Still Life With Donut

Mar 132019
 

 

Hopper's Nighthawks

NIGHTHAWKS by Edward Hopper, Art Institute of Chicago

Two in the morning. Morning, what a laugh; it’s still the middle of the night. There’s no one around at this hour: not a car, or a person, not even a dog. Silent as snow over here.

Just one block away, the place is jumping. The cabarets, clubs and outdoor cafes cater to the wide-awake crowd. Over there, the neon lights blaze like a midday sun and the sidewalks overflow with all manner of humanity; soldiers on leave out with their best girls, or making time with the ladies of the night; hustlers on the hunt for chumps and suckers looking to score. A fair number of ordinary schmoes inhabit the night: vendors, waiters, bartenders, musicians, and even a certain subset of panhandlers, the ones who aren’t slumped in alleys and doorways. It’s a swinging scene alright, but hey, this is the city that never sleeps, right?

On this street, the vibe’s different. It’s quiet, deserted as a schoolhouse in the summertime, except for the diner glowing like a meteorite in the middle of the block. The joint is lit up like Macy’s at Christmas, thanks to the newly installed fluorescents that bathe everything they touch in an icy blue haze. Old Man Wooster would be blowing a fuse if he didn’t close his haberdashery strictly by 5:00 p.m. and even earlier in the winter. Who’d want to peddle high-class fedoras by the light of that moon?

The soft-edged, many-windowed eatery puts everything inside is on full-display.  It’s like watching a play presented within a circular sweep of tile and glass Anyone can see what’s going on from every angle, can take in the swank cherry wood counters, the bare walls. Otherwise, it’s a no-frills kind of place, but they serve a good cup of java.

Inside the four main actors go about their business, three at the counter and one guy behind it who looks to be barely out of his teens. The babe in the red blouse is out late, sure, but she’s no dolly. Her outfit says secretary or maybe shop girl, but she holds herself like she’s class act. She’s making a show of minding her own business, though she tossed the kid behind the counter a million dollar smile. Could be she’s a regular, resting her tired dogs after an evening of waitressing. How else to explain a dame like her on a deserted street like this at two in the a.m., no escort in sight? Not what you’d call hot but she’s got a certain style, especially with her auburn hair down around her shoulders.

Next to her sits a guy in a sharp-looking suit. He and the good-looking gal are perched closer than two jays on a telephone wire, but she’s turned away from him. What’s that all about? Could be he made a move and she put the kibosh on it, told him to take a powder. Or they had a lovers spat, and now she’s giving the jerk the cold shoulder. Maybe they know each other—their hands on the counter are just shy of touching—but they have their own reasons for pretending different. One thing’s for sure: he hasn’t changed his seat, though there are plenty of other stools along the counter for the taking. Maybe he’s daydreaming. He’s pushed his cup aside. Even his cigarette’s got a head of ash on it. Could be he’s just another denizen of the night, lost in his own thoughts, asking himself how the hell he ended up wherever he is. Who doesn’t from time to time?

Now the fellow several seats down, the one with his back to the window? He looks a little cagey. Another suit hunched over himself; hasn’t touched his coffee. In fact, nobody seems to be drinking much, even though it’s not exactly swill they’re serving. Back to the mystery man: what’s his deal? Is he running from a secret too big to face? Is he just on the outs with the missus and holed up here because he’s got nowhere else to go? Maybe he’s just another schmo with a dead-end job, a traveling salesman peddling anything from insurance policies to vacuum cleaners. Sets his case down on the floor by his side while he grabs a bite. Traveling salesman, that’s a tough life.

The empty storefronts across the street catch the ambient glow from the diner lights. The fluorescents always manage to create their antithesis: deep pitch-black voids that seem to swallow buildings and people indiscriminately. Nothing penetrates those shadows: no life, no history, no tall tales or terrifying truths. Whatever stories the night has to yield are going to come from the violet-tinged tableau inside the all-night diner.

He sits in a black-and-white parked inconspicuously just outside the circle of light. His task is to keep an eye on the shadows, to pick out what might otherwise stay out of sight. The job is boring and maybe even a little lonely. The running narrative in his head, well, that’s just his way of passing the time. Sometimes he thinks he’s a sap for choosing law enforcement instead of a cushy office job. On long nights like this, he yearns for his warm bed and the comfort of his young wife’s embrace. Still, it’s gotta be a damn sight better than a stint abroad fighting Japs or Krauts, although he’d go if he was called up; hell yeah, he would.

He takes a sip of coffee. It’s hot and it’s good, much better than the mud they serve at the precinct. Reaching for the glazed donut on the seat beside him, he takes a bite. It could be worse, he thinks, and raises his cup in a half-salute to the diner and its motionless occupants.

The two-way crackles, startling him so he almost spills his brew. Almost. He’s young, with quick reflexes, so he’s able to spare his uniform and stifle the expletive that comes to mind. He’s trying to curse less, out of respect for the bride.

“Dispatch calling Car 201. Nighthawk, you there?”
“I’m here, Sarge.”
“Anything happening?”
“Nope, quiet as a morgue.”

The desk sergeant responds with a high-pitched laugh that whistles through the wires like a dry desert wind.

“Not the most interesting beat, Ace; I got that. You could see action yet, though, so be awake and ready to move. We got an altercation a couple blocks south of you. May need you to scoot over there if things get too hot for Ranger to handle.”
“Roger that, Sarge.”
“Now go back to your daydreaming.”

Again, the raspy laugh rolls like tumbleweed out the receiver and through the sedan.

He starts to respond, but the sergeant has clicked off. He’s old school, that one; doesn’t like the new radios. Probably wishes he could go back to the Pony Express.

The young cop takes another bite of the donut and settles back into the gloom, nothing more than a shadow himself. He trains his eyes on the diner and on the four figures thrown by his watchful presence into eternal sharp relief.

Lemonade Dreams

Jun 162016
 

camp fireThe fire crackled merrily, stretching orange fingers into the black sky. Avril kept well back, not trusting its temporary solace. Last year an errant spark had leapt out and caught her skirt. The threadbare garment went up like a torch. She’d rolled in the sand while Mam slapped at the flames. Avril had been lucky. She ended up with a minor burn on one leg, mostly healed except for a small reddish gray area. Still, she didn’t want a repeat of that incident.

Across from her Johnny worked to fashion a knife from a piece of stone, using another piece of stone. She thought to tell him it was an exercise in futility, then changed her mind. She’d promised Mam she’d be less negative. Anyway, her brother had actually produced a couple of useful tools. He’d also had his fair share of failures.

She looked over at her mother. Mam pushed a strand of gray hair off her mottled brown face and reached a stick-thin arm behind her for some kindling. They were lucky to find deadfall along the trail, luckier still to have run across some sort of rodent who in turn led them back to the remains of its family living in a shallow crevice near a dried-up river. Dinner. Avril couldn’t remember the last time they’d eaten. Not that whatever it was they killed and cooked tasted good. That was a myth, that everything tasted good when you were starving. They forced it into their shrunken stomachs, though, along with tiny mouthfuls of water. Water was in even scarcer than usual this time of year. They needed to conserve. Soon they’d be traveling by night, pinned down during the day by an unforgiving sun that baked the life out of the earth. Unless, of course, the weather, or what passed for weather, changed again.

“God, what I wouldn’t give for a lemonade!” Avril exclaimed, more to make conversation than anything else. She surprised herself by recalling the sharp tang, softened by white sugar, the pale yellow liquid in a sweating glass. Lemonade reminded her of summer, back when there were seasons instead of the extremes they now endured.

Her mother smiled but said nothing.

“Me, too,” Johnny said, a wistful smile playing across his lips. He still had a kid’s face even with the hint of a beard and a voice that had changed long ago.

lemonade stand“Oh please, you don’t even remember what lemonade is. You couldn’t have been more than what, three or four years old last time you tasted it.”

“I do, too. I remember just we bought it from the kid down the street who had a stand or something. Timmy, that was his name.”

“No we didn’t,” Avril countered. “Some girl named Samantha sold it from her porch.” Pretty redheaded girl with big green eyes, maybe a year or two older than Avril. Were they friends? She doubted it.

“No, it was Timmy. Chubby kid with short black hair. He let me help sometimes. Remember? He lived in a big white house just like ours, only we had red shutters.”

“Now I know you’re just making stuff up. There weren’t any white houses . . .”

Mam shot her a look, bringing her up short.

“Yeah, there were,” Johnny continued. “Ours was the largest. Big back yard, right on the lake. Lots of tall trees. Not like the stuff we see now.” No, thought Avril, not like the gnarled, drought-starved, half-dead dwarf pines they occasionally encountered.

“Interesting. What else do you remember about our house from twelve years ago?”

“Avril, leave him be,” her mother warned in a voice heavy with resignation.

“No, I really want to know.” Avril refused to back down. “Come on, Johnny; tell us how you remember the old life.”

Johnny ignored his sister’s combative tone and considered her question. Closing his eyes against the harsh present, he ransacked his memory. If he concentrated, he could see the azure lake, the expansive emerald lawn, and the gardens dotted with pink and purple and yellow and red flowers. He could hear a neighbor’s dog barking and birds chirping. He could smell dead leaves. He could taste lemonade.

The strength of his recollections surprised him. The world through which they now moved had no lakes or lawns or flowers, no dogs or birds. Cockroaches and various reptiles scuttled across their path from time to time. Otherwise, they saw nothing living, not even other people—not anymore. There weren’t even colors. Skin, hair, clothing, earth and sky blended together, a monochromatic tapestry of grays and browns. Fine grit settled on every imaginable surface and obscured even the burnt-out vestiges of a previous existence.

Johnny took a breath.

“The walls of my room were painted light blue, like the sky—l mean, like it used to be. Avril’s room was yellow. I can’t remember Mam and Daddy’s room. The kitchen had a shiny refrigerator and a stove and an open place where we ate lunch. We had a living room with a big picture window overlooking the lake.” He looked into middle distance. “I really miss that house.”

The tiny run-down cottage where Avril spent the first seven years of her life hadn’t been painted at all. The family—Mam and Pop and her and Johnny—rented from an indifferent landlord who couldn’t be bothered with the slightest repairs. Pop spent most of the time on the road, looking for work, or so he said, so they could buy their own place. The kitchen was worn, with untrustworthy, decades-old appliances. She shared an impossibly small bedroom with her brother. She could see the lake only if she stood on the dresser and looked out the little windows up high near the ceiling, which she wasn’t supposed to do but did anyway.

The house sat directly on a busy dirt road. In the summer, heavy traffic kicked debris into the small garden where her mother tried to grow vegetables. In the autumn, the school bus threw diesel fumes and scattered dead leaves over the paltry offerings. Spring was wet and thick with mud; winter snows piled gray and slushy against the rotting windowsills.

She fought the urge to argue with her brother, to rip his recollections away from him and feed him a dose of reality. What right did she have to serve up her remembrances as the only ones of any value? Memories, even fabricated, were a rare enough luxury. The past, whatever form it took, offered more relief than the present and likely the future.

Avril turned to her mother. “Mam? What do you remember?” she asked.

“What I remember about the house,” Mam began, “was it was filled with love.” She laughed; the sound bounced off the shadows like light on the surface of a summer lake.

 Newer Entries