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1

Tomato concentrate from ripe red tomatoes
Distilled vinegar
High fructose corn syrup
Corn syrup
Salt
Spice
Onion powder
Natural flavoring

I arrived in Vancouver this morning.
My plane landed at 3AM because my flight from the east coast had been grounded by fog. I was bone tired by the time I rolled out of the taxi, and it took me a few minutes fumbling with the keys that I’d received in the mail to figure out which was for the main door and which was for the apartment. At one point, I got what I now assume is the mailbox key stuck in the apartment door, and made a bit of a jangling racket trying to get it unstuck. Luckily, I didn’t wake my new roommates. When I finally got settled, due to the time change, it was nine in the morning at home. This country is too big for the weary traveler.
I wasn’t sure which bedroom was mine, so I laid my travel bag full of unfolded, but freshly laundered clothes on one end of the couch, and I placed my carry-on bag full of in-flight magazines on the other, and I lay across them using the carry-on as my pillow, and the bigger bag to elevate my swollen ankles. I don’t know why I’m compelled to steal in-flight magazines. I feel like it might be my little way of sticking it to “the man” for the cramped seats. I’m a stiff-legged airline rebel, wreaking juvenile havoc through the friendly skies.

•

I awoke to the smell of coffee with a terrific crick in my neck.
A young, handsome man (Michael, as it turned out) sat in the chair opposite me, and a young woman (Clara) sat Indian style on the floor at his feet. They sipped coffee from stained, chipped porcelain mugs and stared at me with what appeared to be clinical interest.
“Hey,” I said, sitting up mechanically in a fashion that would cause no motion whatsoever through my sore neck. I moved like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, only without the charisma.
“Hey, yourself,” the young woman said.
“Are you here for Ray?” the handsome man asked.
“Ray?”
“I guess that’s a no,” he mused.
I offered my hand. “I’m Nick. I’m pretty sure I live here.”
Neither of them moved. The young woman stared at the outstretched appendage, and hiked an eyebrow. I wondered if it was some kind of west coast thing. I took it back.
“Why are you on the couch… if you live here?”
I gestured to the walls around me. “I didn’t know which room was mine, and didn’t want to wake anyone up.” They nodded, but said nothing.
“See, I took a job at Nova Health and they sent me this.” I produced the keyring from my pocket.
They smiled, looking relieved.
The man got up and offered his hand then. “Sorry – we thought you were someone else. I’m Michael and this is Clara! There’s been some confusion – there’s this journalist – well, Ray says he isn’t an actual working journalist anymore – he lost his job and he’s apparently homeless, er – unhomed. I can’t remember the lexicon we’re supposed to use.”
He looked to Clara.
“I think it’s unhomed. I can’t keep it straight,” she said.
Michael nodded. “Right. It’s apparently a pretty sad situation, at any rate.”
“It sounds like it,” I said.
“Anyway, let’s forget about that for now. Welcome to Vancouver!”
As I eased myself from the cushions, Clara got to her feet in one fluid, springy motion. She reached out to shake my hand. Her grip felt firm and warm, and her skin had the youthful elasticity mine would never recover. Michael’s had been the same.
I realized I was probably ten years their senior, and I felt a jolt of apprehension, thinking I’d perhaps accidentally taken a job meant for graduate-level college kids.
Clara and Michael both wore tight-fitting workout clothes and were obviously very fit. I was instantly aware of my flabby frumpiness.
“You look stiff,” Clara said, as I tried to stretch my back, “kind of like the Tin Man, from The Wizard of Oz.”
“But with less charisma,” Michael finished.
“It’s true,” I agreed; “I’m uncharismatic.”
Clara’s rich, auburn hair and perfect teeth spoke of youth, and health, and, if I’m being honest with myself, what I guessed was a good deal of money. Straight, perfectly white teeth don’t come cheap. My own are crooked, and stained.
I made a mental note not to smile too widely. I would hate to be judged on day-one for my ugly maw.
Beyond their appearance, both Clara and Michael radiated a bright, hopefulness that had long-ago been kicked out of yours truly. Their faces were kind, and eager, and full of potential.
I self-consciously rubbed my hand over my own haggard countenance, uselessly trying to smooth away the graven crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes.
Yawning away the last vestiges of sleep, it occurred to me that I’d just been confused for a vagrant.
“Do I really look homeless? I mean… uh… unhomed?”
“Well, you look weary,” Clara said. “Weariness and destitution are easy to confuse. I hope we didn’t offend you.”
“Not at all.”
“It’s particularly tough to tell when someone’s sleeping,” Michael added. “Especially on bench-shaped furniture.”
I gestured at their gym clothes “Are you guys going running?”
“We were going to, but it’s raining buckets,” Clara said.
“Well, that, and we saw you on the couch,” Michael added, “we thought we should investigate.”
Clara showed me to my room. I noticed how nice she smelled as I trailed behind her. Here it was, first thing in the morning, she presumably had yet to shower, and yet she smelled like lilacs and juniper. I wondered if I might be too shabby to be roommates with these somewhat fabulous people.
She opened the door, then stepped back and motioned me in with her arm, the way Bob Barker used to motion a Price is Right contestant towards the big spinning glitter-money wheel. The room was small and dark, but seemed clean. The mattress on the twin bed was worn and sagging and reminded me of college. The bed had no sheets, and I made a mental note to buy some. The sole window was inexplicably covered with butcher paper. A Post-It note was stuck to the butcher paper. I squinted.
“Do Not Remove Butcher Paper.”
I noted a sliding door on the near wall and assumed it was a closet, but there was another Post-It note.
“Do not open sliding door.”
“What’s with this?” I asked.
“It goes to the bathroom,” Clara said. “We use the door from the hallway. Best just to pretend this one doesn’t exist.”
“And the paper over the window?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” she said. “Nobody’s been in this room since any of us moved in.”
“So you just left it papered over?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” she said, “given the instructions on the note.”
She walked back to the hallway, gently closing the door behind her.
There was a small desk in the corner, and I set up my laptop. I found a Wi-Fi channel labeled “APT405.” I went back to the living room and asked Michael for the code.
“It’s on the router,” he said and showed me the twenty-character string of alphanumeric gibberish that had been written in magic marker on the blue plastic. I took a photo of it with my phone, but it still took me three tries to log in, because there were two zero’s and one O. Then I entered it again on my phone and my tablet, and each time I did, it took me three times to remember which were O’s and which were zeroes. Nine attempts in total. Personal observation here – using zeros and O’s in your router password should be punishable by dismemberment.
I didn’t have any new emails.

•

After showering and dressing, I went back to the kitchen to make myself a coffee, and another man – Ray, I assumed – leaned against the kitchen island, spreading peanut butter on toast. He got some peanut butter from the edge of the jar on his hand and licked it off, then seemed to notice me and smiled.
“You must be Nick,” he said, saluting instead of offering the recently licked mitt. “Glad you made it out. I heard you were fogged-in. I’m surprised to see you up so early.”
Ray’s voice had a hint of gruffness that betrayed an inner wisdom defying his young age. He wore a loose-fitting Bass Pro t-shirt and jeans, and had short-cropped blond hair and ropey muscles. He was not particularly “west coast,” in style or presentation.
“You’re from New Brunswick, right?” he asked.
I nodded, and started to pour myself a coffee from the carafe.
“Don’t drink that shit,” he said. He actually reached out and took the cup from my hand, and put it back in the cupboard. “Don’t get me wrong, Michael’s a swell guy, but whatever colon-cleansing additive he puts in that coffee must have been born in the depths of hell, itself. I tried it once, last week. Let me just say this – I’m grateful to have any internal organs left.”
“But it looked like they were going for a run – he and Clara. Surely they wouldn’t…”
“I think they must stop for a shit at the public restroom along the sea wall. As far as I can tell, Clara hasn’t had a dump in the apartment since she got here.” He shrugged. “Some people are like that.”
“And Michael?” I asked.
“Michael too,” Ray said. “It’s kind of incredible. I mean, I’m not keeping close tabs on the situation or anything, so who knows if there was an odd crapping here or there, but it certainly isn’t a regular thing. To get two of them like that? What are the odds? On the plus side, I suppose it means more toilet paper for you and me.”
Ray led me to the staircase and we hustled out of the building and across the street to JJ Bean Coffee. There were expensive sports cars parked everywhere along the curb. Even though it was early and it was raining, you could hear their racing engines echoing off the glass-walled towers around us.
“Have you been to Vancouver before?” Ray asked.
“A long time ago,” I said.
“See these stickers?” He pointed to a yellow “N” in the rear windshield of a lime-green Lamborghini parked by the coffee shop. “That means novice. When you see these on Ferrari’s and Porsche’s and Lamborghinis, look the fuck out. Take a step back from the curb.”
“OK…”
As if to make his point, the light at the bottom of the hill changed and a fire-engine-red Ferrari screamed up the road past us, its tires struggling to find purchase on the wet asphalt. I caught a brief glimpse of what appeared to be a ten-year-old Asian boy behind the wheel. Ray instinctively shot his arm out and muscled me six inches further back from the road. The car went by so fast I didn’t notice if it had a yellow sticker.
Ray shook his head, clearly genuinely distressed. “Someone’s going to get squished.”
I held the door for him at the coffee shop, where Ray paid for my latte. He then ordered a black coffee, and I felt a little guilty since my drink had cost a lot more.
We sat at a table by the window, and I noticed all the other patrons had MacBooks open and they all clicked away at their keyboards.
“Everybody’s working early,” I said, to make conversation.
“Not working,” Ray said; “they’re writing.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Look at their shoes.”
I did as he instructed. A few seconds passed. “What am I looking for?”
“You know about sneakers?”
“Shoes for sporting occasions.”
“More like status symbols. Yesterday’s S-class is today’s Air Jordans.”
He pointed to a pair of red sneakers attached to a middle-aged Asian man who typed fastidiously away at his MacBook. “Now look at those.”
“Yes…”
“Those are the Nike Air-Yeezy,” he said. “Twelve thousand dollars a pair.”
“You don’t say.”
“And over there – you see those?” He indicated a pair of bright-white sneakers with gold accents. The gorgeous Middle Eastern woman wearing them noticed us staring, and rolled her ankles to show off the sneakers in side profile. She smiled as she did so, modeling the footwear for our benefit.
Ray lowered his voice a little. “Air Jordan 12’s. And yeah, they’re men’s sneakers and they’re too big for her, but that isn’t the point. The point is, they’re about five-grand.”
“OK,” I said, “but how do the sneakers tie in with the writing?”
“All these people are in the leisure class. I know that because these sneakers are so rare and hard to find, that finding them becomes a full-time pursuit. They already own everything else they want, so they get into sneakers.”
“Right, but why are they writing?”
“Because most writing grants aren’t tested against your net worth. Some of them think they’re the next Mordecai Richler. Some of them just do it for the social side – to meet other people who made millions in real estate or whatever. It’s one of the things rich people do around here.”
“Surely they don’t need the grants if they’re worth millions.”
Ray laughed. “Need has nothing to do with it. Think of it more like a contest called ‘Who can get the most government money.’ They’re very competitive with one another about it. They use the grant money for the sneakers. It’s kind of their way of showing off.”
“And they all spend all day writing at JJ Bean?”
“Oh, no, not just JJ Bean. They’re everywhere. Every artisanal-quality coffee shop in Vancouver is the same. And they don’t spend all day – they usually put in an hour or so every morning. Just enough to keep their grant. It’s really quite a thing.”
“Are they any good?”
“In general, no. But they’re good at getting grants. Or at finding the people who can get them the grants.”
I shouldn’t have cared, but I couldn’t help but bristle a little.
“Why doesn’t the government crack down? If they aren’t producing anything, I mean, they…”
“Listen, Nick,” he cut me off, “there are layers upon layers of government employees, with the sole purpose of getting these grants out there. Now, when your standard offshore multimillionaire files a tax return, his or her accountant can type ‘Writer,’ in the blank for employment. That makes the government happy because they want these people to stay and spend their money here. And the grant people are happy because they’ve successfully given out a grant. The writers are happy because they’ve got sneaker money. Everyone’s happy. Do you follow?”
“I guess,” I said, “but don’t the grant-awarding agencies expect some kind of output in return?”
“Just enough to pass an audit.”
“Well, what about real writers?”
“Think about it. When was the last time you heard a big success story about someone who started with a government grant? The grant industry is its own self-contained economy! The message is the medium, and all that.”
“So, you’re saying the system works?”
“It doesn’t just work! It thrives! It’s our bread and butter so to speak.”
“OK.” I wasn’t really sure it was OK. But I said it because I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot, and also, because Ray had not only paid for my beverage, but had saved me from accidentally drinking an unknown laxative, all within the past fifteen minutes, and I figured he deserved the benefit of the doubt.
“There is one small problem, though,” he leaned in close, and half whispered. “There’s this journalist. Well – a homeless guy who thinks he’s a journalist. He used to work for the Fraser Institute, so I’m guessing he used to be some kind of economist. Apparently, he had a mental breakdown and ended up on the streets. I got a call last week from one of my former business partners that he’s looking to do some kind of exposé piece about government grants, and publish it on his blog.”
“The homeless guy has a blog?” I asked.
“Everyone has a blog,” he said. “A blog or a vlog. Get with the times, dude.”
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Anyway, it’s important that this guy doesn’t learn just enough to be dangerous, and somehow blow up the whole ecosystem. His name is Frances McCain, so if he approaches you, it’s probably best not to engage him. We have a pretty good thing going. We don’t want to screw with it.”
“Got it,” I said. “If a homeless economist-slash-journalist approaches, turn the other way.”
“Right,” he said. “But make sure he isn’t a homeless accountant.”
“Accountant?”
“The homeless accountant is a friend of mine.”
“Got it,” I said. “Economist bad, accountant good.”
“Perfect,” Ray said.
I glanced at his shoes. He wore Nike sneakers with a tropical pattern material and a bright orange swoosh. He saw me looking. “Lebron 9’s,” he said. “Seven grand.”
“So why is the homeless economist looking for you?” I asked.
He fished out his wallet and handed me a creased business card.

Ray Butler
Grant Connections
1 604 331 3603

“I thought you worked for Nova-Health,” I said.
“I do – well, actually, we changed the name last week to A.I. Plus Womxn’s Health Solutions. That’s with an x instead of an e. You know, inclusivity and shit. Anyway, you’re probably going to have to redo your employment contract.”
“Wait, what?” I stammered. “Why the name change?”
He nodded towards the card. “Why do you think?”
“OK,” I said slowly. “Do you still work for Grant Connections too? Are you, like, a consultant or something?”
“No, I sold Grant Connections. Made out pretty well too, I must say. Hence the shoes.”
“Who bought your business?”
“The federal government. They paid a mint!”
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” I admitted. “All these people,” I gestured around the room, “they’re independently wealthy and getting grant money from taxes being paid by people who work for a living, and they do it just for the thrill of it?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“And the government who gives out these grants bought your business, which is designed to help people exploit grants?”
“That’s about the long and the short of it.”
“That’s kind of messed up,” I said.
Ray looked disappointed. “Is it any more messed up than repaving highways that don’t need repaving? Or building infrastructure for a shrinking society out in New Brunswick, where you woke up yesterday morning?”
“I suppose not.”
“It’s the way of the world,” Ray explained. “And it netted me some pretty sweet sneakers.”

From Chapter 1, Grantreprenuers, Galleon Books 2023.

(C) Jake Swan 2023