid than boarding a long-distance train on a whim.

Three or four years of hell just to get a piece of paper that stated I had a degree in Fine Art! To begin with, I did not want to study art, I wanted to MAKE art. Sure, studying it first increased my chances of creating something good. But as I looked deeper into myself, it became clear that my decision to study at the Ecole was motivated mainly by a d.e.s.i.r.e to get away from my family.

I didn't really want to study at all. I had always disliked school, and a university is just another school, make no mistake. It's a school where everyone pretends the students are a.d.u.l.t. The only reason why university graduates appear to be wiser than other people is because they'd been forced to use their brains for a few more years than someone quitting education after high school.

This is because most people - almost everyone, in fact - stop thinking the moment they figure out how to make money. From that moment onward, all mental effort is split between two goals: how to make even more money, and how to squeeze maximum enjoyment out of life. That's not thinking, that's calculating. Thinking can sometimes make you a better person; calculating can't. What it can, and frequently does, is turn people into assholes whose only interests are money, possessions, and s.e.x.

My twelve-hour thinking session made me realize that all the 'sensible' things people did to 'improve' their lives were meant just to get more, more of everything. I wasn't one of those people. I didn't want more of everything. I actually wanted less so that I could focus on what was important to me. And the thing most important to me was to at least get close to understanding life, the world, the universe, and then to communicate that understanding through that thing called art.

I knew I would fail to get to understand life, and the world. That level of knowledge was impossible to attain for a human being. Legend had it that it was available to gods, but weren't gods just a bunch of legends to start with? Striving to acquire at least a little bit of that knowledge - that was what was important. The process was the important thing, not the result. The result was bound to be a failure from the start. Because that was what life was like. Regardless of the effort expended, every life ended with a total, terminal failure: death.

I got very philosophical, waiting for that train. That kind of thing tended to happen to me when I had nothing to do but smoke cigarettes. About halfway through, I went to eat something at a twenty-four-hour station restaurant. The prices there were astronomical. I ate half a roast chicken with a mound of fries because that represented the best value for the money that I had to spend, which was more than I could have made in an entire shift at the Montrose, generous tips included.

After I ate, I sat on a bench smoking and drinking Cokes from a nearby vending machine and thought about Michel, Roch, the whole museum situation. I was happy to get away from all that. It was obvious to me that the museum guys were playing a waiting game while the cops worked to solve the case. Michel and Roch both were smart guys, and I hoped they'd cut contact, stop negotiating a ransom for the paintings before they got caught. I hoped that they would realize that only thing they could do: the only thing that made sense was to sit and wait until they found another fence who would help them sell the paintings.

That was bound to take a very long time, and I wasn't going to wait for it to happen. I had what I'd wanted most already: I had the Rembrandt. There was also the gold medallion I'd wrapped up in a pair of socks, but I didn't see myself getting more than a handful of bucks for it at some pawnshop. I decided to keep it as my emergency rescue fund; the money it was likely to fetch would probably last me for at least a couple of weeks. It was solid gold after all, a good couple of ounces.

I had to hit the can a couple of times while I waited because of all the Cokes I was drinking. This was good because it made me look in the mirror when I was washing my hands after taking a leak. My face was the face of a psycho on the run. I splashed cold water on it and rearranged my features until I appeared relatively normal.

On my third visit to the can I got paranoid someone would come in and grab my bag and run away with my priceless Rembrandt, and I ended up getting my Finnish knife out of my bag and taping it to my ankle, inside my cowboy boot, with sticking plaster from a roll. I'd bought that roll even before I'd left Toronto, a symbolic gesture of precaution and protection from future injuries. Yeah, I'd really been playing it safe, back in Toronto. Instead of going to Montreal, I should have just dropped that whole stupid study thing and taken the thousand plus I had saved and headed out west right away.

Morning came; the station became noticeably busier. I finally did something smart: I left the station and found a supermarket and stocked up on food. I bought a couple of fresh baguettes and a coil of dried sausage and a sixpack of beer, and also a pocket pack of tissues to keep things civilized. After a moment of hesitation, I also visited the liquor store next door and acquired two half-bottles: one of scotch, and one of brandy.

When I finally boarded the train it felt as I had sand in my eyes. I had been alert throughout the night, but the moment I found my compartment I just collapsed.

There didn't seem to be many people on the train; I was alone in my compartment which was great, because if I had to talk to anyone I'd have likely pulled out my knife and ended up in prison. I put my bag on the couchette, next to the wall, and lay down beside it. I covered myself and the bag with the railway-issue blanket and fell asleep just as the train was beginning to move.

I was woken up by the conductor shortly afterward, showed my ticket, and instantly went back to sleep again. I slept until the stop in Toronto in the afternoon. I ate and had a beer standing by the window, looking at the people milling about on the platform. They seemed to be aliens from a distant planet. I was smoking a cigarette when I heard the door to my compartment being opened.

I turned around, blowing smoke. A woman was trying to enter. She was in her late forties or early fifties and wore a fawn raincoat and a stupid little tweed hat, from under which a few greying strands of hair had escaped. She brushed one of these off her face and looked at me and quickly changed her mind about traveling with me as a companion. She said 'I'm sorry' and stepped back and closed the door. From what I'd seen the train was less than half full; she wouldn't have any trouble finding a compartment free of lunatics with a smoking fuse.

The train started moving when I was on my second beer and cigarette. I finished both and suffered through ten minutes of agonizing indecision before I went to hit the can leaving my bag behind. It was still there when I got back. I lay down beside it and covered us with the blanket and went back to sleep.

When I woke up again, it was dark. I refreshed myself with a beer and a cigarette. The train was going fast: I pressed my face to the window and made out dark shapes of many trees flitting past. I looked at my watch and it said four, which meant it was four in the morning. I'd slept for more than twelve hours, comforted by the metalic, double-tact lullaby played by the steel wheels of the train.

I wanted to wash my face, but I was afraid to leave my bag unattended. So I sat down and ate and had another beer and got going on my paperback about the Bay of Pigs invasion. It turned out to be quite good. It started with the background picture and that in turn started with how the CIA supported Castro when he was fighting to overthrow the Batista regime. But when Castro seized power and started nationalizing businesses left, right, and center, relations soured. The American Mafia was particularly upset because it had lost all of the hotels and casinos they'd invested in.

The U.S. president at the time was none other than John F. Kennedy: handsome, charming, a war hero that was still relatively young and with a beautiful wife. He was also one of the worst American presidents ever. He got the U.S. into the Vietnam pile of shit, for example. The book I was reading about the Bay of Pigs fiasco showed what he was really like. He could make great speeches that someone else wrote for him, but that was about it. His great triumph - getting the Soviets to move their missiles out of Cuba - was in reality a big compromise: in return, the U.S. moved its missiles out of Italy and Turkey.

There was a long blow-by-blow account of the fighting in the book and I was so engrossed I kept on reading well into the day. The train stopped briefly at a few stations, most likely to offload mail. No one tried to enter my compartment except for a new conductor who wanted to see my ticket and sniffed at the smoke in the compartment while giving me the suspicious eye. When he'd left, I ate the remaining food and drank the remaining beer and hit the can before going back to sleep.

I woke again close to midnight; according to the schedule, Winnipeg was just a couple of hours away. I drank one of the emergency Cokes stashed in my bag and smoked and thought about what I would do once I got off the train. I wanted to get to Vancouver, but I sure as hell couldn't complete the journey by train; it was too expensive.

I decided I would get a good meal at a cheap restaurant and then find a gas station frequented by truckers going west. I hadn't hitched a ride in a truck ever before, but I'd heard many times from experienced people that it was easy. The guys driving them were often bored to death while en route, and appreciated company even when their regulations forbade hitchhikers. If you slipped them a few bucks, so much the better.

The train slowed down a little; we were approaching Winnipeg. I stood at the window, staring wide-eyed into the dark.