The Homeless Millionaire

Harry showed up even before I'd finished eating my breakfast. I didn't expect him back so early in the day. So when I heard the front door open I froze, a strip of bacon dangling from my fork.

"Hi," Harry said, walking into the kitchen. He glanced at me and added:

"Any of that bacon left? Or did you scarf it all? I feel like a bacon sandwich."

"There's some left."

"Good."

He busied himself with the pan without bothering to clean it, which made sense - it had been used to fry bacon just a while earlier. I ate and watched him bob and weave at the stove, and felt a sense of wonder: this was a different Harry from the one I saw last. I had expected him to be pretty down in the dumps when he returned after his father's funeral, and he was almost cheerful.

"We have to check on the plants tomorrow," he said, sitting down with a plate loaded with two bacon sandwiches dripping fat. "It might be the skunk's ready to harvest. There was a lot of sun last couple of days. I don't want it to grow plenty of seeds. Other guys, they let the plant seed on purpose. Seeds weigh a lot, so they'll get many extra ounces from a single plant. But not me, man."

He stopped speaking and got into the sandwiches at this point. I said:

"That's really white of you."

"White? What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?"

I burned with shame when I realized I'd used a favorite expression of my father's.

"White meaning honorable behavior. As opposed to a black deed."

"Well, I don't know about being chivalrous. I charge more per ounce. But people don't mind, so what the hell."

That was followed by a silence, if you don't count the sound of Harry devouring his food. He definitely ate like a healthy, trouble-free man. I said:

"Everything go okay for you in the meantime? I mean, as much as possible?"

He shrugged, swallowed, and said:

"It was one big f.u.c.k.i.n.g downer. I felt ready to slit my own throat. Then I had to deal a lot with my sisters and their asshole husbands. So I kinda metamorphosed into wanting to slit their throats instead. That felt a little better. Mom was holding up fine, so I told her I gotta go early the next day. That there was urgent maintenance stuff I had to do to the cottage before the winter. She understood. More, she liked it. Too many people staying at her place. Man, those assholes are there for a week. A week! They'll be all gone by Saturday and I'll go and stay with Mom then, for a couple of days."

I got up and washed my plate and the frying pan. The silence behind my back assumed a new quality and I knew that Harry had finally noticed the empty bottles cl.u.s.tered in the far corner of the kitchen.

I was right. The moment I turned the water off, he said:

"Man, you had a real party here while I was away. Lucky I brought two bottles of rum, eh? Or did you drink the other one too?"

"No," I said. "It's untouched."

He didn't comment on that. I made myself a fresh coffee and sat down again and lit a cigarette. I felt a need to explain my drinking while Harry was away. As a rule, bed and board deals don't include unlimited consumption of free booze. So I said:

"When you were gone I did a lot of thinking about what to do next. You know, after we've harvested the plants and everything. It got depressing pretty quickly so I turned to Captain Morgan for help."

"Mmm," Harry said through a mouthful of bread and bacon. He chewed reflectively for a while, then said:

"And what did you come up with?"

"That's the whole f.u.c.k.i.n.g problem. Nothing. I came up with nothing. Everything seemed silly and pointless, even when it made sense. Like, yeah, I'll have to find a job and a place to stay and so on. But most likely it's going to be a shitty job. You know, like washing dishes in some restaurant or serving beer in a bar. I've done it before. And it's okay when it serves some sort of purpose, like you're saving up money for something, or supporting yourself while you try to get something else going. Something important. I guess I can't see the purpose of doing that. I mean I know everyone needs money to eat and have a place to stay and so on. But it all seems f.u.c.k.i.n.g pointless."

"Mmm," Harry said again. He popped the last of his food into his mouth and took a sip of coffee and helped himself to one of my cigarettes. After a while, he said:

"But you're not contemplating suicide, are you?"

"No, no. No way."

"Good. I don't want your corpse on my hands. Listen, didn't you tell me you're an artist?"

"I don't know about that," I said. "I mean I like to paint and draw and I'm supposed to be good at it. But I'm not sure if I'm making art. Not for me to judge."

"What about your folks? They're pretty comfortable, aren't they? Can't they spare a few bucks to help their talented son?"

"Out of the question," I said. "I'd sooner starve under a f.u.c.k.i.n.g bridge than take a dollar from those guys."

He nodded, and thought deeply for a while. Then he said:

"You know, you never showed me any of your stuff. Can I have a look?"

I didn't see much sense in showing him my stuff, as he put it. But I shrugged and said:

"Okay."

"Just let me clear this up and make another coffee," he said, putting his cigarette out and getting up from the table.

"Sure."

I left the kitchen and got a few things I'd done and put them on the coffee table. I had the crazy impulse to put the Rembrandt there, too. The watercolor I'd glued over the Landscape With Cottages wasn't too bad. But of course I left the Rembrandt hidden in my bag.

Harry came out of the kitchen and we both lit fresh cigarettes and smoked in silence for quite a while, with him sitting on the sofa and looking at the pictures I'd put on the coffee table while I hovered over him like an anxious kid watching a teacher grade his homework. I moved away to stand by the window the moment I realized that and turned my back on that whole business and stared at the world outside, smoking.

The sky outside threatened rain. Gusts of wind shook the trees from time to time, making them sway. I watched a seagull operating near the end of the pier, just a few yards above the water. It swooped and soared and turned and occasionally hovered still over a spot like a f.u.c.k.i.n.g helicopter, beating its wings to stay aloft. It was wonderful, the way that bird dealt with the sudden blasts of wind: it really was a master of the air.

And it was doing all that effortlessly and sort of casually because it was also doing something else, something more important: it was hunting. It was looking for prey in that patch of water near the end of the pier.

I wished I was half as skillful as that seagull.

Behind my back, Harry coughed and slurped coffee and struck a match to light another cigarette. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, standing there and waiting for him to say something. I had put around half a dozen pieces on the coffee table, and most people would have been done with looking at that in a couple of minutes at the outside.

My cigarette had burnt down to the filter and I had ash in my cupped hand so I went over to deposit everything in the ashtray. Harry still didn't say anything. He was smoking like a maniac, his head was completely wreathed in smoke. I couldn't tell which picture he was looking at and this whole situation was beginning to make me feel tense. I retreated to the kitchen under the pretext of making myself my fifth coffee of the day.

When I left the kitchen with a steaming mug in my hand Harry wasn't smoking any more. He was sitting back on the sofa, staring at the wall across the room. He looked like he really regretted there was no phone at the house, because then he could have called an ambulance or the police or something like that.

He looked up at me when I put my mug down on the table and got myself a fresh cigarette from the pack lying there. I purposefully avoided looking at him so I didn't know what was the expression on his face when he said:

"You're a f.u.c.k.i.n.g idiot."

That made me look at him, all right. He was grinning. He repeated:

"You're a f.u.c.k.i.n.g idiot. All this sad bullshit about washing plates and serving beer. You're a f.u.c.k.i.n.g genius, man. This, this stuff is brilliant."

I laughed with relief. I said:

"Well, that's what geniuses usually get to do. They wash dishes and serve beer. It's about the only way they can make a living."

"Stop. I command you to stop babbling bullshit at once. You sure you aren't one of those talented assholes that love to wallow in self-pity? This stuff is brilliant. I might be able to help you sell some, if you're interested."

"Sell some? Really?"

"Yeah. I know a couple of people involved in artistic shit. One of them is the co-owner of an art gallery. I'm sure she'll take your stuff. It's good, it's f.u.c.k.i.n.g good, man."

"Stuff that's really good doesn't sell by definition," I said. "The stuff that sells is stuff that conforms to the average Joe's idea of what's good. Which means it's average stuff pretending to be good."

"There you go again. I command you - and this is an order! - to immediately cease and desist this sad bullshit. Why, I would pay good money for any of these pictures. Well, maybe not good money. I can't afford good money. But I would think I got a really good deal if I paid fifty bucks, and would even spring a hundred on that portrait."

The 'portrait' he was pointing at was a sketch that showed Roch grinning at the smoking joint he was about to put in his mouth. It was something I'd done pretty mindlessly during one of our sessions in Roch's kitchen. I could see why Harry liked it so much. It basically made a good ad for smoking pot.

I was bubbling with joy inside, but I said:

"You're shitting me."

"I shit you not. I'll prove it to you." And he bent forward on the sofa and reached for the wallet in the back pocket of his jeans.

"No f.u.c.k.i.n.g way," I said quickly. "It's my turn to command you to stop. I believe you. And that sketch is yours. Take it."

"You're giving it to me?"

"Yeah, I'm giving it to you."

"F.u.c.k," he said. After a pause, he added:

"I think Captain Morgan needs to hear the news, too."