The Homeless Millionaire

My paranoid pal was in top form when I woke up the next morning. He was bouncing around in his corner and punching the air and he had a mean glint in his eye. He was going to knock me out first chance he got, that was for sure.

But the knock on the front door derailed his plans. I had bolted it shut for the night; I'd belatedly decided the previous day to keep it bolted when I was in. I dragged my a.s.s off the sofa and tiptoed to the door, as if keeping silent and soundless made any difference. I put my mouth close to the door jamb and said:

"Who is that?"

"F.u.c.k, man," a muffled voice exclaimed. "Open the f.u.c.k.i.n.g door. It's me, Harry."

I drew the bolt back and he came in, bearing two bulging shopping bags. He needed a single look at my face to say:

"Something's happened. I can see that, don't you try to feed me bullshit. Now you collect your thoughts while I put all this stuff away. Then you'll tell me, starting at the start. But please - no lies. You lie to me, you're outta here."

He went to the kitchen with the shopping he'd brought and before I closed the door, I caught a glimpse of the boat that had brought him. It was remarkably similar to D.i.c.k and Jane's boat the previous day. For a moment I thought it actually was them that had brought Harry to the island.

I shut the door and lit a cigarette. It didn't taste so good without a coffee. So I went to the kitchen to make some and saw Harry busy in there and said:

"You want a hand?"

"No, I'm fine." He was putting canned soup in the cupboard when I came in, more of Campbell's assorted offerings: chicken soup, tomato soup, and thank-God-for-that bean soup. Campbell's bean soup was the only tasty soup Campbell's had, in my opinion, and that opinion was shared by pretty much everyone I had ever talked to about it. It also seemed to be one of the least popular. If people kept a can of Campbell's in their cupboard, it was chicken soup or tomato, or maybe mushroom soup that was most often used to make mushroom sauce when cooking meat. It didn't really surprise me, I might have been young but I was old enough to have noticed that the qualities people value most are the ones that are most scarce.

I made both of us coffees while Harry was busy making himself back at home. I had them ready in the prescribed place - on the coffee table, along with a plate of the infamous Scottish shortbread. It worked: Harry mellowed visibly when he exited his room, and saw the display on the coffee table. I even had a pack of Rothman's invitingly cracked open next to the plate, for Christ's sake. Mister Hospitality, no less.

Harry seated himself in the single armchair and sighed apologetically while helping himself to the shortbread and the coffee. He was feeling bad about being short with me a little while earlier on. It can be a smart move to let other people feel they've been assholes by being extra nice to them afterwards. Of course this doesn't work every time. It only works with people who are nice, basically. They think: I've been acting like a retard, so now you're treating me like one.

Harry, I knew, was one of those people. I made things easier for him by speaking first. I said:

"How is your Mom?"

"She's holding," he said after a while. I suspected this meant an one-handed hold. I said:

"She misses him a lot, I expect."

"Yeah." And then, after a pause:

"I can't fill that gap for her."

"What do you mean?"

He contemplated his cigarette for a while. I knew he wasn't looking for meaning in there, even though there's plenty: burn, burn until there's nothing left but ashes. Eventually, he said:

"You know, most times mothers are more in love with their sons than they are with their husbands. But she loved Dad more than me. He made her feel good about herself. I make her feel guilty. I make her think she f.u.c.k.e.d up because I haven't fulfilled her dream so far. I haven't gotten married and it doesn't look like I'll have plenty of kids and that's what she wants more than anything. My sisters, they don't count that much. It's kinda natural for them to marry and have kids and the rest of that shit. But me, I'm something else. If I ever got married and started breeding, it would be proof ultimate of her control over the men in her life."

I was silent for a while. Then I said:

"F.u.c.k, Harry, you've been smoking some heavy shit in the meantime. Have you brought some?"

He laughed out loud.

"Yes," he said. "Hang on a moment."

He went into his room and came back with the familiar and much appreciated Lebanese blond hash. He sat down and got busy rolling a joint before he said:

"I notice that you've sampled the pot in the meantime. I mean, it's all over the f.u.c.k.i.n.g kitchen. How is it?"

"It's pretty good," I said. "The other day, it made me think I'd invented a revolutionary new watercolor painting technique."

"That's pretty good," he agreed.

We shared that joint and it transpired he'd brought a fresh Captain Morgan in one of his shopping bags. So we invited Captain Morgan to our little party, even though we both knew it could have dire consequences. Captain Morgan was fun. Robbing and torturing and killing and raping was fun. People who did that and subsequently got promoted to governors were good role models, the kind of people you wanted around when you were having a party. They really got things going. I said:

"Harry, there's something I need to tell you about."

"Yeah?"

"Have you looked at the ceiling?"

He did, and saw the foot-wide circle of shot embedded in the wood, and said:

"What the f.u.c.k!"

"Correct," I said. "Why didn't you tell me you'd loaded the gun?"

"Oh Jesus. I forgot. You remember that night we got hammered and went out and looked at the stars and all that shit? Well, later on I thought I'd heard suspicious moves around the house. So I took a flashlight and loaded the gun and went to have a look. It was just a f.u.c.k.i.n.g raccoon. I put the gun away and forgot to take out the cartridges. I'm sorry."

"So was the other guy," I said. That really got Harry spooked, and I told him the story stressing that no one had gotten hurt.

It didn't go over that well. He said:

"F.u.c.k, man. Don't you wipe or wash your d.i.c.k after pissing even though no one's going to suck it right away? Why did you leave that pot lying around?"

"I wanted it to dry out," I said. "I know. I shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah well, you did it anyway," he said. "You think he saw it?"

"No, he was a good couple of steps from the doorway when I put the gun on him."

"F.u.c.k," Harry said. "You know, that asshole might make a formal complaint."

A short but heavy silence followed.

"Aren't you covered from all that?" I said eventually.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your Dad being a captain, and stuff."

Harry laughed a bitter laugh.

"The gangs and drugs people didn't like him much. He kinda focused on homicides, thought that was the only serious crime. He used to say all crime was just human nature, and that the only real crime was cutting other human lives short. Some of the drugs guys hated his guts, man. But that was actually why he became captain. He headed the gangs and drugs squad before he got promoted. He got the number of offences cut in half."

"He must have been really good," I said.

"Yeah. He closed half of the cases right away. He only opened an investigation when there were people that got hurt."

"Can I ask you something?"

"What a stupid f.u.c.k.i.n.g question. How about no, you can't. Okay, okay. Ask away."

"What happens if the cops get wind that you're growing pot?"

"I go to jail, man. My Dad wouldn't have helped me there, either. I guess he suspected from the number of times he'd told me to be careful. But he didn't really want to know for sure. If he knew for sure, he'd felt compelled to arrest me."

"You serious?"

"Sure I'm serious. He was that kind of guy. Principles apply to everyone, including himself."

"Wow."

"Wow is right," Harry said. "I guess now you understand why he drank a lot."

"A lot?"

"Don't get me wrong. The drink mellowed him out. Mom and no one else didn't mind. I personally think that if it wasn't for the booze, he'd have shot himself a long time past. After maybe shooting half a dozen choice assholes first."

"Psychological survival," I said, reaching for my glass of Captain Morgan.

"Psychological survival is right," Harry said, doing the same.

Following that, we talked a bit about ensuring survival for the Cambodian pot that was still waiting for harvest. I was of the opinion that with all the D.i.c.ks and Janes around, it should be taken care of as soon as possible. Harry disagreed.

"We cut it when it's ready, man," he said. "Not a day earlier."

When the forty ouncer of Captain Morgan was half empty, we went to check on the pot. It was sunny on the way out, raining by the time we got back: standard stuff for Anvil Island. The pot plants were doing all right, but not much more than that. The colas on the plants were underwhelming.

"It's real strong, man," Harry consoled me and himself as we walked back. "Real f.u.c.k.i.n.g power. A single toke is enough to set you off. If the f.u.c.k.i.n.g government had any sense, they'd legalize smoke and make a ton of money from the taxes and everyone would be happy. Sure, some paranoid freaks would do themselves in, but good riddance."

"You don't like paranoid freaks?"

"They're the ones who make everyone's life a misery, man. They keep people from just enjoying life. And that's all you can do. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"Yeah."

I made sure not to raise any controversial topics for the rest of that day.