The Life of Hope (35 page)

Those in pursuit saw it, albeit from a distance of many hundreds of feet. George Quinton chopped Joseph Hope with the axe, then calmly stood by the morselatic corpus. When the men reached him, George spoke to the witnesses, saying, “I really am terribly sorry.”

Hope became an official “village” in 1883. The charter was applied for by a diverse group, J. B. Hope conspicuous by his absence. Mr. Opdycke and Karl Dekeyser seem to be the chief instigators. Mr. Opdycke had recently conceived the idea of selling his fishing gear through catalog mail order, and “Hope” had to be a village in order to get a Post Office. Gregory Opdycke, twenty-seven years of age and an avid angler (if nothing else) was installed as the first Postmaster. Karl Dekeyser’s motives are less straightforward, but seem to stem from a desire for even a small amount of power. The “village” needed a mayor, and since Perfectionism was disdainful of such sullied, earthbound conventions, Karl had little competition. (The Office of the Mayor in the town of Hope has since been traditionally filled by a member of the Dekeyser family—the current mayor, Edgar Dekeyser, is a direct descendant.) And so surveyors came (Joseph Hope noticed them, burly men with weird futuristic devices, metal and glass, standing off in the distance and waving frantically) and in that year the name HOPE first appeared above a small dot in the southeast of a huge block marked ONTARIO.

I suppose that for a moment I can drop the “voice,” the omniscient, dispassionate voice that has been recounting the Life of Hope. This is good, not only for narrative purposes, but because I’ve grown to not care much for omniscience or emotionless impartiality.

Scholars of Hope and his Perfectionist followers (and you have to understand that there are no more than twelve of these creatures the world over, thirteen if you count me) have pointed to J. B. Hope’s alleged rape of Gretel Dekeyser as the single crisis that precipitated his downfall. I differ. Certainly whatever took place with the young girl was crucial, but I choose to examine the other forces at work against him.

Joseph Hope had allowed Mr. Opdycke to lay the foundation to a huge manufacturing conglomerate. Gregory Opdycke would continue the growth, marketing in 1897 a lure called the Kitty designed to hook huge fish, a great big furry thing that became immensely popular despite, or maybe because of, its looking like a little pussycat. Gregory’s son Geoffrey, who altered the spelling of the family name to “Updike,” was inspired by his grandfather’s trick of injuring bait-minnows to design a lure that wobbled and twisted like a fish in distress. Gregory’s son James opened the huge factory near my homestead, and later one in Japan that produced inferior lures, reels and rods—but millions of them—and Jimmy’s son Bernard does nothing but sit in The Willing Mind, drink martoonies and argue with his own stomach all day long. Still, Big Bernie is worth millions. Open any fishing magazine and you’ll see several pages of advertisements spread throughout, ads that tell you, “If It Ain’t a Updike, It Ain’t About to Work!”

Hope had allowed mysticism and occultism to pervade Perfectionism. Polyphilia’s exhibitions of Spirit Rapping could no longer attract huge crowds, but the occasional moony-eyed couple from Dakota or wherever would straggle in and watch. In 1904 Polyphilia died, a victim of no illness whatsoever as far as the doctors could tell. Her child Ephraim Drinkwater Davies, son of Buford Scrope Davies, grew up to be a ridiculously fat and alarmingly weird young man. He combined his mother’s occultism with the philosophies of the growing cult of “Daviesianism” (see
page 155
) and came up with something so twisted that he was immediately given chase to. Ephraim D. Davies was chased to the edge of the continent, and that’s where he finally settled, finding the climate suitable in sunny Los Angeles, California. One historical significance of this is that he took his friend and half-brother Jameson De-la-Noy with him. Jameson happened to be in a bar one evening when he found himself drinking with David Wark Griffith. Jameson hastily improvised the name Jim Delaney, which he thought sounded mechanically inclined and competent, and he served for many years as D.W.’s technical assistant. Jim Delaney is chiefly responsible for the scene in “Intolerance,” a classic in cinematic history, in which Babylon is razed to the ground. For some reason Delaney threw his heart and soul into that great destruction.

Hope had allowed the twentieth century to march unhindered into his Utopia and cover the ground for miles around with a carcinogenic weed. (The Skinners, like the Updikes, are a very rich family, although no longer represented in Hope, Ontario, except by Sophie, ace pitcher for the Hope Hawks, who I’ve since found out
owns
both Moe’s and Duffy’s, and the Ball Club. Following J. B. Hope’s death, Abram and Abigal, and Anne and Alice, moved to France, where Abram could brood contentedly over great works of art. Abram was deeply stung by rumors that tobacco could be injurious to one’s health, but he died with his trust in Mother Nature intact. During his eighty-fourth year, his last among the living, Abram Skinner finally became un-tongue-tied, or whatever the stylographic equivalent of that state is, and produced an essay with the following title:

And finally (here’s where I part company with those twelve other scholars, uniformly old and wrinkled men who I’m sure wank every time they think about Hope and his followers) Hope allowed, even forced, his two most loyal disciples away. George Quinton built the house that I now live in, and he lived there with Martha until his death, by hanging, in 1889.

Jonathon Whitecrow instructed me to think on the first experiments in complex marriage, and I did so. What became clear is that no mention of George and Martha is made. It is easy to assume, and those other twelve geezers do so, that George was by nature celibate and Martha for some reason faithful only to J. B. Hope. But a clue is to be found in
The Theocratic Watchman
, vol. xx, no. ix, in which Joseph Hope writes:

In fairness to the twelve geezer-scholars, I must add that they did not have the benefit of an antique cedar chest in their bedroom (conveniently picked open by sad Sara) where this particular issue was to be found, opened to the page in question, nestled in among a woman’s dress and a blood-soaked workshirt.

The issue is dated some ten months before the birth of Isaiah Hope.

“But why,” I demanded into the telephone, “are you telling me?”

“It is you that he wished for us to contact.” The woman spoke as if she were snipping her words out of the
National Enquirer
.

“Look, let me give you another number …”

“No.”

“It’s the number of a bar. Ask for Mona Drinkwater.”

“Absolutely not. I suggest that personally you contact Mizz Drinkwater. That, after all, is why you were selected as the contactee.”

“My name is the only name he gave you?”

“That is the case.”

“Look in the telephone book! How many people could there be with that last name?”

“Again, sir, my suggestion to you would be as follows …”

“That I do it myself.”

“Precisely such.”

“You know what, lady? You are heartless and cruel!”

She stopped snipping her words. “And you know what, bubba? You are gutless! And just as cruel.”

“What, do I know you or something?”

“He put down your name, Mister Contactee. Get hopping.”

I cradled the phone, and went to stare out the picture window in my homestead’s living room. It was too beautiful a day. I was pissed off at God, and staring at His creation, the gentle hills that had become my world, I felt like saying, “Enough, already. Enough.”

I went out to the barn, where the moped was kept. Barn swallows had set up condos in there, and the ancient rotting structure was alive with peeps and flutters. Enough, already, enough. I strapped on my protective helmet, and the noise was blocked out. I climbed aboard my bike, rolled down the laneway,
and then threw the lever that connected the tiny motor. Now my world was mechanical and fueled by gas.

It took me quite a while to get into Hope, mostly because I navigated a route designed to take me quite a while. I should have used the time to rehearse a little speech, but my brain seemed devoid of words. I adopted the same mental stance as the high-flying hawk, whereby the universe was mysterious, distant and of no real concern to me. It works, if you happen to be a hawk.

The Willing Mind was held in a shaft of sunlight, caught in some spacecraft’s transporter beam. The tavern looked preternatural. It looked like a paint-by-numbers that God had done one gloomy afternoon.

I took a deep breath and pushed through the front door.

I couldn’t believe it. The place was crowded.

Not sardine style, of course, or even elbow-to-elbow, just crowded enough to fill up the tavern, somewhere between thirty and forty people. Four young guys were playing darts, three women were seated at a table, laughing and drinking tall drinks; twelve or thirteen guys, obviously just finished their shift at Updike International, had pulled four of the tables into a long row and were currently playing Colonel Puff, a drinking game.

I pushed through these people to the bar.

“Yo! Whaddya wanna drink?”

The owner of this voice was not Mona, a fact that filled me simultaneously with relief and regret. The owner of this voice was a tiny man with a huge beard, extending in a scraggly way all the way down to his belly-button.

“Beer,” I said, a stunned reflex reaction.

“Beer.” The bartender winked at me. All of his features were grotesquely oversized, fashioned for a man twice as big. “Draft or bottled or what?”

“Draft. Where’s, um, Mona?”

“Day orf.” The man picked up a mug and tossed it into the air. It turned about seven times, and he caught it behind his back. “I’m Teddy,” he informed me.

“Do you know where Mona is?”

“If I know Mona,” Teddy replied, moving off toward the antique draft pump, “she’s out getting her ashes hauled.”

I surveyed my fellow patrons at the long bar. The fellow immediately to my left was one of those sorts that life has slapped around and left permanently groggy and punch-drunk. He sipped strong drink and tried to think of ways of starting fights. Beside him was a woman, probably his lover. She downed tall glasses of fruity liqueurs. Beside her was Big Bernie.

I rushed down and filled in the gap between them.

“Hi, Big Bernie,” I said. “Hi, Little Bernie.”

Big Bernie nodded bleakly. “Hi.”

I bent down until I was closer to the stomach. “What’s the matter, Little Bernie? You mad at me or something?”