The Life of Hope

by Paul Quarrington

  I pulled the bottle away from my lips long enough to add, “Twice.”

  “Huh?”

  I reluctantly stopped nursing. “The rope broke the first time they tried to hang him,” I explained, “so he was actually hanged twice.”

  “Wow!”

  “The ironic thing about it is this:” said Harvey, assuming his lecture hall tone and posture, “To support themselves, Hope and his Perfectionists began to make fishing equipment, as sport-angling was just then becoming popular in North America. Actually, they were responsible for a lot of innovations and developments.”

  “Like what?” asked Esther.

  “Lots of things,” I answered. The Jameson had returned me to the land of the living—at least, I wanted to talk. “They were the first to put ferrules on poles so that they could be easily taken apart and put back together. They were among the first to manufacture a crank/winch reel. They made lures, primitive ones admittedly, and one of the Perfectionists, Opdycke by name, is credited with inventing the Spoon.”

  “The Spoon,” repeated Esther.

  “The Perfectionists also started the tobacco industry in these parts,” Harvey took over, “and those two industries just kept growing. A & A Tobacco owns all the land for miles around, and today Updike is one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturers of fishing gear and tackle in the world. So, even though their experiments in communal living failed, the descendants of the original Perfectionists are extremely rich people.”

  “Do any of them live in town?” asked Esther.

  I nodded but gave no further answer.

  Harvey poured coffee into huge mugs.

  “Farrr out!” said Esther. “So, like, what kind of research are you doing?” she asked me. “Everybody seems to know all about them already.”

  “There are some …” I cast about in my mind for the right word. “There are some problematic areas.”

  “Like for instance?” demanded Harvey.

  Esther got down on her hands and knees in order to sift through the books on the floor. She touched them lovingly, especially the antique volumes, her long fingers lightly tracing the gilded words on the spines. Esther came to the biggest book, an enormous thing covered in night-black leather. She sucked in her breath; a hand went to her throat. “Oh, wow,” Esther said, opening the tome gingerly. The title page announced, in ornate, curlicued print, Magick in Theory and Practice.

  Benson looked at the title page and then cocked his granny-glassed eyeballs at me. “What the hell is that for?”

  “Just, um, a theory I’m working on.”

  “Namely?”

  “Well, the theory is in its formative stages right now.”

  “Come on, Paulie.”

  “Are you into this stuff?” asked Esther, slowly turning the pages. “This is heavy-duty.”

  “I’m just doing some reading about witchcraft, that’s all.” I smiled at Esther and Benson broadly. “Hey, boy, we can have some big fun. Drinking and fishing, my favorites!”

  “What is with this shit, Paul?” asked Harvey.

  I waved the bottle of whiskey around in the air as I said, “It’s just a theory that some of the original Perfectionists are still alive, and they’re still alive because they performed some magical rite involving cutting off some piece of Joseph Hope’s anatomy, namely his penis, and obviously they don’t want anyone to know about it, because they’re 200-year-old witches and warlocks who kill people, like Hope and Deedee and, anyway, it’s just a theory, there’s no harm in having theories, is there? Everybody has theories!”

  “Paulie,” said Harvey Benson, “you are a sick puppy.”

  “I was a witch for a while,” Esther said. “The black side can be very powerful.”

  “Aw, for fuck’s sake,” muttered Harvey angrily. “For one thing, we know how J. B. Hope died. He was chopped to pieces with an axe. We know who did it and where it happened.”

  “Where did it happen?” asked Esther.

  “Here,” I said.

  “Here in Hope, you mean?”

  “Here. Right outside, up near the barn.”

  “Oh, wow! That’s why I kept feeling all these strange vibes. And if you’re right, Paul—if these black magic people killed Hope so that they wouldn’t die, then his must be a very restless spirit. That’s why his presence is so strong.”

  “Esther,” said Harvey, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t act like this.”

  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Harvey,” intoned Esther, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  For a while we all drank in silence, they their coffee, me the Irish whiskey. Then Esther said, “Do you know who they are?”

  “What ‘they’?” demanded Harvey testily.

  “I’ll show you what ‘they’.” I almost shouted. I went and grabbed The History of the Community at Hope, Ontario, and pulled it open, turning the pages quickly to locate page 217, where there was a daguerreotype of Mr. Opdycke. He was a mean and haughty-looking individual, with a bald pate and enormous mutton-chop sideburns. “Okay?” Then I grabbed Hook, Line and Sinker: The Updike Empire and pulled it open to eight pages of photos in the centre. The final photograph showed the current president of the corporation, Bernard B. Updike. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and smiling at the camera.

  “What,” said Harvey, “they’re supposed to look the same or something?”

  “Just imagine Opdycke with those tinted glasses and a wig like the other guy’s.”

  “Oh, wow …” whispered Esther.

  “Oh, wow, shit,” scowled Benson. “Look, I’ll admit there’s a resemblance. A family resemblance.”

  “I’ve seen this guy,” I pointed to the photo of Bernard B. Updike, “without his toupee and glasses on. And, believe you me, there’s more than a family resemblance.”

  “But this guy,” Harvey said of Mr. Opdycke’s image, “looks like a prick, and this guy,” (Bernard B. Updike) “looks like a jerk.”

  “That’s part of his devious disguise.” I flipped through some more pages of The History of the Community at Hope, Ontario, before Harvey could make any further objections. On page 341 was a reproduction of a painting, done by Mary Carter De-la-Noy. “Lookee there,” I instructed Harvey.

  Harvey did, then demanded, “So?”

  “So, don’t you recognize her?”

  “If I ever saw her before,” said Harvey, “I’d remember.”

  “You have seen her before, except not with long blond hair. Imagine her with short hair—short black hair.”

  Harvey imagined this and admitted, “Okay, okay. It looks a little like that bimbo Mona.”

  “It is that bimbo Mona!”

  “It can’t be, you maroon. This Polyphilia died almost eighty years ago.”

  “Not,” said Esther, “necessarily.”

  “Esther, I really wish you wouldn’t encourage him.”

  “And how’s about Jonathon Whitecrow?” I said. “You can find references to him in all of these books, in Cairine McDiarmid’s book, in McDougall’s book, and it sounds like the same guy who sits there every day in The Willing Mind having his goddam Visions.”

  “I thought I explained once before about how some people have fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers and stuff like that.”

  “But he’s gay, for Christ’s sake!”

  “The current edition may be gay …”

  “And they got a monster.”

  “Who’s got a monster?”

  “Hope has a monster. A town monster.”

  “Paulie, you really are quite seriously ill.”

  “It must have been some magic gone wrong,” I theorized, “and that’s why they keep him a secret, all hidden away.”

  Esther asked, “What sort of monster?”

  “A huge, hairless, immensely obese creature.”

  “Are you talking about Louis Hope?” asked Harvey.

  “Aha! You even know its name!”

  “He’s not a mo
nster, Paul.”

  “What is he then, pray tell?”

  “He’s a … huge, hairless, immensely obese creature.”

  “Right on.”

  “Wow,” said Esther, “a monster. Far fucking out.”

  I stumbled over to the fridge, remembering suddenly that in a drunken stupor I’d hidden a bottle of beer in the vegetable crisper. Who I was hiding it from, I’ll never know. The beer was still there, nestled in among the carrots.

  Harvey said, disgustedly, “I’m going to the can,” and Esther turned to the section headed “Disembodied Spirits” in Magick in Theory and Practice. I drank my beer and stared out one of the windows.

  “Oh, wow,” said Esther. “It says here that sometimes a restless spirit will take over the body of an animal.”

  I had glanced down when Esther spoke, surprised by her voice. I had forgotten that I wasn’t alone. Moreover, I was disappointed that I wasn’t. I sullenly looked back to my window. The hawk sat on the windowsill and stared at me.

  God’s Natural World

  Ontario, 1873

  Regarding the followers of Hope, we know the following: some fared better than others. Indeed, their several fortunes figure concordantly with the set wagering ratio of four to one.

  The land surrounding Hope, Ontario, is excellently suited to tobacco farming, a fact that Abram Skinner tried to impress upon Joseph Benton Hope. The fact was originally pointed out to Abram by Jonathon Whitecrow. The Indian had come by one day, while Abram labored in his oversized garden, puffing on a cigarette, but this was not one of his foul-smelling self-constructed ones, this was a slightly yellow and perfectly cylindrical tube with the word “CAPORAL” printed at one end. Jonathon had offered one to Abram. The Indian had many of them, all uniform, lying side by side in a tiny cardboard packet that likewise announced “CAPORAL;” Skinner was astounded, having never seen such a thing, and he had accepted.

  Abram was, of course, an inveterate pipe smoker, for sucking on a pipestem suited his brooding, philosophical bent. The actual pipe-smoke Abram had always found a little distasteful. This cigarette, though, seemed to produce a cleaner taste; Abram pulled the puff all the way into his lungs and instantly felt giddy. Exhaling, Skinner discovered that he could produce a controlled and continuous stream of smoke, and for some reason this was more satisfying than the loose, ethereal clouds that leaked out of his pipe. Abram Skinner was through his first cigarette in no time. Jonathon Whitecrow opened the cardboard box and offered him another.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” had been Abram’s response. Whitecrow had then begun to speak in his cultured and refined way. For years, Whitecrow had said, cigarette smoking had been very popular in European High Society. (Jonathan Whitecrow seemed to have first-hand experience of European High Society, although Abram knew that to be impossible.) Now, Jonathon proceeded, it was beginning to gain popularity in North America. This land, Whitecrow had nodded vaguely at the gentle hills that surrounded him, would be very good for growing tobacco. Abram Skinner had nodded and accepted his third cigarette. “By jim,” Skinner said, “I think you’re right!”

  Two days later, Abram had had to go into Trenton in order to pick up some wire needed for the production of the Opdycke Angling Spoon, Pat. 1863. Next to the foundry was a barbershop, and Abram was surprised to see a sign in the window that announced “CIGARETTOS FOR SALE.” Abram felt an inexplicably urgent need for one of the dainty white smokes. He’d entered the barber’s somewhat bashfully and waited for the man to finish a tooth extraction before mentioning that he was interested only in purchasing cigarettes.

  “What brand?” asked the barber.

  Abram was confused. He tried to recall the name printed on Whitecrow’s box and, although it sounded foolish, he said that he believed he wanted something called “corporals.”

  “Caporals?” asked the barber.

  Abram Skinner nodded.

  Things became further confused. Not only was there a brand of cigarette called “CAPORAL,” there was another, “SPORTSMAN’S CAPORAL,” and yet another, “SWEET CAPORAL.”

  “What is the difference?” asked Abram.

  The barber shrugged and said that the “SWEET CAPORAL” were favored by women, while men tended to be partial to the “SPORTSMAN’S.” In his opinion, the barber went on, the two tasted identical. Not only that, Abram soon discovered, his choice was in no wise limited to cigarettos bearing the “CAPORAL” brand name. He could choose from all sorts, including “BOHEMIANS,” “DUKE OF DURHAM,” “CYCLONE” and “TOWNTALK.” Abram began to knead the skin on his forehead, finding all of this troubling. He finally elected to purchase a packet of the “SPORTSMAN’S CAPORAL.” All the way back to the Phalanstery, Abram Skinner puffed on his smokes, holding the reins in his left hand, with his right trying out different ways of holding the cigarette.

  J. B. Hope didn’t pay any particular attention to Abram and his tobacco-farming suggestions. Lately their Spiritual Leader had become distracted—all of the Perfectionists connected this change in mood with the death of Cairine McDiarmid.

  George Quinton had discovered her. He’d been sent out early one morning to chop firewood for the Phalanstery. Later, toward noon, he’d returned a bloody mess, holding Cairine’s tiny body in his arms. “Sowwy!” George bawled over and over again, the only word he seemed capable of giving voice to, taking upon himself all of God’s injustice.

  Cairine was mauled almost beyond recognition, her black clothes and flesh dangling from her in indeterminate tatters. “Sowwy!” screamed George, and it would be many hours before he was inwardly settled enough to tell them what had happened.

  Returning home, George claimed, he’d stepped into a clearing to discover a huge black bear muzzling at something. George assumed that the beast had hunted an animal, until he recognized the heavy shade of Cairine McDiarmid’s mourning clothes. Even then he did not realize what had gone on, but George unleashed a terrible bellow and charged at the bear. The animal had looked up from its meal, curious and innocent; then, a little alarmed, the bear turned and lumbered into the neighboring forest.

  The Perfectionists were shocked beyond speech. This was horrendously discordant with their whole way of thinking, and it seemed especially cruel that the bear’s victim should have been Cairine, a woman who loved God’s natural world with her whole heart. Joseph Hope told them that Cairine had gone to Heaven where all is unsullied, free of Earth’s grim forces—and such was his only pronouncement on the event.

  The following day, Polyphilia Drinkwater Davies held a seance—the Spirit Rappings were loud and violent. Invisible forces tore the room apart, smashing dishes, upsetting the furniture, lighting and dowsing candles at a furious clip.

  So Abram Skinner didn’t press Hope on the point—in the final analysis Joseph was uninterested in such pedestrian matters, and justifiably so—he just went ahead and started planting tobacco.

  The Stone Boner Was Even More Apparent in the Daylight

  Hope, Ontario, 1983

  Wherein our Biographer, and his Friends, attempt to Drum Up a little Good Fortune.

  Esther realized that she needed something called “Durkee Frank’s Louisiana Hot Sauce” (Esther was doing the cooking, making a huge pot of something that looked revoltingly like food) at the same time as Harvey decided he needed a Hoper so that on the morrow he could join me in my Mossback quest. There was nothing for it, then, but to go into town. I put on my disguise, a caterpillar cap with SCOUT stitched over its brim and a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Harvey regarded me somewhat disdainfully. “Ready?” he asked.

  We three climbed into the Fiat and headed off for Hope.

  “Hey, Esther!” Harvey remembered. “There’s a statue of Joseph Benton Hope in the Square. And …” Harvey giggled his horrible giggle. “There’s something really special about the statue. Isn’t there, Paulie? Eh, isn’t there, Paulie?”

  “What’s special about it?” asked Esther.

  “You tell us!” Harvey pulled up besid
e the Square and cranked up the parking brake.

  The Square had more people in it that day than I’d ever seen there before: two boys tossing a hardball back and forth; three old gentlemen of a scholarly bent, studying the feeding habits of squirrels with great interest; a young mother walking her children, one in a perambulator, one strapped to the back papoose-style, another still nestled peacefully in her tummy; some teenagers, the boys barechested, the girls halter- and tank-topped, playing with a Frisbee, throwing the day-glo disk at lethal speeds; and one old fart done up in gold-braided regimentals, ribboned and hung with medals, who marched around rather aimlessly and appeared to be Hope’s version of a parade.

  In the midst of all this stood the stern representation of J. B. Hope, the Good Book in the crook of one arm, the other raised piously toward the sky. I had decided, based on my research, that I actually had a good deal of respect for this man. It seemed to me that he’d started his career with the most pure-hearted intentions and followed them through with a dog-like loyalty. Somewhere along the line he was branded the worst libertine since de Sade, and at the end of that line he got chopped up into morsels. I studied the statue’s face. I knew now why there was such a disparity in eye size, that the larger one was in life a huge, pale blue marble. Even for a statue, the face appeared chiselled; many of the writers I’d read had commented upon the sharpness of Hope’s features, describing them as “angular,” “aquiline” and, many times, “hawklike.”

  Benson fanned his arms at the statue. “Well, Esther? Do we detect anything untoward?”

  Esther looked at the statue briefly and said, “Oh, wow!”

  The stone boner was even more apparent in the daylight, highlighted by the sun and shadow.

  “If you rub it,” Harvey went on, “it’s good luck.”

  Esther was a good sport. She marched forward and massaged the stone boner enthusiastically, closing her eyes and mouthing wishes. Then she stepped back and looked at us. “Come on, you guys!” she said. “It’s good luck!”

  “I rubbed it already,” I answered.

  “Me, too,” said Benson.