The Homeless Millionaire

I started the weekend badly. Hungover and frozen stiff - I had been scared of lighting a fire after the RCMP visit the previous day - I drank coffee and rye while bending over the stove. I lit all four burners, and thawed out within a few minutes. I remembered that there was a spare tank of gas and I quickly decided I'd use the stove for warmth during the day, and light a fire only after nightfall, when the smoke from the chimney would be invisible. The windows all had wooden shutters on the outside, so I wouldn't be showing any light.

I made myself breakfast: eggs fried with sausage, a can of the immortal baked beans. The window over the sink gave a view of the tool shed behind the house. I almost broke a plate when I remembered that this was where Harry had put all the pot. It was padlocked shut, true. But if the cops came round again, and started sniffing around that shed -

I smoked a tense cigarette by the front window, making sure no boats were about to dock at Harry's pier. Then I slipped out of the front door, and slunk along the wall to the back of the house.

The shed's walls showed numerous cracks between the planks, some wide enough to peek inside: luckily it was really dark in there. But it didn't really matter, because the drying buds stank to high heaven. There was well over ten pounds of pot drying in there, and I could easily scent it while standing several steps downwind from the tool shed. The cops or anyone else equipped with a working nose didn't need to enter the shed to know what was inside.

I panicked so badly I felt like running into the woods. After a while, I forced myself to get back inside the house. Of course I crept there as if I were a burglar, stopping every few steps for a scan of sounds and sights. I could hear a couple of faraway engines buzzing like mosquitoes: it was Saturday and it wasn't raining yet, so some hardcore sailors were out on the bay. I hoped for a thunderstorm, soon. The clouds looked promising in that respect.

Unfortunately, all they delivered was a drizzle that lasted through the rest of the day. I spent that time in the kitchen, drinking coffee and rye and smoking and trying to draw something. When evening rolled around, I had about a dozen pieces that I could use to get a fire going.

I went out and got some firewood in and closed the shutters on the front and side windows. They had peepholes cut out in the center, and I knew I'd be trying to see something through them every ten minutes for the remainder of the evening. I heated a big can of stew for dinner and ate that with some bread and had a beer. Then I finally lit that fire with the help of my earlier artistic output. It was such bad shit that I flinched whenever I caught a glimpse while feeding it to the flames. My paranoid friend was quiet; he'd taken a really bad beating from Mr Walker the night before.

So did I, and it barely a quarter past nine when I hit the sack.

Sunday started with a storm: the thunderstorm that I'd been hoping for. I was drenched by the time I got all four windows unshuttered, and after a short hesitation put a couple of sticks of firewood atop the embers and got a small fire going after a lot of huffing and puffing and getting ash and soot all over my face. There wasn't a chance of anyone seeing the smoke from the water in that weather. When I ran outside for a quick check, I could hardly make it out even when standing right in front of the house.

My guts felt heavy and when I went to unburden them, I found that I'd have to empty the chemical toilet. I still had over half a quart of Johnnie Walker, so I went for a quick consultation. Two drinks and a cigarette later, I was ready to tackle the toilet business. Johnnie told me it would be wise to get it done before eating breakfast.

He was right. Dealing with that toilet turned out to be one of the worst horrors I'd ever experienced. I'd never done that kind of thing before, and I was doing it with rain pouring down so hard it sounded like a waterfall. I had to open the whole thing up to split it into two parts. Then I had to carry the tank into the woods, and dig a hole. The tank needed to be washed out with a hose, but I balked at that. I carried the tank and the seat to the back and left them behind the tool shed, out in the rain. With any luck it would do the job for me.

I had a quick hot shower and dressed in dry clothes and went into the kitchen for a hot coffee with a shot of rye and a cigarette. I had one and a half bottles of rye left, over a quart: things were safe and secure in the rye department. The storm went on and on, it got really gusty and the raindrops sounded like hail when they hit the windows. There was no way anyone would be coming to the island in this weather. I could relax.

The light was too poor to do any drawing or painting, so after breakfast I went through the bookshelf and finally chose a thick paperback entitled Captain Blood. It was written by a guy called Rafael Sabatini and it was a f.u.c.k.i.n.g good story, even though the titular Captain Blood bore very little resemblance to real pirates. He was a good man, and handsome to boot and oozing chivalry from every pore. He was a trained doctor and experienced soldier, equally good at ending and saving lives. And he was pretty much always clean and well-dressed, which was a big feat in the seventeenth century and basically impossible in the tropics.

He got sent down to Barbados as a convict and became the most successful pirate of all times. Subsequently pardoned and promoted to governor, he'd also managed to capture the heart of one of the top beauties in the Caribbean. It was fairyland all the way, and I stayed there all day. The rain had changed into the standard drizzle by the late afternoon; I let the fire in the front room go out and stayed in the kitchen, reading by the kerosene lamp, with breaks for fresh tea and fresh plates of shortbread.

My paranoid pal had completely abandoned me; it felt odd not to have him around. I was expecting him to get plenty of mileage from the pot in the tool shed, but didn't hear a single peep. Maybe he was reading about the adventures of Peter Blood along with me. Or maybe paranoiacs were banned from entering fairyland. It made sense, they'd burn everything down in a twinkling of an eye.

I had been using a large jar as a piss pot, and when night started to fall I went out to empty it and check on the chemical toilet. My plan had worked, the rain had washed it clean. If my paranoid friend was skulking around at all, that was the moment when he just threw up his hands in despair and gave up.

It was incredible. I was neck-deep in shit and even cleaning a hundred chemical toilets would do little to change that. But I really felt as if everything was going my way when I went back inside and assembled the toilet. Visits to fairyland were good for my soul, most likely because any soul naturally belongs in fairyland. In fairyland, convicts named Blood get rich and famous and loved by everyone, including the beautiful daughter of the guy tasked with hunting Blood down.

Eating another canned-stew-and-bread dinner, I wondered about my chances of getting some of this fairyland business working in my own life. I imagined myself living in my own little flat - own bathroom, own kitchen - and doing a picture a day, with a bag of prime pot in the freezer along with plenty of ice for the Johnnie Walker.

After I'd completed a picture, I would go and eat a good meal in a restaurant nearby and all the pretty waitresses would compete to serve my table, and then converse in excited whispers while stealing quick looks at me. I imagined having a show of my own at the gallery, and making enough money to live on for at least a year without any financial worries.

I knew all that would never happen, because I'd already found out that imagining anything guaranteed things would turn out differently. That happened even when the outcome was exactly as predicted. All kinds of unexpected shit would take place along the way, and when I reached my goal it didn't feel the way I'd expected it to feel. And there would be no feeling of great satisfaction; any satisfaction I felt would come later in small spurts now and then, and dissolve without a trace in the great bath of everyday life.

But it was cozy and warm in the kitchen, with a burner hissing blue flame and the rain pit-patting outside. I felt so happy I missed my paranoid pal. If he'd come along I'd given him a hug and told him not to worry. I'd have promised him I would give him tons of material in the very near future just to cheer him up. I'd have stroked his hair and offered him a cigarette and invited him to try the shortbread.

It was caused by all that Sabatini stuff, for sure. When I finished reading Captain Blood, I went to the bookshelf and put it back and got out another Sabatini. It was entitled Scaramouche, and promised a trip to another fairyland in spite of its gory setting: the French Revolution. The guillotines were in constant use at that time, and I was curious how that would work out in the Scaramouche fairyland.

But when I sat down again in the kitchen, I suddenly felt so drowsy I barely managed to turn the stove off before staggering to the sofa.

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