Opening Chapter of “Hopper” – Debut Novel

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Friday, July 22nd – 6:06am – 17ºC/63ºF

Hopper stood alone in his vest, ironing. In a cheap rented room lit by a thick black wire slung out from the window and loosely connected to the street lighting outside, he smoothed out the creases of each note, a couple of fives, a ten maybe but nothing larger. Straightening out the folds, carefully smoothing out each corner before slipping them back into his wallet, an old fold of leather with the stitch of someone else’s name half plucked from the corner seam. A line of floss still hung from his teeth and if you looked over his shoulder, you could just make out the small shrine he’d built for her; photos, old champagne corks, restaurant receipts and ticket stubs – an old drawing of her while she slept. Friday, July 22nd, a little after 6am on what would be the hottest day of the year.

Hopper reached over to check his eggs frying on the ring, lovingly dripping a little oil over each yoke, blowing on them gently before turning back to the iron, smoothing out the fraying collar of a greying summer shirt. Even ironing the tie he carefully lifted from its hanger; an old nail hammered through a yellow smoke-stained newspaper article and straight into the wall. It had been one year, seven months and sixteen days since it had happened. His hair was longer in the picture and he looked uncomfortable in his suit, twisting from all the flashbulbs as the press swarmed around.

Hopper wandered around the room looking for shoes, eating his eggs straight from the pan, swallowing the yoke as if eating oysters. “Yeah, I’ll give you a rise”, he spat, the scenario re-playing in his head, demanding to become vocal now but with a slow fluid tilt of the head he stopped himself from seething, temporarily withdrawing, focussing on the search for shoes. Stooping every now and again to carefully pick up the silent remains of another dead wasp that had crawled in through the boiler flue. Pinching it by the wings as if by tweezers, carefully dropping it into the sink before running the cold tap, flushing it away.
He hadn’t realised they were gathering in the pipes below.

“Yeah, I’ll give you a rise”, he spat, winding himself up in the moment once more. Head down to remember the day before back in Bowman’s office. Remembering the fan trying hard to breath air into the place. The smell of stale coffee and half-eaten food. The plants that needing watering. The rot in the wood by the window frame. Recreating the whole scene as he watched himself nervously pull on his collar a little. Standing before his employer, before the bear who briefly interrupted his phone-call to pre-empt Hopper’s request. “A rise? Yeah, I’ll give you a rise! Ten percent more praise, each and every month of the year. You’re doing a great job. Couldn’t survive without you. You’re a fucking star. Now go sell the back cover”, before turning back to his phone call, turning back to talk about the holiday he’d had. About the married woman he’d met. About sex in the shallow end after midnight. About champagne corks popping and shorts off. About feeling twenty-one again.
“I sold the back, two spreads and the inside front. Five months running. Five months!” Hopper pointed, “Who else has done that? Ghram hasn’t. Mac hasn’t. Fox hasn’t sold a page for weeks”, he heard himself grass, talking pot shots at his colleagues for the sake of three percent.
“That was two years ago!” Bowman cut, his voice shrill, like the sound of a knife being sharpened, “What’ve you been doing since?”, placing his hand over the receiver as an afterthought to spare the voice on the other end.
Hopper watched himself falter, unable to answer, head down like a wounded bird as he remembered how the silence fell. Remembering the awkward feeling of having nothing left to say. No answer. No retort. His gloves cut, laces unstrapped and back on the hook as he imagined how the fighter must feel, dragging himself up off the canvas, back to the dressing room after another lost bout.
Hopper watched himself stand there, staring into space, the confidence gone like air from a burst balloon. An empty tank.
He knew that Bowman needn’t say anymore. The buzzing of a fly caught up in the strip lights the only sound between them.

“How about a few extra days then? Some time off while I sort things out”, Hopper reached, his shoulders already slumped in defeat like an old beach towel, his body already waving the white flag.
“Look at the figures. You’re an 1/8th page in recruitment and a half-page givaway fuck knows where I’m gonna place. You’re not selling anymore. I’ve still got you on salary and you’re not making sales?”
Hopper watched himself fumble for a last response, his eyes flickering, quickly flipping through page after page as if looking for a last line, a last hook or uppercut to keep him in the fight.
Bowman wiped the breakfast from his lip with the point of his member’s club tie and rocked awkwardly in his chair. He let the voice on the line know he’d call them back.
“Anyone else would’ve fired you months ago”, he stared, the words like a run-up before suddenly pulling up, pulling short, “But clearly I’m getting soft!” His tone becoming more conciliatory as he leant forward, offering Hopper a seat.

Hopper winced as he watched himself get all defensive, clutching at anything to help him grab a foothold back into the negotiations, “No-one’s buying it anymore”, he cut, “There’s nothing to read, just ads. Its all ads”, the words spilling out over Bowman’s desk.
“So I’m paying a salesman who doesn’t believe in selling!?” Bowman fired, slumping back in his chair, arms up in mock surrender, “Oh this is just beautiful! . . I’m paying a man who’s given up?”
And Hopper was done. Cooked. Unable to respond. Nothing left. No strength in the arms to throw another jab. No strength left in the legs to stand up. The knees already buckling. Nothing left in the tank to counter as the bear pulled back with that butter sick feeling of hurting a friend; the two of them looking everywhere else just so their eyes wouldn’t meet. The clock. The window. The signed photograph on the wall. The chipped salesman of the month plaque from two decades before. Everywhere except each other. Anything, anywhere to avoid each other’s line of sight.

Hopper watched himself shuffle away, “I’m good at what I do”, he told himself, stroking the back of his left ear for comfort the way he always did as a child. “Maybe not the best but I’m up there”, he soothed, repeating the mantra as if to convince himself before snapping back to reality at the smell of burning cotton.
Hopper looked down to see the charred triangular grill across the face of his tie and with a slow fluid tilt of the head he clenched the fist of his right hand as tight as he could, tight enough for the knuckles to whiten as he slowly counted to ten.

“Stirring good brandy with a nail”, Hopper told himself, his shoulders rounding as he ironed out the creases of his only other tie.
“They shouldn’t treat you like that”, Hopper heard, feeling warmer as Annie appeared. Beautiful, luminous, tip-toeing over to lovingly stroke the hair from his face, kissing him gently, “They shouldn’t”, she soothed. Her touch, her voice, her whole body a lilly and although a little embarrassed at being only half-dressed, Hopper let her wrap her arms around him. “I know”, he replied, hastily buttoning up his greying summer shirt in a sudden attempt to look sharp for her, to look his best, “I’m good at what I do”, looking to her for sympathy. For a way out.
“You’re a fighter”, she breathed. Her words giving him confidence and he swelled, proud, head back like a bird. Pulling up his shoulders. Puffing up his chest. Gaining a whole three inches in height.
“You’re a heavyweight.”
And as he imagined the sound of the bell, the crowd urging him on, his spirits lifted, his confidence swelled and he started to shadow box, punching out imaginary opponents with ease. The heavyweight champion of the world, round after round and Ding! Ding! until he saw the smile on her face slowly slip to sadness.
“You do know none of this is real”, she whispered, her arms pulling away, her image slowly fading as she spoke. The words snapping Hopper back to the cheap rented room lit by a single black wire slung out through a hole in the window frame and loosely connected to the street lighting outside. To the ironed notes in his wallet. To the last remaining egg shrivelled in the pan.
Hopper leant against the sink, silent for a second or so before running the tap, filling up the bowl with cold water. Throwing his face in. Shouting into the bowl. Shouting into the water to muffle the sound. Water spilling out over the side, slapping the linoleum below.
He stood there for a while.

Drying himself off Hopper grabbed a fork and stabbed the yoke, mashing it around the plate a little longer than it really needed before seasoning it with a little salt, a little pepper to give it bite and, lifting the first bite to his mouth, it slid, dripping down the front of his clean Monday morning shirt.
It’s here that Hopper froze.
It’s here that his whole body tightened like rope around wood. The light in each eye slowly fading as he looked skyward to the yellow smoke stained ceiling and with a slow fluid tilt of the head, he raised his glass to another successful breakfast.

First published in the literary anthology:
What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? – An Anthology of the Bush Years, 2000 to 2008
Contains essays, fiction, correspondence, art, photography, humor, and poetry.
Edited by David Barringer

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Holding his breath now in the damp single room of a side-street hotel only a hundred yards or so from the mortar fire, he locked himself in concentration. His mind on single track, focussed, sidelining the blasts outside as he sat poised, holding the bartered scalpel blade over the steam of a kettle boiling over. Ready now. Trembling slightly. His nerves, his fingers like fuses ready to trip, poised to any sudden movement, ready to pull back from any sudden sound. In a dim lit room without heating, in one of the few buildings left standing he folded himself up under the bare 40watt lamp, leaning over the small token table and with the small sterile blade he carefully cut her out of the last photograph. With a little glue and a sterile pair of tweezers he teased her sun-drenched image in amongst the others. Delicately positioning her into the final space right on the edge of the frame as a blast rocked the sidewall, another claiming the street below. Lamps shaking, cries heard, plaster cracking and dust everywhere. Each flake spinning in the half-light like tinsel, falling over the work he wiped preciously clean with his sleeve. The bare white groove on his wedding finger now collecting dust.

With a sterile pair of tweezers he inched her into position among the sea of faces as if she were gold leaf and once she was in place, once she’d joined all the others he sat back, finally breathing out, his whole body deflating. The sudden release like air from a burst balloon.

He’d done it, as sirens sounded; his work was complete. Finally, after years of stealing moments, the work was done, his montage complete and he slumped against the headboard to look into each and every beaming face, only missing moments to blink. Imagining their histories, their experiences. Imagining their thoughts each moment his camera caught them. Each snapshot pieced together forming a thousand smiling faces, a montage of grins, each smile unique. A crowd of people, each caught up in their moment, each a snapshot of joy as he slumped against the headboard of a lonely single bed in a dim lit room, in another ravaged city, in another angry country and he couldn’t fight the first tear forming. No defence as the second slipped out. No way of stopping the third, the fourth pour down his cheek to sobbing. His whole body jerking. His face a damp quilt of lines as each momentary smile, each captured face looked past him and out through the window, blind to the mortar fire outside. Each face caught up in a past moment now gone, each one oblivious to both him and his lens as he captured their moment, their snapshot of joy now gone.

His camera.

Scratched, the case all battered, the flash burnt out from constant use but always a part of him. Always essential like an artery. Like a limb.

Helped him win awards as it swung from his neck in each ravaged city, every angry war in each angry country snapping away at scenes a man should never see but for this last personal work he only took pictures in daylight now. Always looking for the right shot, the right carefree smile. Another face to add to the collage, another grin to piece in. To finish it. To finally complete his montage, his grand work. Sidelining all the other shots he’d taken throughout his prize-winning career, his professional years, forgetting all he’d seen. Never looking back at his best work, his award-winners, front pagers, retrospectives and crowd pleasers. Soldiers burned in their tanks. Kids, limbs missing. The effects of cluster bombs and landmines. The lack of water. The lack of food.

His camera.

This once inanimate object that had taken his life. Always looking through it. Always a lens away. Always hiding behind the frame 4by3, 7by5. The case now cracking under the weight of all the emotion it’d stored. Soft tears forming, spilling out over the shots pieced together. A thousand lost grins, a thousand unknown faces from every corner still laughing, still smiling, each caught up in their own past moment now gone. Each one pieced together in montage to convince himself that the world was still good. That people were still good. After all that he’d seen.

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First published in the literary anthology:
What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? – An Anthology of the Bush Years, 2000 to 2008
Contains essays, fiction, correspondence, art, photography, humor, and poetry.
Edited by David Barringer