The Life of Hope (25 page)

I saw that it was possible to have awesome arguments with Mona.

I brought my fingers up to the bar and began to beat out a very complicated tattoo, which is about all I could think of doing. Then I looked around the bar. It seemed to me that the stuffed animals were somehow different, poised more delicately, hackles raised, ready to pounce. Then I spied a way of starting a new conversation. “Ah,” I said, pointing toward one of the walls. “Now, that’s a very interesting thing. This window here, the stained glass.” The window I referred to portrayed, in a highly grotesque fashion, the crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus. “It has been inserted,” I continued scholastically, “topsy-turvy. As you may know, inverted representations of the cross are quite common in …”

“Oh-oh,” said Jonathon Whitecrow.

This was my first time as part of the “Oh-oh” chorus. It came quite naturally. I said, “Oh-oh,” and watched the old Indian collapse to the floor.

“Looks like a big one,” I said to Mona. She nodded. It looked like a huge one. Jonathon’s limbs twitched horribly, inhumanly, his body consumed by random electric impulses. Mona reached across the bar and squeezed my hand, worried and fearful for her friend Jonathon.

Big Bernie muttered, “Geez. I hate it when he does that.”

Finally Jonathon stopped twitching. During the attack, the Vision, Whitecrow had wept uncontrollably, so much so that his face was slick with tears. His shirt was soaked through, either
from sweat or overflow from the crying. Jonathon opened his eyes. They burned darkly, two little pools of black water. “Oy,” he gasped. I helped him to his feet.

Mona fed Jonathon his whiskey.

Then we all pretended nothing had happened.

“In what, Paulie?” asked Big Bernie.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Inverted representations of the cross are quite common in what?”

“In, um, witchcraft.”

“Deedee Cumbridge,” Jonathon Whitecrow said suddenly, “smokes too much.” One or two tears escaped from Whitecrow’s obsidian eyes.

Then came the explosion. I can report to you now that it was an oil furnace (who else but a one-hundred-and-four-year-old lady would have her furnace going in the middle of the summer?) some two blocks away, but the sound inside The Willing Mind was deafening. I was pretty sure the world was ending.

As historians have pointed out, the number of coincidences (synchronicities, some of the younger scholars have it) in the life of Hope is quite astounding. This is nowhere more apparent than during that phase of Hope’s life that has been variously referred to as “The Lowell Trial,” “The Hope Trial” or, in some texts, “The McDougall Trial,” McDougall being the Reverend
Doctor Ian John Robert, Barrister and Solicitor, who served as prosecutor. Some of these synchronicities are listed below.

1) October 3, 1853.
The Battle-Axe & Weapons of War
.

Four days before the trial, Theophilius Drinkwater published a special issue, a number devoted to Joseph Benton Hope. The front leaf read IN DEFENSE OF PERFECTIONISM, and thereafter, for sixteen pages, Theophilius Drinkwater did what he could to save Joseph’s besmirched reputation. Theophilius was very eloquent and persuasive. The main thrust of his argument seemed to be that it was all right to have carnal relations with hedgehogs if that’s what one wanted to do. The Reverend Doctor McDougall used the periodical throughout the trial, quoting from it, alluding to it, even handing out copies to the members of the jury. Of course, Drinkwater, a man known to bear a grudge for a long time, knew exactly what effect his “defense” of Perfectionism would have on Hope’s trial. Joseph Benton Hope stated over and over that he could not be held accountable for Drinkwater’s philosophizing, but McDougall simply twisted that, implying that Hope felt Theophilius had been too tame.

2) May-June 1853. Medical Synchronicities
.

Cairine McDiarmid became pregnant around this time. In a few months, when she attended the trial of Hope, her belly would be swelling magnificently, carrying as she was the twins Lemuel and Samuel. Cairine’s marital status would not go unnoticed, and although she claimed under oath that the impregnation was accomplished by a young man she’d met somewhere, a young man whose name she could not recall and had no curiosity to rediscover, McDougall and most people believed that J. B. Hope was the father.

A further medical synchronicity, a rather distasteful one, is that in July of that year the Rev. Dr. I. J. R. McDougall, Barr. & Sol., developed a horrendous case of hemorrhoids. His other end became as red as his face, swelling with pustules. This may well account for his disposition throughout the proceedings, which was cranky to say the least.

3) July 22, 1853. An Extraordinary Demise
.

There are seventeen authenticated cases of spontaneous combustion in North America (at least, seventeen cases where no other satisfactory explanation has been offered), and the death of Buford Scrope Davies is one of them. The fat, club-footed clergyman had been preaching in front of his congregation. In the middle of a sentence (popularly held as referring to the fires of perdition, in fact an etymological argument concerning the Hebrew word
Nacham
) the Reverend Buford Scrope Davies made a sound like a five-cent firecracker, a tiny little pop, and burst into flame. The effect, I take it, was rather dramatic, and many people accepted this as some sort of divine sign, the Almighty singling out Buford Scrope Davies above all others. Today, in fact, there are some four thousand Daviesians scattered about North America, a sect that believes that, if you behave very well, you might go poof and get swallowed up in black flame.

(An intrusion here from the Biographer, one of a personal nature. Elspeth’s mother, a monumentally crazy old woman, is a Daviesian. This has had a definite influence upon my wife. Elspeth has told me that throughout her childhood, fevers occasioned great joy on her mother’s part. Once, when Ellie’s temperature pushed 103° F, her mother called in several fellow Daviesians and they laid Elspeth down on some aluminum foil and waited for fireworks. Today, Elspeth does not get sick. She refuses to let germs anywhere near her, mortally fearful of fever. I do not know what will kill Elspeth, but I know it won’t be disease; my money is on a bus, but Ellie would have to be ninety-four years old and never know that it was coming.)

Polyphilia was somewhat distressed by the loss of her husband, particularly by the bizarre nature of his earthly exit, and she didn’t know where to turn. After a few weeks of moping about her father’s house, she decided to go to Lowell, to be with her friends at their time of need. This she did, taking her son, the two-year-old (and already markedly obese) Ephraim. Polyphilia arrived at the courthouse at the precise moment that Joseph Benton Hope began to speak in his own defense. Polly sat down in the front row, squeezing herself in between George and Martha. She smiled encouragingly at Joseph.

Hope’s testimony was eloquent and thoughtful, and might well have swayed many minds, had he not been clearly possessed of an enormous erection. Unconsciously, Joseph repeatedly adjusted his rod, shifting it to more comfortable positions within his trousers.

Polyphilia smiled at him throughout.

4) September 1853. The arrival of the Marquis siblings
.

It was at this time that Chester Marquis and his sister Charlotte came to Lowell, turning up at 42 Dutton Street and declaring themselves Perfect. Chester was a slender, buck-toothed lad, obviously dying from consumption; his sister was a squat girl of a somewhat unfortunate aspect. No daguerreotypes exist of Charlotte, but one suspects from various sources that she suffered from a thyroidal imbalance, the ailment causing her eyes to bulge, making Charlotte appear constantly amazed or horrified.

The significance of the Marquis siblings upon the life of Hope is marked, although one gets the impression that Joseph was hardly aware of their existence prior to the trial. Chester Marquis died on September 17, just a few days after his arrival. The following day, Charlotte Marquis emerged from the house in a hysterical state, shrieking incoherencies about Mr. Opdycke. She ran right into the arms of the Reverend Doctor Ian John Robert McDougall.

Through the sort of devious ploy for which he was reknowned, McDougall managed to have all this come out at Hope’s trial, some days later, for violating the antiobscenity postal statute. Charlotte’s testimony was to the effect that Mr. Opdycke had convinced her to indulge in sexual intercourse, and he’d convinced by means of Perfectionist theory. She reluctantly complied, until it became clear that Mr. Opdycke wished to indulge himself in a depravity. The exact nature of the depravity went undisclosed, although McDougall did rhyme off seventeen possibilities, each more disgusting than the previous. The ugly girl turned red and lowered her bulging eyes in shame.

Mr. Opdycke took the stand and calmly denied it all. Unfortunately, Mr. Opdycke was so calm that he gave the impression of being an old hand at denying things in courtrooms. During
the course of his questioning, Rev. Dr. Ian John Robert McDougall seemed to imply that Mr. Opdycke was in reality a Mr. Ogilvy of Vermont and that, furthermore, there was still some question, originally brought forward by a court in that state, as to the manner in which Mrs. Ogilivy had disappeared. Mr. Opdycke denied it all, of course, calmly shaking his head.

5) October 7, 1853. George Quinton’s ruckus
.

After the first day of the trial, several men had waited outside the courthouse in order to taunt Joseph Benton Hope. George Quinton, walking beside his master, had suggested they be quiet. The men, employing what was then a fairly novel retort, demanded to know who was going to make them. George replied that he would, whereupon ensued a donnybrook. George emerged from the fray bloodied, his face a monstrous configuration of cuts, welts and bruises. He did look better than any of the taunters, several of whom had broken limbs. It is felt by modern scholars that of all the negative influences at Hope’s trial (Drinkwater’s tract, Cairine’s immodest pregnancy, Hope’s penile engorgement, Chester Marquis’s recent death, Charlotte’s testimony and Mr. Opdycke’s smug denials) none was so damning as the daily front-row presence of George Quinton, a huge and hideous creature.

Hope was incarcerated for a period of three months. During this time, he studied the Bible constantly and read an astronomical number of books, things like
The Social Destiny of Man
and
A Treatise on Fourieristic Phalansteries
. During this time in jail Hope’s main body of ideas was established: that man should live communally; that private ownership was in direct opposition to God’s will; that hitherto women as a class had been treated as chattels by man and should be freed from the burden of child rearing; that man (and woman) had a dual nature, amative and propagative; that erections were caused by a direct infusion of the Holy Spirit; and that marriage was a man-wrought construct never intended and wholly unheeded by the Almighty.

Upon his release, Joseph Benton Hope instructed his followers that the time had come to begin experiments in complex
marriage. The first step, Hope announced, would be that he would have amorous congress with Polyphilia Drinkwater.

This experiment was a success.

The next step, Hope told them, was that he would have amorous congress with Abigal Skinner, and Abram Skinner would have amorous congress with Polyphilia.

Another success.

Next, Hope had amorous congress with Mary Carter De-la-Noy, Mr. Opdycke had amorous congress with Abigal Skinner and Adam De-la-Noy had amorous congress with Polyphilia Drinkwater.

In time, Cairine McDiarmid gave birth to the twins, Samuel and Lemuel, allowing her to take part in the experiments. This was fortunate, because Abigal Skinner soon became with child.

Over the next four years the experiments continued unabated. Six children were born: Samuel and Lemuel McDiarmid, Theodore De-la-Noy, Anne and Alice Skinner, Gregory Drinkwater Opdycke (Polyphilia’s child by Mr. Opdycke, or so she calculated) and, finally, little Isaiah Hope, who popped out premature, gray and wrinkled, from Martha’s huge groin.

One night, two young girls ran out of the house at 42 Dutton Street and removed all of their clothing. They were discovered by one of the fathers, who immediately called for the constabulary. Joseph Benton Hope feared that he would not fare well should there be another trial; moreover, he recalled that the citizens of Illinois had recently ripped his contemporary, the Mormon leader Joseph Smith, to bits.

Hope decided to continue his social experiments elsewhere, perhaps in an unsettled place where the Perfectionists would be removed from established communities.

They journeyed northward into Upper Canada.

“Elspeth?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Whaddya mean, what’s the matter? You’re supposed to say, ‘You’re drunk’.”

“All right. You’re drunk. What’s the matter?”

“Damn right, I’m drunk.”

“We’ve established this. You’re drunk. Now tell me what’s the matter.”

“Well, things are a little weird out here.”

“How so?”

“Lemme ask you this. Did Jonathon just
see
what was gonna happen, or did he have something to do with it? See what I’m getting at?”

“Who’s Jonathon?”

“That is what I’d like to know! Fucking guy has been alive for about 170 years, for one thing!”