The Life of Hope by Paul Quarrington Read Free Book Online Page A

They went outside The Willing Mind and had blows. Isaiah, small and besotten, came out “the worse for it”. I remained behind and chatted with Whitecrow.)
    Opdycke:
Does it not strike you as odd, Whitecrow, that a fish should be able to talk?
    Whitecrow:
Why, yes! Very odd.
    Opdycke:
Is Mossback, in your opinion, wise?
    Whitecrow:
Yes, very wise. Mind you, he is a fish. He has a rather limited perspective on things. He likes to tell me, for example, what the water’s like. Too hot or too cold. He tells me how much he hates it when people piss into the lake.
    Opdycke:
Next time you talk to him, tell him that Opdycke means to see him stuffed and mounted!
    Whitecrow:
I will. Shouldn’t you go carry Isaiah home?
    Opdycke:
I suppose.
    Soon I had finished all the whiskey and was so drunk that I thought I was sober. “Time to go fishing,” I announced. It took me many long moments to affix my Hoper to the line. Then I stood up and wobbled up to the water. I actually stood up twice, having fallen on to my butt on the first attempt. “Hey, Moss-back!!” I screamed. “Here come sumpin’ good! Dig your toothies into this, boy!”
    I raised the rod and cast. It was a fine cast, and I watched with delight as the Hoper sailed high over the water, flying out far and softly disturbing the stillness of Lookout Lake. I began to reel in, and noticed a certain lack of resistance. Then I saw the end of my line lying a few feet in front of me, the knot unravelled.
    “Fuggit,” said I.
    I decided to go home and telephone Elspeth. It’s a good thing I’m sober, I told myself, or else she would never talk to me. Ithrew my stuff into the moped’s carrying bags and climbed aboard. For a few feet I managed a peculiar serpentine motion, and then the moped and I keeled over sideways on to the gravel road. It’s a good thing I’m blasted, I told myself, or else that would really hurt! I tried again, and soon I was on my way. The sun was setting, and night had covered the earth by the time I reached the homestead.
    The big problem here was to keep my speech clear, evenly modulated and well-elocuted. Elspeth had an uncanny knack for picking out even the tiniest drunken irregularities. What I needed was a crisp, earnest conversational style. I spent about half an hour practicing. “Elspeth? How are you? I’m fine. Listen, I’ve been doing some thinking and soul-searching out here …” I was drinking a bottle of beer as I practiced and noticed that this was making the inside of my mouth feel a bit fuzzy. So just before I dialed the telephone, I had a short pull on a bottle of tequila.
    The phone rang endlessly, but I knew that she was home. I had a deeply disturbing vision of Elspeth in the sack with some clod, nakedly listening to the phone ring. “Don’t worry about it,” she was saying, massaging this jerk’s chest. “It’s just my goddam husb …”
    She picked up the phone, said, “Hello?”
    “Elspeth,” I said.
    “You’re drunk.”
    “All I said was ‘Elspeth’!”
    “I can always tell.”
    “I’m not drunk. I been fishing. Fishing for Ol’ Mossback, that’s what. Mythical fish of the golden tongue!”
    “Listen, I don’t want to talk to you now.”
    “Why the fuck not?”
    “Because you’re drunk.”
    “What difference does that make? You don’t want to talk to me when I’m sober!”
    “And when is this that you’re sober?”
    “I’m sober a lot of the time!”
    “I guess I never noticed because I’ve got a class from nine to ten o’clock in the morning.”
    “Hardy-har-har.”
    “I’m hanging up now.”
    “Don’t.”
    “There’s someone here.”
    A definite low blow. “Who you got?”
    “June.”
    For various reasons, this was sickening news. I gave Elspeth my phone number, told her to call me when I was sober. I hung up the telephone.
    It was about ten o’clock in the evening. I was pleased that I’d already done all my important stuff for the day, because now I could fart around