The Homeless Millionaire

I was half drunk and half hungover when I woke up the next morning. It was Sunday, the Lord's Day, and if there was a Lord hanging out somewhere above, he really hated my guts, quite literally.

I had to hit the can in a hell of a hurry to prevent accidents. It appeared that the Noyces still hadn't emerged from their coma, which was good. While I was suffering in the bathroom I remembered my discovery that life was a zero sum. I hoped that the way I presently felt compensated fully for all the nice things that had happened to me the previous day.

I washed my corpse and brushed its teeth. I also spent a small eternity restoring the bathroom to its original state, as I had been instructed to do when moving in. All this activity made my head swim and when I finally made it back to my room I had to lie down. I thought about lighting up a cigarette, but feared the consequences. I was in no shape to make another bathroom run.

I stayed on my bed for a long, long time, focusing on getting my breathing right. It was amazing how a head empty of any thought could ache so badly. I tried to cure my headache with a technique that I'd read about (or maybe someone had told me about it - I wasn't sure of anything, I wasn't sure I existed any more). This technique involved imagining the pain inside your head as a big red ball. Then you imagined the ball shrinking until it was no more than a red dot. When that happened, you imagined a blue triangle around that dot, and subsequently shrank both images until there was single faint blue dot that gradually faded out together with the last of the pain.

It never worked as advertised, for me. However it did seem to reduce the pain slightly, maybe because of the increased blood flow to the brain caused by imagining all those things. So I gave it a try, and was still f.u.c.k.i.n.g around with my head when the two little witches below woke up and started whispering. I swear it sounded as if they'd put their mouths next to the vent in their room, it was loud enough to make me jerk on the bed.

I couldn't make out what they were saying though, partly because the whispers were punctuated by stifled squeaks and giggles. They had the effect of bringing the a.d.u.l.t Noyces out of their coma; most likely, their hearing was as acute as mine that particular morning. I heard a door open and a wet cough and another door opening. Then David Noyce told his daughters to pipe down and his voice, full of metal filings, sounded so mean that the little witches shut up instantly. He left for the bathroom, leaving a shocked silence that lasted for quite a while.

The previous day, the Noyces had repeatedly invited me to use the kitchen - I was told a shelf in the fridge had already been set aside for me. But going all the way downstairs and possibly encountering a hungover Noyce on the way was beyond my capabilities. I slithered off the bed and made myself a coffee, and used it to wash down a couple of slices of bread. Then I made another coffee and had a good belt of scotch from my private bottle and within a couple of minutes the sun came out and the birds started singing and so on. At least that's what it felt like, it was grey and misty outside.

I cautiously lit a cigarette and found that it was all right. So I fixed myself a third coffee and spiked it with scotch and sat and sipped and smoked until the combined force of three coffees forced me to hit the can.

There had been all sorts of movement going on below, and the bathroom seemed to be a hub of activity. That meant I would have to go down to the ground floor - there was a toilet and a handbasin squeezed in under the staircase. I waited and chose a suitable moment to glide down without encountering anyone on the way. When I got there I discovered that someone, probably Brigit, had scr.a.p.ed leftovers off the plates into the toilet, and forgot to flush it.

There was no ventilation in the little room and the smell made me feel like puking. I flushed the toilet and went all the way up to my room to light a cigarette before coming down again. Someone was taking a shower; the girls were talking to those f.u.c.k.i.n.g dolls again.

Puffing smoke diabolically, I took a leak and left the door ajar on the way out. David poked his head out of the kitchen just as I was about to climb the stairs. He looked surprisingly well - I was fully expecting a grey-faced zombie because that was what I saw in the mirror on my earlier visit to the bathroom.

"Hey there," he said huskily, sounding like a hooker looking for business. "Want one of these?"

He put his hand out to show me that it was holding a bottle of beer. I smiled at him and said:

"Hi. No I'm fine, thanks. Great party."

"Yeah," Dave said doubtfully, and withdrew. I could sense he was both impressed and disappointed by my show of will. Well, it was easy to be the blue-eyed man of steel after consuming close to a quart of coffee and scotch.

I'd intended to try and draw something, but when I got back to my room I found my hand just wasn't steady enough. The mist outside was lifting and after I'd f.u.c.k.e.d up a couple of pages with my scrawls I got up and got dressed and went for walk in the park.

The mist seemed to be thicker when I got there, maybe because it was next to the bay. I saw a youngish couple walking a well-behaved, silent English setter and then no one else until I'd almost reached the spot where the park changed names. There were a few benches there, and one of them featured a guy that looked a lot like G. Papadopoulos. When I got closer, I saw that it was in fact G. Papadopoulos.

He was sitting there bare-headed; his big bald head had an evil shine. He was wearing a long, dark, expensive-looking overcoat and his hands were dug in deeply into its side pockets. As I approached, one of these hands emerged holding a bottle inside a brown paper bag. It sure as hell wasn't Pepto-Bismol; they didn't sell Pepto-Bismol in flat bottles.

G. Papapdopoulos refreshed himself from the masked bottle, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He put the bottle hand back in his pocket and looked up at me just as I was about to pass.

"Hey," he said. "Hey, you! Yeah you, wiseass. Come over here. I saw your Jane."

I'd intended to keep on walking, but this name stopped me in my tracks. I turned and said:

"Hello, mister Papadopoulos. What do you mean? I mean, who do you mean by my Jane?"

"You were saying the other day you had a letter for her. Should've left it with me. She showed up 'bout an hour after you'd left. She came to ask about mail, too. You should've left that letter with me, smartass. You shouldn't have been so f.u.c.k.i.n.g suspicious."

I was very tempted to tell him to go f.u.c.k himself because I was sure he was making this up. He was a fat ugly man sitting and drinking alone in the misty park on a Sunday. He had a chip on his shoulder the expensive overcoat couldn't conceal. He wanted to needle me so that he could sit there and drink and gloat over a meaningless little victory over a guy that knew about his Pepto-Bismol.

I didn't say anything. I just nodded and turned to walk away and he said:

"I've got her name and current address."

I stopped and turned back and looked at him. The fat f.u.c.k was actually grinning. He said:

"Come by my office sometime this week and I'll give it to you. I already told her she could expect a wiseass with a letter."

I stared at him. I was very tempted to ask what that Jane had looked like. But this would make me look stupid, so I said instead:

"Okay. I'll come round later this week. In the morning, if that's all right."

"After ten," said G. Papadopoulos. "Not earlier. I can't handle smartasses first thing in the morning."

"Fine," I said. After a pause, I added:

"I'll see you later in the week. Nice of you, by the way."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm an all-round nice guy." Saying this seemed to make him sad. He looked like he d.e.s.i.r.ed some privacy with his bottle. I nodded to him, and went away.

I was instantly and fully convinced that the Jane whom had visited G. Papadopoulos' office was my Jane, all right. It was totally stupid, because Jane was a popular name: there were probably a dozen Janes living within easy walking distance of any random spot inside the city. But the superstitious savage inside me was wildly excited, rolling his eyes and whispering spells.

I spnet a long time walking around the Papadopoulos-free part of the park, smoking cigarettes and speculating whether the Jane was my Jane, and if it was - wondering what she could have been doing while renting Unit 31. I had the stunning thought that maybe the company name hadn't been switched yet on the information board - old G.P. had just moved in - was Jane the owner of Brightstar Incorporated? What did Brightstar do? And so on, and so forth.

All this going in circles had a good side effect: my headache almost disappeared. I also got ravenously hungry. So I went to the A&W, half-expecting to run into Jane there. I didn't. I spent a couple of bucks stuffing myself stupid and thinking about all the questions I could have and should have asked G. Papadopoulos. I actually ended up going to the park after my meal to ask a couple, but of course he wasn't there any more.

It was beginning to get dark by then, and after bravely resisting the pull of the Park pub I went home. Next day was my first day at Robinson and Klein, and I was supposed to report there a couple of hours earlier. I spent a while getting prepared. The shirt I'd worn to the interview seemed less wrinkled than it had been, maybe because it had been on a hanger for a few days. My dress pants seemed okay too, and I gave up on the idea of going down and asking Birgit about an iron and ironing board. It would involve tons of extra conversation.

Around eight, when the Noyces were all gathered downstairs watching TV, I snuck down to the bathroom for the whole program: shit, shower, shave. I wanted to appear bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning without worrying about bathroom availability. I refilled the water jug and, after a moment's thought, brought down and filled the kettle too.

The whole Jane business was still very much on my mind and I smoked a few cigarettes while having a nightcap that killed off my Johnnie Walker. It was incredible. I was supposed to be an educated, thinking man, and yet a simple set of coincidences had instantly turned me into a wild-eyed, superstitious idiot.

By the time I went to bed, I decided that I'd actually prepare a bogus letter addressed to the mysterious Jane. I'd get an envelope and address it to the office on 4 Myrtle Street. I'd even get a sheet of paper and cover it with hard-to-read handwriting and put it in the envelope. It would cover my a.s.s if G. Papadopoulos requested to see the letter. Why did he bother with me, in the first place? Was his life really that boring? Why was he helping me?

It was going to be an interesting week.

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