An Evening with Mr. Hopper
OWEN SKIDDS
Artwork by Edward "Katniss Everdeen" Hopper
The Usual Spot on Greenwich Ave
Greenwich village.
God, what a place
things used to be
a fella could get drunk off the air here
We used to be artists
back before the war
now we're sad men
who wear suits
One thing that never changed
about old Greenwich
is that little diner
on Greenwich & 12th
The old fella who owned it
came from Philly
long ago it was called
Duchamp's
But we neva called it that
the old fella changed out
the sign in '22
to Phillies
Open 24/7!
and five-cent cigars!
and hot coffee!
God, what a place
We used to go there
breakfast
lunch
& dinner
We would stagger out
of our apartments
at two in the morning
on a wednesday night
And the old fella's son
would take us all in
barely fifteen and he
cooked for us and poured cups of joe
The Old Fella's Son
The old fella's son
was born & raised in Greenwich neva knew any other life
than in Manhattan
But when he said water
he said 'wooder'
and he was always
forgetting the names of those jawns
The old fella's son
was born with one leg
shorter than the other
so he neva left for Europe
The old fella's son was
waiting for us when we got back
still standing behind that counter pouring coffee and frying eggs
Clark
Clark came to the city
in '39
looking to study
at NYU
He couldn't pay tuition
and he couldn't get back home so he stayed in Greenwich and made beautiful things
Clark became my life-long friend because we was both just trying to get by and
make beautiful things
Then the war hit and
we was all stuffed into
uniforms and sent off
to shoot Nazis
And we musta shot them pretty damn good
considering Clark and I
are sitting in Phillies again
We haven't made any beautiful things in a hell of a long time but that's okay
we're still good old pals
Brenda
Brenda ain't never fought no war on account of the fact she's a woman but she did make beautiful things with me and Clark and all of us
And she ate at Phillies a lot too on account of the fact her mama died of tuberculosis and she never learned nothing of cooking and cleaning
But Brenda made these wonderful paintings that jumped outta the canvas at you and made you feel
beautiful things
She painted a steam train once with oils on a huge canvas
I remember being over her place and just sitting on the floor
I musta been staring at the steam train for six hours
she painted every beautiful part of that iron beast
And then took it to an auction
and she sold away that beautiful thing and it made her
a month's rent
Eddie
I came from further up on the Hudson I came from money but I ain't never
taken a cent or a dime from nobody
in my family on account of my pride
I blew into town in the spring of '38
because I had ran outta other places
to go and create beautiful things
I had been painting portraits of folks
Phillies became my favorite spot
I saw the old fella and the old fella's son and Clark and Brenda
and I really liked Brenda
Brenda was a beautiful thing
more beautiful than a painting of a steam train or of the Blue Ridge Mountains
or anything any of us ever painted before the war
Brenda & Eddie
I told Brenda I wanted her to
be mine in the spring of '40
and she musta thought I was a real pisser for that one because she went and kissed me
And it was one of them kisses that ends a movie one where she'd wrap her arms around your neck and hang offa you like a coat on a hanger that was probably when I shoulda gave up on her
Brenda was a beautiful thing and for a while we lived nice and pretty making beautiful things and smoking five-cent cigars and
eating at Phillies in the early morning But I had to go off and shoot Nazis two years later
and that fire with Brenda died off
and she said goodbye and I said I'd write
and she said don't bother and we split
Night Hawks
Clark and I got back from shooting Nazis
in '45 because I think
they went and dropped a fairly big bomb
on the last Nazis in August or so I was told
We had split outta Greenwich after that
I moved uptown and worked downtown
Clark moved to Queens and worked uptown Brenda stayed in Greenwich making beautiful things
Clark and I wore suits on account
of the fact we were no longer artists
we were rats racing other rats to do rat things in these tall buildings where rats worked
One night in '48 I was walking around because I could not for the life of me catch a wink of sleep
because I kept thinking of dead Nazis and dead Americans and not very beautiful things
My feet took me to Greenwich Village
without me even realizing
they knew the way after all I had been through and done and went through
Phillies was there, golden glow at three in
the morning on that corner
still had five-cent cigars and hot coffee
and the old fella's son still stood behind the counter
I walked right in and he said "hey" and I said "hey" and ordered a burger and pulled out a cigarette then, like some kind of magic had happened in that diner Clark walked right on in
For a second we didn't say nothing to
each other on account of the fact we didn't realize at first but then he looked up and I looked up and we started chatting about work and the old days
Then Brenda walked in
and for a moment I hung my head
but she recognized us all the same
she sat right down next to me
She put her arm around my waist
and gave me a kiss on the cheek
it wasn't nothing like that
movie star kiss she gave me
And we all sat there in Phillies for a minute and the old fella's son wanted to say something I could see it in his eyes
he wanted to say "Just like old times!"
But we all knew it was just like old times
so we didn't say nothing like that
we sat there quietly
in the usual spot
Like nothing had never changed
like we hadn't loved
like we hadn't lost
like we was still artists
And then, after some time I said
"Let us create a beautiful thing."
and Clark and Brenda and even the old fella's son all talked about that
The next day we went to Brenda's place the same old place she lived in before the war and she had a canvas and paints
and we created a beautiful thing
We painted three old friends
sitting in a diner with the old fella's son hawks
in the dead of night
About the Author
Owen Skidds is a simple man who loves writing, kayaking, winter sports, and a healthy amount of idolized melancholic isolation. He occasionally writes poetry, but mostly dabbles in speculative fiction and fantasy writing. The biggest influences on his writing career are Robert A. Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert Kurvitz.