The Homeless Millionaire - Volume 1 Chapter 109 November 28 29th 1972

That feeling of undefined dread was still with me when I woke up the next day. The guy that looked back at me from the bathroom mirror was haunted, frightened guy. Something was going to go very wrong very soon. I could feel it.

I forced myself to go through my morning routine thinking about all those movies I’d seen. Someone would be going about their life and doing their everyday thing and maybe even feeling happy while taking out the trash, cooking a dinner, walking the dog, whatever. And at that very moment, their beloved spouse was jerking around on the pavement following a heart attack. Or their kid was being crushed by a car. Or a sniper half a mile away was drawing a bead on their head in a case of mistaken identity.

It was all down to a slob in a stained summer suit and a straw hat, sitting with his fat legs spread wide and the hand holding the dice resting on his knee. He would toss back a big shot of something that made him sweat even more, and then – what? Would he make a job of rolling those dice before he threw them? Would he just let them drop from his hand as they were? Would any of this make any difference to what came up?

Yep, it was all up to Mr. Chance, and you never knew with Mr. Chance. That was why he was called Mr. Chance.

Of course, after everything was over, there would be a zillion logical explanations. It was because of This! It happened because of That! It was a direct consequence of – anything could be inserted here, depending on mood.

Klein was in the office as usual, the phone receiver pressed to his ear; maybe Mr. Chance was too busy drinking to do his job. Mr. Chance drank a lot, judging by the headlines in the news. He had to be drunk or hungover all the time. There just was no other explanation.

“That would be disappointing,” Klein said to the phone. He glanced at me and waved and pointed to the coffee mug on his desk. I collected it, and went to the annex. When I brought Klein his coffee he was scribbling a letter.

“Hang on,” he said. I stood by his desk, waiting. The top desk drawer was very slightly open, not even an inch, but I could see the gleam of a magazine cover in the slit.

“Here,” said Klein, handing me the letter along with a couple of others. He beamed at me and added:

“My wife loves your drawing. She thinks you’re a genius. Where did you learn to draw like that?”

“That’s a good question,” I said. “I’m not really sure.”

“Hey. That gallery of yours. What’s it called?”

“The Space. They’re – ”

“I know where they are. I know Marlon Space, he’s the owner of that joint. You know him?”

“No, just his junior partner. A guy called Chaz.”

“Never met him. Marlon, he’s an all right guy. Bit of a clown. Likes to make out he’s like Brando, you know, the actor, down to the bulldog stare and the jutting lip. He’s got a gut as big as Brando’s, that’s for sure. But he’s all right. He won’t cheat you.”

I must have looked dismayed when I heard that, because Klein added:

“Hey, relax. The art world is full of con men, but Marlon isn’t like that. You got a signed contract?”

“Yes. Signed by M. Space.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I typed up the letters feeling that I did have a lot to worry about. I couldn’t help it. Klein left around one o’clock, saying he would be back in a couple of hours. His top desk drawer was locked that day. Out of boredom, I looked through all the drawers in my desk, and discovered the bottom one contained a couple of legal pads. I found a pencil – HB, too soft for my preferred style – and fooled around for a while, drawing random stuff: the telephone on my desk, my left hand in a variety of poses, and a portrait of G. Papadopoulos from memory. I didn’t remember his face as well as I should, so I cheated by making him drink Pepto-Bismol from an upturned bottle.

I was wondering what to draw next when the phone on my desk rang.

“Good afternoon, Robinson and Klein,” I said. No one said anything at the other end.

“Hello?” Nothing, just a soft hum.

I shrugged and put the receiver away and lit a cigarette. Halfway through, I had the thought that the silent call was a signal Mr. Chance was back on the job. I spent the next hour drinking coffee and smoking and waiting for someone or something to make a move. Nothing happened; that old saw – a watched pot never boils – felt very true.

Robinson breezed in at half past two. I was hanging up his overcoat when he said:

“My dear boy. Do you take commissions? I mean, can one commission you to draw something?”

I prevented myself from jumping with joy with great difficulty.

“I’ve never done anything like that before,” I said. “I did do a few things because someone or other asked me to. But not for money.”

“Then it’s high time you got started, my boy. If a gallery owner deems your art good enough to put on display, you should begin charging money.”

I was half-expecting Robinson to give me my first paid drawing job, but he didn’t. He gave me three letters to type instead, and sent me off to the post office when they were done.

I went there on full alert, ready for anything Mr. Chance could throw my way. I looked both ways before crossing a street, and scanned approaching faces for the psychopathic D.i.c.ky. But nothing happened until I reached the post office.

The guy with the hot dogs wasn’t there. He was always there, even when it was raining! It wasn’t raining now. I actually walked round a little bit before going into the post office, establishing beyond any doubt that he really wasn’t there.

There was a hell of a lineup inside, and it took me over half an hour to get those goddamn letters posted by registered mail. I dived into a store on the way back to work and bought a candy bar and a couple of bananas. They were twice as expensive as apples, but I was beginning to get slightly sick of apples. I ate while walking, but even then it was after four in the afternoon when I got back, and night was falling fast.

Once again, Klein let me off work early, at half past five. My good luck continued unabated: there was a promotion at the A&W that seemed to have been done with me in mind: buying a combo got you a second at half price. I didn’t buy a newspaper and got a notepad with all that saved money and spent the evening trying to come up with ideas for a comic strip. I went through at least half a dozen and filled nearly a third of that notebook with sketches of the various characters. None appealed to me.

The Noyces were shouting at each other when I woke up the next day. I listened hard but couldn’t make out what it was all about: they were on the ground floor. Of course I took this is an omen that Mr. Chance was about to throw me a stinker. But he didn’t, that Wednesday was as ordinary and boring as it could get. The one exception was the hot dog guy: he hadn’t reappeared. It was candy bar and bananas on the hoof again, then a solitary couple of hours at the office until Klein returned to lock it up.

It was so boring that I allowed myself to fantasize a little about the show opening and the show and the money I’d make. In my experience, fantasies like that were very dangerous stuff: they seemed to attract misfortune. But I did anyway, thinking that maybe I’d provoke Mr. Chance to do his worst before the show opening. I really wanted that to go well, I was prepared to endure horrific shit over the next few days as long as it ended before noon on Saturday, ushering in another good run.

I could remember only too well the very first time I engaged in wishful thinking. I was four, and wanted a bicycle more than anything else. I had this infantile conviction that if I thought about it all the time it would actually manifest in reality. What happened was that I got a f.u.c.k.i.n.g scooter on my next birthday, and Josh broke it while demonstrating how to ride it. I didn’t get to use it once. I didn’t learn anything either, and over the next ten years or so I was repeatedly disappointed when my wishes didn’t materialize.

So I stopped wishing for things to happen and f.u.c.k me if they didn’t start dropping in my lap. It really seemed that way. It was as if not caring about something automatically delivered it. Always unexpectedly, and always in surprising shape or form.

For example, I’d been forced to stretch every dollar I had until it was close to tearing. I resolutely put all money worries out of my mind and began to be rewarded by lucky breaks, even though not all of them seemed nice. The disappearance of the hot dog guy saved me over a quarter every day. The A&W promotion saved me half a dollar more. And payday was just two days away. I decided I’d treat myself to a pint and a couple of takeaway bottles of Toby at the Park Pub Thursday evening. Several days’ worth of combined hot dog and A&W savings would cover that.

I went to bed pretty pleased with that plan.

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