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

for a couple of hours.
    Harvey Benson was, among other things, a music lover. One corner of the living-dining area was occupied by a strange futuristic turntable, surrounded on either side by stacks of albums. Taking the bottle of tequila along for company, I went and searched through these records. I could find nothing to suit my mood. (A record called “Tunes for Shriveling Hearts and Souls” would sell well, I reflected.) Still, I wanted music, so I finally elected to play the album already on the turntable, whatever it was. I put on the needle and went to gaze at the night through the picture window.
    I can report to you now that the piece of music that filled the room was the “Vocalise” by Rachmaninoff. I didn’t know that at the time, having never heard it before. All I knew was that never had music messed around with my innards so violently. I felt like an instrument (an old and out-of-tune one, like a cigar-box banjo) and I was plucked. All the world became beautiful and miserable. Through the window I could see almost nothing but the sky, ink-black, studded with stars. I imagined that I could discern the constellations, that the night was filled with hunters and heavenly creatures. The music seemed to say that there was room in the sky for Elspeth and I, that we could remain forever up there, naked and lonely and tragic in our own small way. I was soon weeping in a very general manner.
    I pulled back from the window, having wept, and was caught by my own reflection.
    Through the old glass of the window, through my tears, my face looked monstrous. Everything about it was misshapen,the eyes oddly matched and randomly set, the nose squashed and inches away from where a nose should be, the mouth long, twisted and drooling. I wiped some tears away, but nothing changed about my other face.
    It came to me suddenly that my reflection hadn’t bothered to wipe any tears away. I stepped back quickly then, but it remained glued to the other side of the window. I saw that this being was stark naked, which I was not, and fabulously obese. It had bent down in order that our faces should be level, and now that I had broken contact, the creature decided to stand up. It did so, rising to a height of seven or eight feet. And then this monster began to dance, or at least it began to do a lurid and alien burlesque of dancing, touching fingertips to the crown of its head and sashaying back and forth. This man (a term I apply only in the loosest sense, although he was assuredly male, if only by virtue of a tiny pink penis) was absolutely hairless, even to the extent of lacking eyebrows and lashes.
    His dance became more energetic, and the fat began to bounce obscenely—he had fat everywhere, even on the tops of his feet. His arms and legs were clearly segmented by rings of lard, his elbows and knees padded with the stuff, places where only a baby should have it. The music ended, and after a few moments of silence (the creature continued to dance throughout this silence, a silence so profound that I guessed the frogs and crickets were likewise struck dumb by the performance) another piece of music issued forth. This one was quick, almost violent. The monster stopped his dance immediately, cocked his head sideways to listen, and then abruptly turned away. He waddled off into the darkness then, his gait splayfooted and plodding. He had to lift his arms high for balance, his hands bouncing merrily in the air. Soon he was gone.
    I decided it was time for bed.
    A Beautiful Clown
    Hope, Ontario, 1983
    Wherein our young Biographer reveals much about His Self to Everyone, except Himself
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    The next morning I managed to complete another paragraph of my novel-in-progress. I was very pleased with this paragraph, so pleased that I became profoundly dissatisfied with the previous day’s paragraph and deleted it from my thin manuscript. Then, having done my work for the day, I jumped on the moped and took me into Hope.
    As I rode by Updike