Short Stories:
Hopper Stories:
Other Stories:
Mariana's Pygmalion
Short Stories:
Tales from Edward Hopper.
These stories are inspired by the evocative paintings of the US artist Edward Hopper. Take a look at them on http://artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html#images.
I've written them in the spirit of the period in which the pictures were painted by Hopper
The House by the Railroad
Edward Hopper 1925
It was not the first time that Sam Jackson had travelled the railroad from East Greenwich to New York. He had often made this journey and at first he had been intoxicated with the thought of working in the great city, leaving behind the small town where he had grown up. It wasn’t that he didn’t love East Greenwich. It was a quaint little place with a beautiful old seaport. Whenever he returned there, his first sight of Narrangansett Bay with its charming, colourful yachts bobbing in the harbour was almost heart stopping. It was, a sudden realisation of all he came from, a jolting, nostalgic reminder of his roots.
But it had to be said, he was glad he had left. He was something now. New York had made him as he knew it would. He had risen in a real estate company that rented out apartments and offices and was now a chief executive of that company. He earned sums his parents had never even dreamed about. What saddened him most was that Mom was dead now and he couldn’t let her know her boy had risen in the world and made something of himself. She had worked so hard to pay for him to go to the very best schools, to get the new suit he needed in order to impress at interviews, even helped pay his first year’s rent. Just as he was doing real well and was in a position to start paying her back, she had upped and died on him. It was almost unforgivable. He had so wanted to put the dollars in her hand and say, “Look Mom, see what I’ve got here. All for you honey, do what you want with it, have a vacation, anything!”
And most of all he would have loved to take her out of that miserable little apartment she had rented all those years, the one on top of the bakery. His childhood had been filled with the constant smell of baking bread, bagels and muffins. Delightful you might think but not when your stomach was empty and all Mom could put on the table was vegetable soup and sourbread; perhaps an omelette or bacon on Sundays if you were lucky and a chicken at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
When he was little, he used to dream of the kind of house they would live in when he made money. It would be quite unusual, not any house, something special. It would have lots of rooms, maybe a tower like a picture he had once seen in an ad of a house in Connecticut. The roof would be gabled and the brick walls stuccoed. He didn’t want one of those ordinary clapboard houses everyone else had. This house would stand out and be a marvel to all who saw it. It needed to be near a road where it could be seen. Not tucked away on acres of land or in a glade someplace.
However, once Mom had died, Sam had forgotten about his dream house. He had bought himself a smart condo in New York, furnished it well, and enjoyed living high up in the world, looking down on the busy streets below, watching people scurrying around like ants, shouting, laughing, touting for business, cars honking; the city was all life and bustle. So far he had never had a serious girlfriend to share his smart condo and his smart lifestyle but that would change. He’s find a girl who would suit him someday. Meanwhile he wasn’t exactly looking out for anyone. No on could match up to his Mom. She had been beautiful in her youth until his Dad had walked out on them. He had watched her slowly turning into a drudge, her fresh bloom disappearing fast. Now he often brought out a picture he had in his wallet, a picture of her when she was young with fair hair down to her shoulders, curling under in a page-boy style, eyes wide and innocent, a look of sweetness and naiveté that went with the plump, fresh cheeks, the wide and generous mouth.
If he ever found that old man of his, he reckoned he wouldn’t be answerable for the results.
It was in September that he met a girl called Betty-Lou. She was working in a bar and immediately caught his eye because she had something of that air of old-fashioned sweetness he had always loved about his Mom. Betty-Lou was young and fresh and had just arrived in the city. The edginess and brashness of New York hadn’t yet gotten to her, hadn’t made her voice sound nasal and twangy, or her eyes become hard and cold and wary. She still sounded like a girl from Virginia, soft spoken, gentle.
He began to go to the bar frequently and liked to chat to Betty-Lou, planning to ask her for a date one day. But he felt shy for he had never been at ease with women and wasn’t sure how to approach her. She was so much younger than himself, how could she possibly like a middle-aged man with a balding head? He had no real physical charms to offer. He was plump, short and in his own opinion, unattractive. But he did have money. He flashed it around a bit when she was there, offered her generous tips. Naturally, she was grateful and made a special effort to please him, which he hopefully interpreted as her growing affection for him.
While he was making up his mind about asking out Betty-Lou, he decided to take a trip home to East Greenwich. He had no idea why he felt so compelled to return there. Something seemed to tug at him, almost like a call in his ear, a soft voice whispering from afar…'come, come!'
He took a few days leave and caught the train to Washington one Friday morning. It was Fall and the scenery looked past its prime, the lovely red and golden colours of the leaves now fast turning to brown, snowing down in large drifts around the feet of the trees. He had seen the scenery many a time and the steady rhythm of the train made him feel sleepy although it was still quite early in the day. His head began to nod against the window-pane but his eyes stayed open, unfocussed, gazing out at the passing scenery without really observing.
The train now passed some beautiful inlets and pools and lakes full of herons. They had arrived at Mystic. Sam straightened up and decided he might go to the restaurant car and get himself a burger and a coffee. He made his way to the bar in the next coach , ordered his meal at the counter, had a friendly chat with the woman who was serving and began to make his way back to his seat. As he settled down and began opening up his food , he took a look out of the window with more interest, observing the beauty of the Mystic River and its busy marina. The train seemed to slow down a little for some reason and it was then that Sam saw the house.
Why hadn’t he seen this house before? It was his house, for God’s sake…his dream house! He was so excited that he dropped his burger and stood up and peered out of the window as the train, now gathering speed, rattled on past it. Sitting down again, disregarding the surprised stares from his fellow passengers, he filled his mind with the memory of the house. It was a tall house with three or four floors. It seemed to rise, white and almost unreal from the side of the tracks and he had not seen exactly where the foundations lay or whether it was surrounded by a garden or not. His memory was of nothing but the house, no trees around it, almost as if it was suspended in space and floating in a strange and surreal fashion. That felt eerie enough but the house was a beauty. He had loved the tower at the front, the wide veranda and porticoed doorway. The windows too had a gothic shape about them, different and unusual. He couldn’t remember if there were blinds at the windows though he did seem to feel they had a closed look about them as if the owners were away and had drawn all the blinds down.
He wanted that house. He wanted it so badly. That was the house he had imagined in his childhood, the one he was going to live in with Mom. They were going to have servants there and everything. They would be so happy and Mom would lose that careworn look and be beautiful again like the photo in his wallet. He drew the picture out, smoothed it and looked at it for a long while.
'That your girl?' asked a fellow traveller.
'Yeh,' he replied absentmindedly.
Having seen the house, he wanted to go back and find it. He made up his mind to get out at the next stop and make his way back somehow, follow the railroad till he came to the house. The train stopped at Stonington and he got out.
He found himself a cab and asked the driver if he knew the house at all.
'Nope' said the man, shaking his head, 'ain’t never seen nothing like that, buddy.'
'Well, drive alongside the railroad track as far as you can.'
'Road don’t follow the railroad track.'
It was a mad venture and Sam decided to give it up.
He had lost interest now in his journey. What was there in East Greenwich to entice him anymore? What had made him want to go back there anyway, as if it was still his home? His home was now New York, may as well return there. He spent some time looking round the Stonington marina and then caught the next train back to New York. Seating himself on the other side, he kept his eyes open to see if he could pinpoint where the house was on his return. The train was coming closer to Mystic and suddenly there it was, the tall white house, looming up beside the railway, as if appearing from nowhere. As they went past, he saw a window blind go up. Darn it, people did live there then! He caught his breath, a woman had appeared in the window and was leaning out. Their eyes met. He could have sworn it was Betty-Lou! But he was going mad, surely. He looked again but now the train had sped on past.
He leaned back in his seat and felt his stomach churn. What the hell was Betty-Lou doing in that house? She had looked straight at him; he could swear it was her and that she had seen him.
When he next went into Smiley’s Bar, he patted Betty-Lou on the arm when she came up, sweet and smiling to take his order. He said, 'I reckon I saw you the other day, Betty-Lou. You didn’t tell me you lived near Mystic.'
She looked at him puzzled, 'But I don’t live anywhere near there, Mr. Jackson. What makes you think that?'
Sam stared at her. Her eyes were clear and innocent as always. He frowned and shook his head, 'Guess I made a mistake,' he mumbled and felt a fool. She must think it some sly come-on line.
He made up his mind to go back on the train again and find the house. The next free time he had, he caught the morning train again and as they went out of Mystic station, past the marina and the old ships in the bay, he kept his eyes peeled. The house soon loomed up out of the misty autumn morning and he looked closely at the windows. Again he saw a blind raised and a woman come to the window. His heart leapt in sudden fear. Why no, it wasn’t Betty-Lou at all, it was his Mom! It was Mom…but not Mom…for the woman was young and had long fair hair curling to her shoulders. But that was Mom all right, like she used to be, beautiful…so beautiful. She waved to him, smiling away, she had seen him! God, he had to get off, he had to find that house, even if it meant walking all the way there.
This time he asked the cab to take him right back to Mystic and leave him at the railway station. Then he began to walk alongside the railway tracks and kept on walking and walking for what seemed hours, searching for the mysterious house. It hadn’t seemed to be that far away from the main town but then the train had been going really fast and it must have been further along than he had thought. He walked on.
And there it was, looming out of the mist at him, the lovely, weird, white house with its portico and its tower and its tall windows under a Mansard roof. The door was shut but looking up to the first floor he saw the blinds raise again, the window open and the woman with long fair hair leaned over the windowsill and smiled down at him.
'Why Mom! How are you doing! You gonna let me in ?'
The woman smiled and nodded and disappeared and in a little while opened the front door for him. He opened his arms and she did the same and they hugged one another speechlessly.
'Mom, oh, Mom, how glad I am to see you!'
Betty Lou was so sad when they told her that poor old Mr. Jackson had died in that awful train crash on the way to Washington yesterday. He had been a nice old guy and always gave such generous tips. Funny how he had thought he had seen her at Mystic. It was just past there that the train had crashed.
© 2002 Loretta Proctor