The Life of Hope

by Paul Quarrington

  “Do you know,” I told her, thankful that I’d wasted hundreds of half-hours watching “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” “that hawks never drink water?”

  “No shit?” Mona placed her enormous hand above her eyes for shade, because the bird was flying into the sun.

  “No. They get all the liquid they need from their victims’ blood.”

  “Hey-hey!” Mona gave the hawk a fisted salute. “Way to go, Birdy-baby!”

  “And did you know,” I went on, “that hawks can’t stand to be looked directly in the eye?”

  “Neither can I,” responded Mona.

  “I’ll remember.”

  “You do that,” said Mona.

  The hawk disappeared, floating behind the tops of some trees. The bird made a strange sound, the sky squeaking as if the Pearly Gates had rusty hinges.

  “I love him,” repeated Mona, looking sadly earthward. Mona noticed her beast Joe hanging his head in splendid hang-dog fashion, so she dropped to her knees and pressed the hound’s head against her bosom. “Hey, Joe-Joe. I love you too! You’re my wittle Joe!”

  I lowered my eyes in a poetic, woebegone way, but Mona didn’t seem to notice. She rose to her feet, hiked up the back of her shorts and said, “The thing of it is, is: Falconbridge has got some pretty fair ballplayers.” Mona returned to the truck. Joe and I followed behind. “That’s on account of they’re all a bunch of bull-dykes, and, if you ask me, we should have a pussy inspection before the game to make sure they aren’t bringing in no ringers. Maybe that could be your job, eh, Paulie?” Mona teased.

  “Maybe.”

  The Falconbridge Falcons were demolished, nine to two, at the hands of the Hope Hawks. DRINKWATER (catcher) went three for four, including a double that scored two runs. She was also a very aggressive base-runner, sliding with kamikaze intensity, scraping her knees and tugging down her shorts. The Hope pitcher (SKINNER) was the enormous woman from Moe’s Steak-house and Tavern. She was awesome. Skinner had a quick, windmilling wind-up followed by a wrist release that was so violent it produced an audible crack.

  Even after my brief perusal of Failed Utopias, the names sewn across the backs of the jerseys were jarringly familiar: SKINNER, McDIARMID (short stop), GOM (outfield), CUMBRIDGE (first base) and DELANOY (third).

  I sat there on the bleachers, nestled in among old men wearing cotton shirts, overalls and furry Elmer Fudd hats, and cheered for all I was worth. We were an excitable crew, us boys, and we filled the air with whistles, hoots and catcalls. The guy immediately to my left could imitate a coyote, a talent he demonstrated every time the Hope Hawks did anything. The fellow to my right performed a sort of old geezer’s striptease. With the first questionable call by the umpire, he threw away his Elmer Fudd hat. Next he pulled off his hunting jacket and fired it behind the bleachers. When the third iffy call came, the old man unfastened the bifocals from behind his ears and tossed them disdainfully toward home plate. Then he crossed his arms and sat in silence, presumably with no idea of what was going on.

  Someone among us chose to honor the play with a loud, animal-like bellow. This was a frightening sound, a call devoid of meaning or emotion. The bellow began to get louder and louder, and the source seemed to change constantly. I searched through the crowd, which was close to a hundred people all together, but I couldn’t see who might be emitting this horrible noise. Yet sometimes the sound seemed to be coming from right around me. Once, when Skinner made a pitch of such enormous velocity that the air trembled, the bellow came from underneath me. I realized, with a sickly concoction of fear and adrenalin spreading in my stomach, that he (for I knew it was the creature, and I heard once more Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise”) was beneath the stands, prowling back and forth, peeking out at the action from between our legs.

  I forced my head downward (a move that I told myself at the time took courage, although it truly required nothing like it) so that I was peering into the darkness underneath the bleachers.

  He was staring back at me, or at least one of his eyes was, while the other cocked dreamily elsewhere. With some strain, the monster rearranged his features, features that looked like a blind person had been playing with a Mr. Potato-Head, shifting some upward, moving others off to the sides. I intuited that this was meant to be a smile, so I smiled back. Coyly, the creature flapped his arms and waddled some feet away. He was wearing a large Hope Hawks jersey, but as large as it was, the thing was larger, and the shirt couldn’t come close to covering the mammoth belly. This belly, ghostly pale and looking as soft as water, bounced hideously whenever the creature took a step. He often took steps, or turned himself around in lopsided circles, and I got the impression that, should he stop, he would tumble over from his eight feet in the air. Waddling over to an opening, the thing watched as a Falconbridge Falcon struck out. Then he hollered, lifting his hands over his head and making them flutter like dying birds. The creature spun around once more, and I read the name stitched on to the back of his jersey: HOPE.

  A Desperate, Animal Act

  Hope, Ontario, 1983

  Wherein our Young Biographer dances the Goat’s Jig.

  After the victory, and a few quick beers at Moe’s Steakhouse and Tavern (the “no-steak, no-beer” policy was temporarily relaxed) Mona seemed in a mood to celebrate. She took to stroking my thigh and wedging her enormous hand into my back pocket, and I realized giddily that I might benefit by her high spirits. Mona looked at me and said, “Let’s pop this blow stand.” We left for Mona’s place.

  Mona lived, I was not really surprised to discover, in The Willing Mind itself. We entered that establishment through a back door. The tavern was housed in a much bigger building than I’d originally thought, a veritable mansion. Mona led me upstairs and into a hallway that contained about thirty doors. (Joe, by the way, we left tethered outside, where he immediately began a baleful song to the moon. Joe was a horrible singer, even by canine standards.) The only light in the hallway was from the moon, spilling on to the carpet through a round window at the corridor’s end. Mona took me by the hand and led me to one of the doors. “This one,” she whispered. The doorknob was ancient and wooden. Mona softly touched it and the mechanisms clunked and chunked eagerly. The door swung backward; Mona pulled me into the room.

  The only light was from the moon, but the moon that night was full and radiant, peeking through the window and painting everything silver.

  The first thing I saw was the bed, because other than a chair and an endtable that supported a flowered enamel washbasin, the bed was all that was in the room. It was a truly magnificent bed, a mammoth brass and mahogany four-poster. Little angels and demons were carved into the head- and foot-boards, and the thick legs of the bed had been given feet, or at least cloven hooves. I imagined that as soon as I got onto the bed (which, given its height, might require a running start and a high jump) the thing would gallop away.

  Mona pulled off her HOPE HAWKS jersey. She did this with as much technical “grace” as a seven-year-old boy about to go skinny-dipping, but the effect was pretty stunning. The odd peek I’d had of Mona’s breasts hadn’t really prepared me for their full beauty, and blood charged into my netherparts so quickly that I felt faint. Mona’s body was also tightly muscled, knots of flesh swelling over her ribcage, her stomach a small, perfect oval. Mona smiled at me, then removed her shorts. This she did by unhooking a fastener and lowering the zipper. The shorts tumbled down to her ankles, and then Mona kicked them away, propelling them off one foot with such force that they whistled by my ear and connected with the wall behind me loudly. Mona was now dressed in crimson bikini briefs (pubic hair mischievously escaping over the top) and an enormous pair of black Keds running sneakers.

  In that getup, Mona moved forward to kiss me. Mona’s mouth tasted of cigarettes and ale. Her breasts were delightful to touch. Mona wrapped herself around me, and one of her hands immediately worked itself down the front of my jeans. Initially, this caused my penis some distress, even caused it to shrive
l a little, because my penis was no match for Mona’s gargantuan paw. But Mona’s paw was friendly, knew exactly where the little fellow liked to be rubbed and tickled, and before long all was well and good. For my own part, I had placed a hand down the back of Mona’s underwear, and she seemed to be demonstrating how it was possible for her to crush my fingers between her buttocks. My other hand I kept fastened to one or the other of her breasts.

  Mona tore off my T-shirt (she actually yanked it over my head, but in the morning I did discover a large rent in the front) and then she took a step backward and tugged down my jeans and underwear in one swoop. This hurt. My dick got caught in the elastic waistband of my gotchies, so that for a moment it ended up pointing at my feet (this is what hurt) and then, freed of my underwear, it came rebounding back with a boing. Mona dropped to her knees and took it into her mouth. More of my blood rushed to the scene. Even important blood, blood in the brain that was supposed to be keeping an eye on things, said “Fuck this noise” and headed for my dick.

  Meanwhile, Mona’s hands sneaked around back and began to explore that opening. Given the length of her fingers, this soon became uncomfortable. I opened my mouth to tell Mona that I was about to come when she released me and headed for the monstrous bed. En route, Mona grabbed her underwear and pulled sideways. The thin material ripped apart, and she tossed the remnants off into a corner. Mona’s bottom was, if not perfect, as close as God could get without making it lethal. Mona jumped on to the bed, scurrying under the covers, still wearing her huge, great Keds. I stepped out of my gotchies, jeans and shoes, took a running start, and soon I was beside Mona.

  Elspeth is very particular about positions, rating them on a five-star system (the rating goes up for gratification, down for perceived depravity) and refusing to participate in any that rate less than three-and-a-half stars, and I think it’s fair to assume she would not have coupled with me in the same manner in which Mona and I ended up coupling. In fairness to Ellie, though, I should point out that a) she would never have heard of this position, which must be a three-digit number in the Kama Sutra and b) she wouldn’t have been capable of it. Mona twisted herself around like a pretzel (I still can’t figure out exactly how) and ended up sitting on me and clutching my foot to her breasts as she moaned. Mona did all the work, bouncing up and down on my shaft with joyful vigor. Mona made a lot of noise, too. Her first little grunt was louder than anything Elspeth ever uttered even in the throes of orgasm. Before long Mona was howling with more volume than the baleful Joe. Sometimes she would call out my name, and this pleased me and made me want to prolong things as long as possible, although how I even lasted as long as I did is one of the great mysteries of life. At one point Mona raised an arm into the air, a desperate, animal act, and she reached as far as she could and spread her enormous fingers as if trying to touch the moon. She moaned, then cried out something unintelligible. At least, I pretended to myself that it was unintelligible; in fact, it was not. Mona had said (naked and moonlit silver, her juices flowing out of her and on to me), “Joseph.”

  World of Flesh

  Lowell, Massachusetts, 1851

  Regarding the Followers of Hope, we know the following: that, by and large, they were not as they appeared to be; that they were conscientious about personal cleanliness.

  Mr. Opdycke sneaked into the kitchen. His first act was to cross over to a cupboard and remove a large bottle of liquor. Joseph Benton Hope did not forbid the consumption of alcohol, but he did claim that it could serve no earthly purpose to the true Perfectionist. The bottle in the kitchen was for guests —lately the House had been receiving a great number of guests. Ministers, city councilmen, any number of dowagers, all had paid visits to the big brick house on Dutton Street. Mr. Opdycke took a sip of the whiskey and was suddenly filled with a radiant rage. The ministers, he thought, he would beat senseless with a large stick, and then Opdycke imagined bending over any one of the dowagers, pounding into the suetty backside. Mr. Opdycke recognized such thoughts as lingering symptoms of his illness, and he was not alarmed by them. The thoughts occurred with such regularity that Opdycke was accustomed to them, sometimes even anticipated them eagerly, as they made for a pleasant break in his otherwise dreary day.

  Mr. Opdycke heard the giggling. That would be Abigal Skinner and Mary De-la-Noy. Martha Q. Hope never laughed at all, and Cairine McDiarmid possessed a lusty cackle, rough as treebark. Opdycke had another sip of whiskey. He imagined, briefly, that the kitchen was full of beasts, crouching and waiting to spring. Mr. Opdycke sank to his knees, his hands trembling. Opdycke’s hands were trembling because of fear, because of the tremens, but mostly because of what lay behind the door to the scuttle.

  Thursday was the day the women bathed.

  Opdycke crawled toward the door.

  Mr. Opdycke screwed his eye around the keyhole, and first of all saw nothing but white. Then the white vanished, and Opdycke realized that one of the women (Cairine, he reasoned, because he could see the other three) had been standing just in front of the door. Martha Q. Hope was squashed into the tin tub. Mary Carter De-la-Noy was scrubbing her back while Abigal Skinner raced to the potbelly stove and back, getting potfuls of steaming water. The women were all wearing cotton frocks, all except for Martha, of course. Martha sat in the tub, quite naked, so huge that the water barely covered her haunches. Mr. Opdycke had little interest in Martha’s body. It was muscled and brawned into sexlessness, her breasts massive and rocklike, her belly and arms like a farmer’s, swollen, toughened by hard work and bitterness.

  Cairine McDiarmid, next in line for the tub (the women had a definite bathing order, although Opdycke had no idea why or how it was arrived at) removed her frock. Cairine’s body was the opposite of Martha’s. (Martha stood up now, her hips amazingly wide, wider even than her amazingly wide shoulders. Abigal Skinner began to towel her.) Cairine’s body was petite and freckled. (Mr. Opdycke reflected that part of Martha’s ugliness, her gargantuan size notwithstanding, was due to the fact that her skin was unnaturally clear, unblemished by a solitary mole or freckle.) Cairine, on the other hand, was covered with wens, spots and maculations. Her body reminded Opdycke of the night sky, as if wonders and mysteries could be found by grouping the marks into constellations. Cairine McDiarmid was also more hirsute than the other women, hairier on the arms and legs, her downshire a thick little bush. Cairine had one or two hairs springing from the edges of her dark nipples. The most impressive thing about Cairine’s body (Mr. Opdycke had watched the women many times, and had thought over his judgments carefully) was her bust. Cairine was a tiny woman, but her breasts were large and full. Not so big, of course, as to droop lazily and bend her small back, just big enough to take Mr. Opdycke’s rancid breath away.

  Cairine had a manner of walking, more a march than anything else, that caused her bubs to pump up and down like a drum beat. Cairine marched over to the tin tub and climbed in. Her backside was tiny, two little pear-shaped mounds, and right at the top of the cleft was a large birthmark, thick and black and looking like a leech. Cairine McDiarmid always splashed the most as she entered the bathwater. She didn’t really enjoy being wet, and she spent the shortest time washing herself. When she got out, even though a fire burned some few feet away, Cairine’s body puckered with goosebumps and her teeth began to clatter. Abigal Skinner wrapped Cairine in a large towel, and then the little woman marched over to the stove. Cairine opened the towel and let the heat play upon her body.

  Mr. Opdycke felt something growing in his trousers. He was tempted to deal with it straightaway, but decided, as he always did, to wait for his favorite.

  Mary Carter De-la-Noy was third. (Opdycke had another sip of whiskey, and everything became tinged with a light blue. This was a mischievous trick the witch-piss often pulled, coloring the world in different ways.) Mary De-la-Noy had the most beautiful body of the women, in fact, Mary probably owned one of the most beautiful female bodies in the world. Michelangelo might have chipped Mary Carter De-la-Noy’s bod
y out of marble, that’s how perfect it was, that’s how alabaster white (blue now, as Mr. Opdycke saw it, but normally white) and smooth it was. Mr. Opdycke didn’t much care for it. Opdycke couldn’t imagine forming the Beast with Two Backs with Mary De-la-Noy, he couldn’t imagine twisting her long legs over her head and trying to split her down the middle. Opdycke couldn’t imagine chewing on her nipples (Mary’s nipples were just a shade or two darker than her white skin, small soft circles) and he certainly couldn’t imagine ramming her up the bunghole.

  Mary Carter De-la-Noy enjoyed her bath more than the other three. She lay back and closed her eyes contentedly, and Abigal Skinner slowly soaped the whole of Mary’s body. Mary made small noises as this was done, a purring deep in her throat. Once or twice Mary twitched as Abigal’s fingers touched some ticklish spot. Mary De-la-Noy soaped her own breasts, lathering them so thoroughly that Opdycke imagined no dugs in the world could be cleaner. Mary’s nipples blossomed under the soap-bubbles, appearing almost out of nowhere. Finally Mary stood up, glistening, and Martha Q. Hope poured water on her, hot water that streamed down in violent twists and turns as it followed the curves of Mary’s body. Mary Carter De-la-Noy’s fleece, even soaking wet, was a golden blond. Cairine McDiarmid came over with a towel. (Cairine was warm again, so warm and comfy that she hadn’t bothered to put on her cotton frock. Cairine McDiarmid didn’t mind being naked, seemed to think little or nothing of it.) Mary De-la-Noy made haste to cover herself, drawing the towel across her body perfunctorily, and then pulling the frock over her head even though she was still damp. The material clung to her body, her nipples plainly visible, and this effort at modesty struck Mr. Opdycke as oddly exciting, and he slowly undid his trouser stays. His pecker jumped out, a short, pugnacious little brute. Opdycke took another sip of the whoozle-water, and everything in the world colored a dark red. Mr. Opdycke took his penis into his hands, for now it was time for his favorite.