CHAPTER 11

"As I've said," continued Nibble, "Rae Greenfield was a very determined lady... one might even say obstinate... so it wasn't too surprising that, despite Hopkins' dire warnings, before long the study on the fourth floor had been converted into a studio. Tape decks, monitors and camera, which Hopkins was obliged to point at Rae, now materialized and Rae began practicing conversations and trying out facial expressions, hoping to mold herself into a television personality."

"Irritated by this invasion of gadgetry, Hopkins would often stomp out of the room to the chapel downstairs, from whence the booming strains of 'Men of Harlech', 'Nearer My God To Thee,' 'The Minstrel Boy,' and 'Mister Tambourine Man,' would come thundering up the stairwell. There, sipping brandy and working himself into a prophetic frenzy, he could be heard delivering sermons and carrying on animated conversations with God."

"With Rae, Crystal and I would creep quietly downstairs to watch: 'Yes God I hear you,' he'd be shouting. 'You're right, yes it's all too true,' he'd be saying matter-of-factly as though having an ordinary telephone conversation with God... followed by long prayers in Welsh and more singing. After a few weeks of this he'd attracted a following... the cook and her daughter, a maintenance man from a neighboring house and several eccentrics collected from Central Park. Night after night the little congregation grew and soon there were scheduled services... or were they performances... he even invented a new ritual, a kind of purification rite, which consisted in money washing. A large bronze cauldron which had started it's life as a spittoon, was filled with water, liquid soap was added and Hopkins would exhort his devotees to come forward and wash their money. 'Money was the root of all evil," he would intone "downright dirty, carrier of microbes and diseases."

"All this was not only tolerated but encouraged by Rae. Frequently she would abandon her taping sessions and accompany Hopkins, not only on the organ but at the bottle too... and in the months ahead, late at night after the congregation in the chapel had dispersed, Crystal and I would be hustled into Rae's majestic Silver Streak... recently brought out of storage... and driven up and down Manhattan's empty streets while Rae played Cole Porter tunes on an old harmonium and Hopkins purified the night air by waving incense sticks out the car window."

" We could see that Rae was biding her time getting used to the new world that had come into being since she'd left the city. On sunny afternoons, frequently, she would abandon her taping sessions and dressed like a bag-lady or a tourist in the unfashionable outfits she'd purchased in Cheyenne, Wyoming, deep in thought, she would walk us down Madison Avenue and back up Fifth observing closely the people we passed, noticing the clothes they wore, the shops they darted in and out of and wondered, I'm sure, whether she could really go through with her contemplated self transformation. Perhaps Hopkins was right in urging her to escape the city before it was too late. As the weeks passed however, and she began seeing long forgotten ld friends among whom she spread the word of the Slave Initiative as she called it... a project almost as secret as the Manhattan Project or Biological Warfare, Crystal and I were certain her revelations struck most of these people as either science fiction or the ramblings of someone gone totally mad."

"To our surprise, however, the children of these old friends of hers now in their forties began to listen and soon a network of concerned persons had formed. Rae's disarming charm and wacky wit soon had people talking. Intrigued by the honesty of a wealthy woman who'd supported herself doing odd jobs for thirty years, media spies began to seek her out. Her remarks began to be repeated in important circles, editors urged her to write her memoirs, and soon the tow-away zone in front of the house was filled with the limousines of important politicians and the rich and famous."

" 'I'm going after the President next,' Rae whispered triumphantly to Hopkins one night as the door closed upon a soirée which had included a Supreme Court Justice, several Senators and their wives and a handful of influential movie stars. 'It's only a matter of time now... I hear he's a very sensible young man and I'm sure he'll understand my point of view and put a stop to this Slave nonsense once and for all.'

'Oh Ma'am you're such an innocent,' Hopkins wailed, 'you don't know what you're saying... these Presidents and High Officials are the worst of the lot... you don't get to be one unless you've done awful things for those above you and faithfully kept the most terrible secrets... secret. You'll see, in the end, none of 'em will commit themselves to your cause... they'll just wait and see which side is likely to win and throw their weight in that direction.'

'Then I must go directly to the people,' Rae replied, 'I've always trusted the common sense of the American people and when I get on T.V. and spill the beans about these proposed genetically engineered creatures, right there in front of everyone, the President will have to listen!' "

"As the days passed and Rae became increasingly preoccupied with her plans, Crystal and I didn't see much of her and spent most of our time with Hopkins. Partly out of a genuine affection he'd developed for us, and partly because he was furious with Rae for not listening to him, he now pursued his role as our companion with a diligence and determination that seemed to us truly inspired. Perusing newspaper ads and the yellow pages, he drew up extensive lists of places we should visit and seemed bent on spending as much money as possible on our comfort and beautification. No establishment was too chic or too expensive to be passed over. We visited doggie boutiques where we were admired and fawned upon and given chocolate flavored rubber bones, special doggie toothpastes, mouth washes, colognes, and exotic chewies. At shops featuring canine apparel we were outfitted in doggie jogging suits of soft cashmere for cold mornings in the Park, doggie bikers jackets which looked and felt like real leather, special booties to protect our delicate foot pads against salt laid down to melt the ice and snow, and sable muffs to warm our noteworthy ears. Appointments were made for us at beauty salons frequented by pampered pooches where we were massaged, bathed, combed, given pedicures and our ears carefully cleaned with perfumed oil. There were doggie health food bars, and video tapes for canine watchers, old Lassie movies, Pluto cartoons, and a host of exciting film clips of rabbits, raccoons and other wild game."

"If old man Scoggins could have seen us then how surprised he would have been and that was not all... our most extravagant pastime consisted of visits to expensive psychiatrists who specialized in disorders of downcast dogs . Done up in preposterous outfits Hopkins, his elfin white beard fluffed out over his shoulders and sporting a flask of brandy, would fabricate the most atrocious stories of how we had chewed up Madame's Aubusson, bitten a foot-man or two at dinner or how, out of some deep-seated neurotic tendency we had forgotten our toilet training. Rising to these occasions, we accompanied these tales of woe with dramatic growls,sighs, groans and yips. Sometimes we even peed for emphasis which sent the doggie shrinks into paroxysms of rage. Incredible as it seemed to us, the explanations for our weird behavior were all different and equally absurd and the high point of each visit was the presentation of the bill which gave Hopkins the opportunity to stage some truly memorable scenes which usually ended up with him admitting his prank and paying twice the asked-for amount."

"It was at this time that I realized Rae had hidden my research papers under her mattress and late at night by the light of her trusty Ever-Ready I would watch as she removed them from their hiding place and examined them. 'Burn them, for God's sake...' I would try to shout, which would come out, of course, as a series of garbled whines".

" 'Goodness, Julius D. Nibble, if I didn't know better I'd think you knew something about these scribbles,' she would say, gazing down at me over her bifocals and I would playfully sniff at them, trying to get them away from her."

"Slowly I began to realize what a mean trick I'd played to have mailed them to her and wished I could confess. My excuse had been that, as it was she who had talked me out of the whole idea, I had wanted to pass on some of the responsibility for my drastic actions to her. In doing so, I now saw I'd done her a great disservice, perhaps even placed her life in danger. I therefore determined that at the first possible moment I would go after them and try to chew them up. Unfortunately, she kept them tucked so far under her mattress it was impossible for me to get at them, try as I might. What a strange trick fate had played, confronting me as a dumb witness with the consequences of my actions as a human. Preoccupied as I was by these and many other observations and above all with my main pastime sleep, I never once stopped sniffing the air for traces of the person who had shot Crystal and me. Now that we were back in New York, I was certain he would sooner or later show up and hungrily waited to avenge myself.

© Elwyn Chamberlain 2009