The Republic of Nothing (10 page)

“A good man for what?” my old man inquired.

“Look,” Maclntyre said. “I won't mess around with you. We have no one to run for the legislature for this part of the shore.”

“That's because the last Tory MLA who ruled Sheet Harbour was a corrupt pig who screwed the voters. It was because of people like him that I declared this island a free republic.”

“And so you should have. Any upstanding Tory would have done just that.” John G.D. was obviously a pro at political wilery. His motto was probably this: always agree with anything anyone says if you want to get them to do your bidding.

The bottle went back and forth. “What do you want, anyway?” my father finally asked.

“I want you to run for us. I want you to represent the shore in the legislature in Halifax.”

“Why?”

“Because I been scouring this backwater for days for one honest man who wants to run for us and turn this riding around. And you're that man. Someday this shore will be the haven for free-thinking men like yourself, a place of political idealism and champions of liberty, a home for brave individualism, but most of all a place of integrity and freedom of the heart.”

“Freedom of the heart,” my father repeated. “I like that.” “They told me up the road that you were our man. Sir, our party is all dried up on this shore unless we bring in new blood. But look who's in power now. The Grits. And what do they stand for? Government ruling the daily lives of the common people. Look at who represents you now — Bud Tillish.”

“I don't think I know anything about Bud Tillish. Like I said, we're a separate country from Canada and we are no longer part of Nova Scotia. I don't stay abreast of provincial politics.”

“But that's why you're the perfect candidate. You don't have any political enemies. And you have a vision.”

“But I'm an anarchist.”

“Deep down we all are.”

“And I've already declared Whalebone Island a sovereign republic.”

“Every town on this shore should do the same damn thing and I'd be behind it one hundred percent.”

My father scratched at his jaw and reached for the bottle. “What if I don't like the job?”

“Then you can quit.”

“What do I have to do to be elected?”

“Nothing. That's the key to success in this election. Just stay home, stay invisible. If people can't see you, they'll vote for you simply because you won't look bad. All we have to do is wait for Bud Tillish to start giving speeches. Then you're a shoo-in.”

“Well, in that case, sure,” my old man agreed.

“Great. Can I use your phone?”

“I don't have a phone.”

“Oh,” John G.D. said. “Well, I better go then and get word to Halifax. But you'll hear from me. Together we'll win this election.”

My father hadn't thought that much about an election. As the door closed on John G.D. and his car lurched off over the potholes, my father appeared elated but bewildered. My mother walked in with a tub of clams. “Somebody help me shuck these things.”

“Sure, hun,” my father said.

Casey jumped up on our father's lap. “That man sure did burp a lot,” she told him, possibly her first astute political commentary in her life.

“It's good to have you talking again, Casey,” my father said, ruffling her hair. “What was all the silence for?”

Casey shrugged. “I guess I just didn't have anything I wanted to say until the burping man came.”

I put down my comic and picked up a kitchen knife. The four of us were sitting in the living room with a tub full of piss clams before us. My father ate three of them raw and sucked back the juice. I never finished reading
Treasure Island.
Things began to change after that. The Republic of Nothing had opened diplomatic ties with the province of Nova Scotia. My father's eyes were like hot red coals and his hair seemed charged with electricity as he shucked clams.

“I had a dream last night,” Casey said. “In the dream a horse was swimming in the waves when suddenly it turned into a ship with a bright white sail. I was sailing on the ship all alone and I could make the wind do whatever I wanted it to. Pretty soon it took me to shore and the ship turned back into a horse that gave me a ride home. The horse was golden and very pretty and it gave me back my voice which I had lost at sea. When I woke up, I waited before I had anything to say. And then the man appeared at the door and I knew that it was somebody.”

“Who was he, dear?” my mother asked my father.

“An emissary from the next country over. We're negotiating a treaty of sorts,” my father said.

My father, I admit, did have a political mind, but he was so far ahead or behind the times he lived in that my mother was convinced there was no chance he'd be elected to the legislature. So while my father honed his skills for the up-coming election, while he carved in his mind a totally unique
and anarchic platform from which to pronounce policy, my mother ignored his aspirations altogether and busied herself by reading books on memory improvement.

She hoped to eventually recall something from those empty pages of her life, but so far she had only succeeded in memorizing the times table up to 325 times 236. All of us were impressed by her finesse with mathematics and her new system of mnemonics that would eventually allow her to memorize the name of every town in Nova Scotia. She sat in the brassy sunlight of the early morning kitchen all alone eulogizing, “Sheet Harbour, East Jeddore, West Jeddore, Clam Harbour, Lake Charlotte, Clam Bay, Tangier, Ecum Secum, Necum Teuch, Sober Island” on through the morning. The only problem was that there weren't enough towns in Nova Scotia that began with vowels so that she could come up with readily memorizable mnemonic acronyms. Nonetheless, while politics began to ferment in the old man's mind, my mother memorized on toward the east and west.

My mother had not counted on the mighty Conservative forces that were conservatively amassing on my father's behalf. In fact, three weeks after the election had been announced, my father had not even heard one word from John G.D. Maclntyre or any of the flunkies at the Conservative party headquarters in Halifax. But he had not been forgotten. Maclntyre had verbally painted a striking picture of Everett McQuade to his cronies and they all agreed that my father was of the correct political cloth if he believed that less government was better government. The fact that he was a fisherman and a dark horse from the boonies was an advantage.

To bolster that advantage, riding workers were sent out daily from Halifax with carloads of rum, enough pint bottles to pickle the gizzards of half the Eastern Shore populace. Maclntyre was not a hypocrite when it came to rum bottle politics for he had studied the machinations of government from the bleary side of the pint bottle for many years and he had a dark,
golden crystal vision of a better life for all Nova Scotians, or as his new colleague Everett McQuade would have said, “for all of the great republics that exist or are about to exist.” Maclntyre had financial backing in Ontario. He had friends with plenty of money including, of course, manufacturers of rum and rum bottles on his side. How could he lose? He sallied forth head-long into the campaign, blustering and railing and rallying behind him carloads of bottle distributors that issued forth to every nook and cranny of this great province, spreading the golden gospel according to John G.D. Maclntyre.

Cutting government spending was a hot issue in the election. “Why should the little guy have to pay for everything?” Maclntyre taunted the crowds from North Sydney to Church Point. “Why, I ask you, is it always the little guy?” Now Maclntyre himself was neither small in girth nor wealth. He was a tall man who also measured in a substantial circumference around his equator. And he had acquired capital by investing in a munitions factory during the war. Fortunately, Maclntyre had pulled out his funds just before it was discovered that the company was selling bomb casings to the Red Chinese army.

In truth, though, it may not have been the loyal and deviously locomotive Conservative machine that was to aid my father the most in the election. I think what my father had most to his advantage was the ever-present public appearances of Bud Tillish, his opponent. Bud was a congenital liar and a cheat which was why he had turned to politics in the first place. He had been appointed to replace an aging Liberal clergyman named Dwight Noseworthy who had died while fast asleep in the legislative assembly during session. The papers said that he died mid-snore, that his sleepy presence would be sorely missed. The premier had appointed Bud as a reward for past services in Ottawa where Bud had been sent to annoy the hell out of the Minister of Finance until the man had quit and was replaced by a minister who felt more kindly towards
pumping federal money into Nova Scotia to develop coal, tourism and, of all things, heavy water for nuclear power plants.

Bud had three primary faults: he talked too much in public, he was a bad liar, and the killer — he was a teetotaller. The premier had tried to overlook these worries but urged Bud to closet himself with his thoughts for as much of the election as possible. Instead, Bud stumped the county, promising public swimming pools, paved driveways, unlimited fishing licenses and a heavy water plant for every third town on the Eastern Shore. These lies were simple political whoppers, but then Bud began to get carried away with his own prejudices and on a Friday night dance interlude he gave an impromptu speech at the Masonic Hall in East Chezzetcook. He called for new and higher taxes on cigarettes and booze “for the good of everybody.” From then on, Everett McQuade's popularity soared.

My father listened only to shortwave radio, primarily broad-casts from London, Amsterdam and Auckland. He never listened to local media or read any of the local papers. The Halifax papers had already reported verbatim what the Conservative media machine had told them, that Everett was a “reclusive but successful small businessman from Whalebone Island who had studied political science. In his local community he is regarded as a great family man and a friend to all.”

While the campaign proceeded without the active participation of the candidate, Everett was still up at dawn and out to sea in his renovated Cape Islander every day the weather would allow. I'd go along most days to help fish, chop bait, make tea, and puzzle over tangled hand-lines. The day before the fateful election I was in the cabin making a peanut butter sandwich when I felt the boat begin to bob and wobble in a strange way.

“Come out here, son. You should see this,” my father yelled.

Outside, I discovered we were surrounded by a mighty
crowd of dolphins. The sea had come alive with roiling waters and ebullient backs reflecting spears of sunlight.

“I've only seen that sight once before,” my father said. “Just before you were born. It's a good omen for the republic.”

“I don't think I understand,” I said, mesmerized by the dolphins but wanting to understand how my father had linked the event with his own politics. And I also wanted to know how working as part of the Nova Scotia government would forward the intentions of the Republic of Nothing.

“It's like this,” he said, as the dolphins passed and my father began to bait his lines and feed them back into the waters again. “The Republic of Nothing is based on tolerance of ideas and people. It also holds sacred things like independent thought and the right of any man to shape his destiny as he sees fit as long as he don't tromp on anybody else doing it. It's a basic belief in the littleness of things. Our island is the first fragment of a new world order of little nations. We'll all be too damn small to go to war because we'll be too small to afford it. It's like those hopping dolphins. They are all the many tiny nations of the world who will replace the big bullies. And the leaders of the nations will be non-leaders. Every one of ‘em will be a fisherman or a farmer or a car mechanic or a beach-comber.”

It had been one of the first times in a long while my father had gone on like this. The election fever had taken full control of him.

“But will we have to move to Halifax if you win?”

Suddenly his face grew dark. “I don't know, son. I haven't discussed that problem with Mr. Maclntyre yet. We'll see.”

Everett didn't hear that he had won the election until the night after when John G.D. himself turned up at the door. “Now the fun begins,” John said, for his party had crushed the Liberals by distributing enough rum to fill Halifax Harbour twice over. In the Eastern Shore riding, Bud Tillish had received only a handful of votes. Apparently even his family
had voted against him. And everyone was curious as hell to find out just who Everett McQuade was. My father was an invisible celebrity. He shuttled John away, said he'd get in touch soon, but right now he wanted to think. After the door had closed on the baffled politician, my father walked into the kitchen and told my mother, “I won. The Republic of Nothing has been admitted into the Nova Scotia Legislature.”