The Homeless Millionaire

Wednesday started overcast and grey, but Harry kicked my a.s.s off the sofa right after dawn. He said it would clear up later, that it wouldn't be raining until late afternoon at the earliest if at all, and that we had to get the roof repaired before it did.

We were both hungover like hell so we finished off the bottle of Johnnie Walker with our breakfast; there wasn't much left, a couple of shots each. I really felt like going right back to sleep, but that wasn't an option.

Harry had cross-examined me about my roof-repair skills and found them seriously lacking. So my input was limited to fetching stuff for him and handing him the tool he needed at the right moment and other stuff like that. Basically I stood motionless at the top of the ladder waiting for his next command, and it was f.u.c.k.i.n.g uncomfortable. I was also cold, I didn't want to wear my nice new jacket in case it got damaged.

We took a short break around noon to eat lunch fortified by a couple of shots of Canadian rye. I was beginning to understand why construction guys all seemed to drink a lot. The sky had partly cleared by then, and once again I was blown away by Harry's ability to predict the weather. I asked him about it, and he said:

"Well, I've spent a lot of time here. I told you I even wintered here once, right? As you might have noticed, there aren't many entertainment options. When you spend a lot of time just looking at the weather you begin to understand how things work, weather-wise. That's all there is to it."

"Why don't you at least have a radio here? I mean, we could listen to some music or the news."

He shook his head.

"I did at first," he said. "It made things worse. I had a radio that winter I stayed here. It made me pine for the city like a hungry baby pines for its mother's tit. It made me miserable. And then I discovered that when you live in silence for a while, you begin to hear thoughts that never make it to your consciousness otherwise. You start to understand who you really are and what's important in your life and other stuff like that."

"Stillness and silence?"

"All the way. It's not like it's totally quiet here, either. There's tons of wildlife around here, and those wild little people lead very busy lives. You don't get to see or hear what they're up to when you've got music blaring out of a box. And what they are up to and how they go about it is pretty interesting. You find out there's quite a lot going on in those little brains. Believe me, having a radio or a record player or tape recorder here doesn't make things better. It makes them worse. And anyway, listening to music all the time makes you stupid."

"Come on."

"It does. It may make you feel better or happier, but there's a price to be paid for that. There's always a price to be paid for everything that's nice. How's your head?"

"Much better."

"It's all the fresh air," Harry said, and grinned and reached for his rye.

We allowed ourselves just a single cigarette each after our lunch, and worked like maniacs throughout the afternoon. I was going up and down the ladder like a yoyo, I did that at least a hundred times in the space of a couple of hours and I was feeling it in my t.h.i.g.hs. I spent the last hour or so kneeling on the roof beside Harry, and holding down the tar paper and later the shingles while he nailed them into place.

Night began to fall before we were done, and we spent the last half-hour in a frenzy of activity. It was completely dark by the time I went down the ladder for a final time. We put all the repair gear away, and Harry conducted an examination of his pot while I took a hot shower. Then we cooked an enormous dinner: big f.u.c.k.i.n.g steaks fried with onions, and tons of potatoes and tinned green peas and corn.

We washed it all down with beer. I had bought a case of Labatt's 50 in order to escape the clutches of Kokanee True Ale, but it didn't taste any better. If anything, it tasted even worse. I told Harry about my time in England, and how we bribed professional alcoholics into buying us a few bottles at the off-licence or the pub.

"They've got real beer over there, Harry," I told him, and he agreed. He'd been to the U.K. - just once, when he was seventeen. His whole family had gone over to participate in the funeral of a prominent ancestor: Harry's great-grandfather. He'd died at the ripe old age of eighty seven. He'd fathered eight children, six of which died before they turned twenty, from disease as well as fighting in assorted British wars. He'd fought himself in quite a few, too. He survived World War One as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and had had a c.h.e.s.tful of other medals too, including the French Croix de Guerre. But he'd never progressed beyond the rank of major because his class background wasn't quite right.

We smoked a couple of joints while Harry told me about all that. It was a waste of good pot: it knocked us out. Harry staggered off to bed while I was left with the task of washing up. I didn't mind, I did it on automatic, having had a lot of practice in my restaurant job.

It was raining cats and dogs the next morning, and over breakfast we congratulated each other on completing the roof repairs the previous day. We completed our morning meal with coffee and rye and cigarettes and three really big joints. Harry went to his room to lie down; he said his knees ached from all the kneeling he did the previous day.

I stayed for a long time at the kitchen table, staring at this and that while a cigarette burned itself out in the ashtray. I had a hundred thoughts a minute going through my head, and I made the momentous discovery that I actually had a hundred thoughts a minute all the time. Getting stoned and sitting still in silence simply made me aware of them, that was all. By the time I got up and washed the breakfast things I had decided every a.d.u.l.t on Earth should be made to smoke pot and sit in total silence at least once every week, watching what their brain was up to. It would have made the world a much better place to live, I was sure.

After I'd washed up I made myself another coffee and drank it by one of the front windows, looking at the world outside. The world outside featured a boat traveling about midway between the island and the mainland, and after a while I realized that this boat was very familiar. It was the cruiser belonging to the guys who had tried to steal Harry's Cambodian pot, the cruiser I'd set adrift a couple of days earlier.

For some reason, Harry had taken the binoculars into his room so I ran up the stairs and knocked and told him what was going on. He came out and we both went to the window and took turns looking at the boat through the binoculars.

There were more than three guys in it, this time: it was hard to tell the exact number at that distance. But we could see all of them were staring at the island, most likely staring right back at us. They kept well away, but we could tell they were following the shoreline from their course. I wanted to go out and follow their progress, but Harry said it was a bad idea.

"They've got binoculars too," he said, pulling on my sleeve to get me away from the window. "They're looking at the house right now. Let's stay put and see what happens. My guess is, they'll go round the island and come by again, maybe a little closer. Then they'll either come ashore or go away."

"What do we do if they come ashore?"

"Nothing. We stay hidden and sit it out. They'll go away sooner or later. They might do a bit of exploring to see whether they can find another pot field, but I doubt it. I think you've given them a good scare, and that they aren't eager to find you looking at them down the barrel of a gun again."

"I think they've got a gun or two aboard," I said. "I swear I saw them handling something that looked like a gun."

"It's hard to tell, at this distance. Could have been a fishing rod."

"Well, what happens if they come ashore and come here and it turns out they've got guns?"

"Trouble," said Harry, and lit a thoughtful cigarette. He blew smoke at the ceiling and added:

"Lots of trouble. But it could mean big trouble for them, too. I think they'll stay away."

The cruiser disappeared from sight, slowly changing course from north to north by west. It was pretty obvious to me the guys aboard intended to go round the island, and I was sure we'd see them again.

Harry and I went to the kitchen and made more coffee and drank a few shots of rye as well. We smoked up a storm, speculating on what would happen next. An hour or so later the rain changed into a full-scale thunderstorm, which made an armed invasion much less likely. We kept going to the front window for a look now and then but there were no boats at all out in the bay, hardly a surprise given the weather.

We were both sure that the guys would go home in the circ.u.mstances. But we were also sure that they would return again. Maybe the next day, maybe next year, but they would be back. Harry regretted that we didn't have the cruiser's registration number; he said that would have enabled him to check on the owner.

"You could ask your friends at the marina," I suggested. "Who knows, maybe they've even met those guys and know who they are."

Harry shook his head.

"I haven't seen that cruiser before," he said. "They sure as hell don't dock at Lion's Bay. They've come all the way up from Vancouver. Or maybe Squamish, or Britannia Beach. But my guess is they've come up from Vancouver. I'd have seen that boat around otherwise. And I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before. I wish they'd sailed a little closer to the shore, so that I could have seen the number."

He got his wish about a half an hour later. He had gone back to his room by then, and I was sitting on the couch staring a blank sheet of paper, the pencil ready in my hand. The thunderstorm had passed, and the rain had changed into the familiar thin drizzle. I couldn't make up my mind what to draw. I had several ideas competing for my attention and was still going back and forth between them when I heard the cruiser's engine.

I rushed to the window keeping low and out of line of sight before cautiously peeking out. The cruiser was passing by again, and this time it was no more than a hundred yards from the pier. There were at least four guys aboard, and two of them were looking at the house through binoculars.

I went up the stairs and knocked on Harry's door and told him of this latest development. We both crept down to the windows, making sure not to show ourselves. The cruiser turned around just as it was going to go out of sight, and slowly passed in front again. The guys aboard were still staring at the house as if it contained all the answers. They were right: it did.

"I got their number," Harry said softly from his window. He was crouching under it, and taking quick looks over the ledge through the binoculars. After a moment, he added:

"They're turning away. They're going home. Hey, can your write that number down for me?"

"Sure," I said. I got my pencil and pad from the coffee table and told him I was ready.

"Good," Harry said. "It's one three kay four eight seven four three one. They're from Vancouver, all right. Thirteen up front means the boat's registered there."

The pencil fell from my fingers and clattered on the floor.

"What was that? " I said. My voice was trembling, and Harry turned to throw me an amused glance.

"Relax," he said. "They're definitely going home. One three kay - that's the letter K - four eight seven four three one."

"Four three one at the end?"

"Yeah."

When I was writing it down, my hand was shaking.

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