Hopey Glass

Esperanza Leticia (Hopey) Glass is one of the two most important characters in LOCAS. She is the best friend and on-off lesbian lover of Maggie Chascarillo, the heroine of the LOCAS story. Hopey's father, Richard, is Scottish-American, and her mother is Colombian. Hopey has a younger brother, Joey.

Hopey is born in Downey, California, a Los Angeles suburb, but when she is still small the Glasses move to Hollywood, where Mrs. Glass attempts to make her children into child stars. The normally outgoing Hopey cannot perform in front of a camera, much to Mrs. Glass' fury, and her dream of proxy stardom fails.

The family then moves to Huerta (Hoppers), and Mr. and Mrs. Glass divorce. Living with her mother, Hopey becomes "a weird, introverted little kid." She experiences powerful lesbian urges in her early adolescence, but she does not know how to deal with them and she is unhappy with her slender body. Suffering from her mother's anger, Hopey becomes depressed and socially isolated and her only friend, the egotistical Julie Wree, deserts her.

When she is about 14, Hopey meets a new and slightly older girl, Terry Downe, a tough punkette who introduces Hopey to punk rock, drugs, and lesbian sex. Hopey runs away to join Terry, who lives with a drug dealer named Del Chimney (Porfirio Diaz Rubinski). Terry and Hopey are lovers for about two years, but they fight constantly and Hopey wearies of Terry's bad temper. She meets up with Maggie and turns her on to punk music and the punk way of life. The two fall in love, but the relationship is unstable; Maggie is still interested in men, while Hopey is erratic and undependable.

As a teenager, Hopey is an aggressive tagger, bully, and trouble-maker, and she is often in difficulties with her mother, her school, and the police. She dislikes work and lives off of others for years.

Hopey is heavily lesbian, but not completely so. She sleeps at least once with Charles (Zero Gravity) Gravette, the drummer in Terry's bad punk band. Hopey also flirts with a young male punk named Henry. The two get quite close, and Hopey apparently seriously considers leaving Maggie.

Hopey plays bass in Terry's band, but she does not play well. Hopey is an irrepressible exhibitionist but she is a dud on stage, just as she was as a child performer. The band goes by a variety of names--Missiles of October, Soul Train Line, Capri Nights, The Ronkies, and finally La Llorona. Hopey separates from Maggie for the first time when the band goes on tour. After the band breaks up, Hopey has a brief sexual liaison with Tex (Antonio McTeer), a Black drummer. She gets pregnant, but loses the baby.

Tex impregnates Penny Century at the same time as Hopey, and Penny finally engineers a reunion between Hopey and Maggie. Maggie leaves her uncomplaining boyfriend, Ray Dominguez, and remains with Hopey on the East Coast, but their reunion is brief and unsuccessful. Hopey and Maggie fall in with a crowd of art stars, including Mary Christmas (an old friend from Hoppers days) and Maya, Ray's ex-girlfriend. Hopey behaves rudely towards them and even towards Maggie, and Maggie finally leaves Hopey because she has become "too mean."

Maggie then goes off to Texas, but Hopey remains in the Northeast where she lives off her wits and her sexual talents. Hopey has liaisons with Maya, Mary, and Jewel Tucker, the daughter of Nan Tucker, a major TV comedy star of the 50's and 60's. Hopey finally moves in with Jewel. Nan and her old TV comedienne friends stage elaborate lesbian fantasies with young prostitutes, a spectacle Hopey finds very entertaining. The fun ends when Nan hires thugs to beat up Hopey and Tex to prevent them from telling what they know about Nan to her fans and public. Tex is hospitalized, while Hopey gets together with two old pals, Benny and Twyla. Together the three form the Damachers, an unsuccessful Shonen Knife cover band. Hopey plays bass in the band for several unprofitable years in the early 90's.

Hopey tracks Maggie down in Texas, and the two reunite and move to LA. They live together again, but not for long. Maggie soon marries Tony (Top Cat) Chase, an old punk she knew in Hoppers, while Hopey has frequent affairs with other women. She even attempts to seduce the cute but dimwitted Janet Polo, her brother Joey's fiancee. Hopey eventually takes up with a lumpish young woman named Rosie, but is not faithful to her either. By this time, Hopey is working as a bartender and also has a clerical job. She finally gives up the clerical job and becomes a teacher's assistant at a local elementary school.

Hopey is hedonistic, impulsive, rebellious, outspoken, witty, and careless of the feelings of others. She has practically no inhibitions to speak of, and will do almost anything just for the hell of it or the fun of it. Maggie loves Hopey, but admits that she is hard to like and hard to live with. Yet Hopey is more complex than she seems. Hopey cannot commit herself fully to Maggie, but she loves Maggie deeply and unconditionally, putting up with her weight gain, her depressions, and her affairs with men. Hopey even declares her love, though the self-doubting Maggie forgets that she has done so.

Hopey is fundamentally a doer, not a thinker. In recent years, however, age, disappointment, and the challenge of a new career have stirred Hopey's dormant conscience and made her more reflective and more self-doubting than in the past.