The Homeless Millionaire - Volume 1 Chapter 64 October 15th 1972

The light was indeed better the next day: it was sunny when I woke up. However, I felt so lazy I stayed lying on the sofa for the best part of an hour, trying to fall asleep again. It was all that pot I’d smoked the previous day; I had a a marijuana hangover.

I had been planning to draw and paint all day if the light was good, but I was feeling much too lazy for that. So I tried to get myself going by treating myself to a cold shower. I chickened out at the last moment, and had a hot one instead. I convinced myself that I deserved a reward for bringing home two full gas tanks, braving the waves and the elements and whatnot in the process.

I ate breakfast and washed up and I was still feeling incredibly lazy. So I gathered up all the pot I’d dried and it was really dry, it was crumbling in my fingers. I didn’t have the right container to keep it in, so I ended up rolling four joints from all the pot that was in the pan. After a short hesitation I smoked one of those and I instantly felt better, energetic and motivated. But I still didn’t feel like painting or drawing anything.

I tried to persuade myself with the argument that I should really create something brilliant for Harry’s gallery-owning friend. But it was the wrong argument, because I knew for sure I wouldn’t create anything brilliant that day. I was feeling quite contented and peaceful and that’s the wrong feeling to have when attempting to create something good. At least that was how it worked in my case. Maybe there were some lucky guys who were capable of creating outstanding stuff when they were relaxed and happy. I wasn’t one of them.

In the end, I decided I’d visit Lion’s Bay. I was getting to be quite confident about handling the boat, so that wasn’t the problem. But money was a problem. I knew that I’d end up spending some if I went. Worse, I actually felt like spending some. I felt like treating myself to a meal that I didn’t have to cook and having a few drinks, that kind of stuff.

It was a stupid and irresponsible thing to do, so I did it. My final argument to myself was that I had to call Roch (thus spending even more money) to find out what was going on at his end.

I dressed and tore the page with Roch’s number out of the notebook, and put it in my pocket along with cigarettes and my new Zippo lighter. Then I went down to the boat and spent fifteen minutes bailing out the water that had acc.u.mulated inside: it had been raining in the meantime. It was chilly outside and I had ample time to change my mind, but I just grew more determined. Nothing could keep me from sticking my head into the lion’s mouth, and going to Lion’s Bay.

I was there twenty minutes later, having made the trip without any misadventures. Amazingly, the sun was still shining brightly and everything looked beautiful and inviting, even the mountains. I moored the boat like a f.u.c.k.i.n.g professional and set out along the now-familiar route to the post office and general store. The store had a sort of small cafe operating where everything was quite expensive, but I just had my heart set on a meal and a drink.

I decided that I would eat and drink first, and call Roch after that: being outside was giving me an appetite, that was for sure. When I got there, I found the store was closed. So was the cafe. So was the post office. It was Sunday.

It was an out-of-season Sunday, and I was f.u.c.k.i.e.d. I stood in front of the closed store and smoked two cigarettes looking at the view, and stopped feeling so hungry. I wondered what to do next, and couldn’t think of anything.

In the end I just spent some time wandering around Lion’s Bay, but there really wasn’t much to do there. The whole place consisted of half a dozen residential streets lines with free-standing houses surrounded by lush gardens. I remembered that the shop at the marina had been open when I came in, so I went down there and found they’d closed up in the meantime. It was a Sunday in the middle of October, and most of the activity that I’d seen while wandering around Lion’s Bay consisted of people raking dead leaves off their lawns.

I smoked another couple of cigarettes standing near the pier and admiring the view: it really was something to admire, in the sunlight. There were some people around, probably weekend sailors: most of them seemed to be working on their boats, I saw just a couple sailing out in the bay.

I was starting to get really hungry in spite of the cigarettes and there really wasn’t anything I could do, except maybe strike up a conversation with a guy working on a boat and piss him off with the interruption. So I just got into my own boat and cast off and had a hell of a lot of trouble starting the engine. Finally it dawned on me that I’d been priming the carburetor like a maniac, and that I’d likely flooded the engine.

There was no toolbox on the boat; the only option was to shout for help from the weekend sailors, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. So I just sat in the boat and smoked yet another cigarette while it slowly drifted out into the bay.

By the time I’d finished smoking I was a couple of hundred yards out, and the weather was changing. Dark clouds were racing in over the mountains, and I felt a twinge of fear. I had a go at the engine and it still refused to start. The breeze I felt was turning into something stronger, too.

I grabbed the paddle and got going towards the shore but that was against the wind, and I made very little headway. It was difficult to get the boat moving in the right direction while paddling on one side only, it kept trying to turn and it was a while before I remembered how to go about it. I’d learned how to paddle a kayak as well as a canoe in Sweden, there really wasn’t anything to do in that f.u.c.k.i.n.g place in the summer except water sports.

After five minutes of frenzied paddling, I got maybe within a hundred yards of the shore. But the breeze had turned into an offshore wind that actually pushed the boat backward whenever I stopped paddling for a few seconds. I was getting a little panicked by then, and had to make an effort to calm down.

I tried to reach the shore by trying a diagonal approach, but the wind kept pushing the boat sideways into the bay. I didn’t think I’d get swept out into the f.u.c.k.i.n.g Pacific, I was directly east of the big island neighboring mine; at worst, I’d end up on its shore. But then I remembered that when I was smoking cigarettes and admiring the view from the marina, I’d noticed there was a strait south of it, and that it seemed to lead to the ocean. So I started paddling as hard as I could on a northern course, with the wind moving me a yard sideways to every two that I moved forward.

I still held on to a faint hope I’d be able to hit the small peninsula that jutted out near Brunswick Beach, but by the time I reached it the wind had blown me another hundred yards out. By then, clouds had completely filled the sky and I heard the rumble of faraway thunder. It was definitely the wrong time to get caught out in the water in a boat with no engine.

I kept paddling furiously, trying to stick to a northern course. The palms of my hands developed blisters that subsequently burst, and paddling became a very painful business. I was headed directly for the southern shore of my island, right where the holiday camp was located. But the wind kept pushing me west and all of a sudden I saw a clump of rocks sticking out of the water right in the middle of the f.u.c.k.i.n.g bay, and dead on my wind-adjusted course.

There was no way I could pass them by while continuing to paddle, the wind would push the boat directly onto them and they looked like they could do a lot of damage. So I just stopped paddling and drifted west, passing no more than twenty yards south of the southernmost rock.

The boat actually hit a submerged tip with its bow, but it scr.a.p.ed free with an ugly sound that made my heart go right up to my throat. If I had hit that hidden rock while going at speed, it would have knocked a hole in the hull.

By then I became confident that I’d drift safely onto the shore of the big island next to mine, and I wasn’t feeling too scared. It started raining, a fine drizzle that felt like sand when it hit my face, propelled by the wind.

I had belatedly lifted the engine out of the water to avoid getting the screw caught on another submerged rock, but I hadn’t fastened it properly and now it fell back into the water with a splash. I grabbed its handle instinctively and then, most likely because of my recent Pavlovian conditioning, grabbed the starter line and gave it a pull.

The engine fired up. I whooped with joy and then had to perform some frenzied maneuvers to avoid the clump of rocks: by then the boat was pointed east, and started running directly at them. I steered away, and saw that there was a tiny island to the north, basically a big rock with no vegetation. I made sure to pass it with a big safety margin. The rain was getting heavier, it wasn’t a drizzle any more, and lightning suddenly lit up the clouds atop the mountains around the bay. The crack and the boom were incredible, louder than anything I’d heard before.

I was pretty close to the southern shore of my island by then, so I steered slightly east and followed the coast to Harry’s pier. I misjudged the moment to cut the engine, and ended up drifting onto the shore right next to the pier. I had to spend another five minutes moving the boat to a spot where I could tie it to the mooring rings. By then it was raining like hell, and I was wet through when I finally made it inside the house.

I was hungry and cold to the bone. I immediately put the kettle on along with a pot of Campbell’s chicken soup – there were at least ten cans of that in the kitchen cupboard. I got a fire going in the fireplace, and ate the soup and had tea, and then got down to some serious cooking. It hurt because my palms had been rubbed raw, but not half as much as all that f.u.c.k.i.n.g paddling I’d done earlier. I drank a couple of beers, and gorged myself on an enormous dinner of fried sausage with onions and potatoes and baked beans.

Night had fallen by the time I’d finished eating, and I had to light the lamp to wash up. The kerosene was starting to smell like home. I got a beer and left the kitchen to drink it.

But the moment I sat down on the sofa I felt so tired and sleepy I just lay down, and blacked out in an instant.