The Homeless Millionaire - Volume 1 Chapter 112 December 2nd 1972 Morning Afternoon

It was raining cats and dogs next morning, and I was painfully reminded that I’d forgotten to acquire a new umbrella. I went through agonies when deciding what to wear. It had to fit both the office and the gallery. Eventually I thought f.u.c.k it, and put on my office gear.

The Noyces ambushed me on my way out. The speed with which they popped out when they heard me coming suggested they’d been lurking right behind the kitchen door, ready to spring. They were grinning like crazy when they said good morning and I felt obliged to grin a little, too.

“So today is the big day,” Birgit said. I instantly felt irritated. I said:

“Yeah well with this weather, all bets are off.”

“It won’t stop anyone from coming,” said Dave, as if he was a f.u.c.k.i.n.g authority on show openings. “It’s not stopping us.”

“You’re coming?” I said, horrified.

“Later on, yes. In the evening. We’ll be in the area anyway, so we’ll pop in for a look.”

“That’s great,” I lied. “Have to run now. I start at nine on Saturdays. See you later.”

“You didn’t take the day off?”

“No,” I said, and escaped into the rain.

I half-ran to the office, the joke hood on my jacket failing to prevent my head from getting wet. I was furious. That was just what I needed, my landlord and landlady popping in for a f.u.c.k.i.n.g look. I had the terrible thought that they might actually buy something. If they did, they’d expect me to kiss their feet each time we met. I really hoped they wouldn’t show up.

I was at the office a couple of minutes early. Robinson was already in, and he’d been in for a while: he’d made himself a pot of tea.

“Good morning, my dear boy,” he practically sang out when I came in.

“Good morning,” I said, forcing myself to smile.

“Nasty weather,” Robinson remarked as I hung up my jacket. “Reminds me of my time in the war. Was like this more than half the time. Often worse, actually.”

“Did your ship have an open bridge?” I asked, a little malevolently.

“Oh no. Goodness me, no. But you see, when one held watch one had to venture outside anyway. Couldn’t see a thing through the windows. A little like trying to look through a waterfall. We had radar and sonar of course, unfortunately both very primitive. A shoal of fish would send everyone to battle stations.”

“Did that happen often?”

“Too often. Stay out of war if war happens, old boy. A gentleman shouldn’t get involved in vulgar fighting. A gentleman settles differences over a drink, following a good dinner. That’s why he’s called a gentleman.”

“If only everyone saw it that way,” I said.

“Yes. Oh well. I should tell you most of my appointments for today have been cancelled. I came in early today to find out what was what. Unfortunately the one appointment that still stands is the one that falls at noon. I promise to do my utmost to return quickly.”

I made the usual noises about it being fine and no problem at all, and escaped to the annex to dry my hair with the paper towels. While I was doing that, I reflected that most of my fine, no problems were bullshit. Most of the time it wasn’t fine; most of the time it was a problem, too. I wondered whether that was true for other people, and decided it probably was. Everyone, including myself, was constantly spewing bullshit.

Robinson wanted a fresh pot of tea. I made it and took him his cup and refilled it every few minutes like a f.u.c.k.i.n.g waiter.

“Do you like cherries, old boy?” he asked me when I was refilling his cup for the second time.

“I do,” I said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Exactly. Exactly! I want you to consider how utterly cunning cherry trees are. Like all living things they have this drive to multiply. So they coat their seeds with a hard shell and a delicious exterior and color everything red so that it’s visible at a distance. Birds and whatnot come along and gobble the fruit and swallow the pit. They can’t digest it because of the shell. They get rid of it when they defecate, much later and at a distance from the tree. And so the seed ends on a freshly fertilized patch of soil, a patch that will be avoided by all mobile life for obvious reasons. The devilish cunning! Plants are very clever, my boy.”

I privately wondered whether Robinson talked to his ficus tree or cactus or palm or whatever plant he had at home. I said:

“I think plants are very agreeable. They know their place and never attack anybody and all they need is some sunlight and water. But apparently killing them for no reason and eating them while they’re still alive is okay. I haven’t heard of anyone go on a plant-free diet because plants are the most noble and inoffensive form of life.”

My little speech made Robinson smile. He said:

“Actually, raw meat is supposed to provide all the nutrients a human body needs. Not that I can imagine living on a diet like that, it would be perfectly awful.”

At that point, the telephone on his desk rang – a rare occurrence – and he snatched the receiver with a speed that would have shamed a veteran gunfighter.

“Jack Robinson speaking, good morning,” he said, and gave me a f.u.c.k off glance. I returned to the annex and ran a rag over everything as usual. I was hoping Robinson’s caller had phoned to cancel the twelve o’clock meeting.

But it was not to be. The phone actually rang twice more, raising my hopes each time. Robinson made some calls, too. He spoke softly and I couldn’t work out what he was saying. I was practically banished to that f.u.c.k.i.n.g annex because Robinson was sitting at his/my desk and I didn’t have the nerve to ask if I could sit at Klein’s.

Just after half past eleven Robinson rose and I hurried to help with his coat with great alacrity. I hoped he’d get to the meeting early and wrap it up in fifteen minutes and find a way to teleport himself back to the office.

“Be back soon,” Robinson said as he was leaving.

I spent half an hour sitting at my desk and smoking. The cigarettes left a bad taste in my mouth but I knew another coffee would make it even worse. As noon approached, I started imaging the scene at The Space. But it was still raining, maybe not as strongly as in the early morning, but still hard enough to stay home in spite of free booze.

Robinson shocked me by returning at ten to one, and instantly calling a cab. He pulled out a five-dollar bill and insisted that I take it. My cab came and Robinson patted my shoulder and wished me luck. He definitely had grounds to consider himself a gentleman.

My cab ride turned out to cost three bucks, including tip. I asked the driver to drop me off half a block from the gallery. I took three steps and the rain died, just like that. I stopped and looked up and saw a lighter circle in the grey sky over me. My paranoid pal giggled. He’d never left me, he was always there, but he’d been very quiet lately.

Maybe Mr. Chance wasn’t taking his calls? It made sense, because Mr. Chance never took calls from anybody. That old bitch Fate, she was open to negotiations. She wanted to be entertained. But Mr. Chance didn’t give a f.u.c.k because he had his shot glass and his dice. That was all the entertainment he needed.

I identified The Space from a great distance: the front door had been propped open and there were clouds of blue smoke floating out from within. As I drew nearer, I began to hear the droning babble of many voices. They sounded joyous, which was a good sign. This was immediately followed by a bad sign.

The bad sign in question adorned the front of the gallery. It said: The Space Presents THREE NEW FACES WITH MAGIC HANDS. It sounded like something Chaz would come up with over one of his gin-and-tonic breakfasts. I made a mental note to find out who had come up with that horrible line.

The place was packed. Everyone was wearing their coats and drinking and smoking and talking. I had to say ‘excuse me’ five or six times just to get inside. I stood on tiptoe and saw that the reception counter had been turned into a bar manned by a very serious-looking kid who was currently busy with a c.o.c.ktail shaker.

It looked very promising so I excused and pushed my way there and had to wait for ten minutes while the kid dealt with his backlog. I didn’t recognize anyone in the sea of faces around me. I kept standing up on tiptoe but I couldn’t see Chaz or Harry or even Melanie. I was close to despair, but luckily Mr. Chance got going on my behalf.

I saw Chaz and Harry and Melanie emerge from his office at the back. They had the unmistakable life-is-good glow that shows on people who had just done some very good drugs. Almost the moment I saw them, the serious-looking kid behind the bar handed me my drink. I’d ordered a double scotch on the rocks and he’d poured me at least a triple. I was beginning to like that kid.

I did the tiptoe thing again and this time Chaz spotted me and yelled ‘hey’ so loud the people around him cringed. He began pushing through them like a tank, simultaneously waving at me to come closer.

“So you’ve made it,” he grinned at me when we finally linked up. He didn’t offer to shake my hand. He had a big, half-full tumbler in his right hand that had the look of having been permanently welded in place.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I just couldn’t leave earlier.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. You got a drink? Good.”

“Hey, man,” said Harry, appearing by Chaz’s side. He sounded odd.

“Harry! Great to see you. How have you been?”

He had been fine. His mother hadn’t. Gina wasn’t fine either – she’d caught the flu and banned Harry from the premises, arguing she didn’t want to infect him. In return I told Harry that I was fine, I’d just been given a raise by my new employer. It went on like that for a while, long enough for Chaz to disappear: an angry-looking chick with coal-black hair and makeup that made her look like a raccoon had shown up and pulled on his sleeve and whispered something when he bent his head. Then she went off and he followed her and I swear people were actually clearing the way for the raccoon without her having to say anything.

“Listen, I’ve got to go,” Harry said. “My mum’s really sick. But I brought something for you.”

His hand nudged mine and I caught on and discreetly took the plastic bag of pot and slid it into my pocket.

“Just half of what I owe you,” said Harry. “I’ll get the other half within a couple of weeks. Okay?”

“Absolutely no problem,” I said, and it was one of those times when I really meant it.

“Your pictures are over there.” He pointed over the head of a guy with long blond hair and mutton chops and a nose that featured a couple of tiny flakes of white on the nostril.

“I’m scared to look,” I said. Harry laughed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re good. Give me a call tomorrow, maybe we can get together for a beer.”

“I will.”

A moment later he was gone and so was my drink and I went to discuss business with the serious-looking kid. I got another triple and had a swig and finally felt brave enough to go and look at my stuff.

It wasn’t easy. The guy with the cocaine-powdered beak was particularly offended he had to move. I had the impression he didn’t like my tie-and jacket ensemble, either.

But I persisted, and eventually I caught sight of one of my drawings between two heads. It was my infamous beer bottle. The heads were engaged in conversation. I decided I’d go round them and bumped into a tall girl in long burgundy leather coat. I heard my paranoid pal clear his throat and say ‘hello there’, but I ignored him. I wanted to see my pictures on display.

I managed to maneuver around another couple of people and saw my drawing in all of its glory. It had a very tasteful thin black frame and there was a little orange sticker in its upper corner. I pushed closer and saw that the sticker featured a single word:

SOLD

I stopped breathing. I think my heart stopped beating for a moment, too. I had a swig of scotch and was about to have another when a familiar voice said:

“Well, well, well. Look who’s here.”

It was Jane.

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