Hudson: A Short Story

Super flumina Babylonis

Hudson Burrows knows today will be the day he fixes his son, Caleb. He mulls over his plan, while in the garage, in the cool of mid-March, as he plows through his morning five-mile ride on the stationary bike he bought for his wife and son, yet only he uses. Hudson pedals through his last lap, cycling down another lap to cool off. He finishes and steps from the bike, swabs a towel across his face, marches into the house, and heads straight to Caleb who snores on the living room sofa, his hairy jowls agape.

Hudson scans the heap: his son, his only son, was different when he was a boy with boy’s hands and mane; there was something endearing about it all, to see the little guy balled up on the couch. But not now. Not when the boy is a man or at least a man’s age. Caleb has no job because he’s not to be trusted. When he isn’t getting lit at a friend’s apartment, when he isn’t faking love in a stranger’s bed, when he isn’t swapping tales over rounds of chess or games of Magic, when he isn’t bartering stolen goods at pawn shops, when he isn’t slouched in a theater and watching superhero movies, Caleb lives in his parent’s home and trolls social media sites so he can post his original works: stream of conscious dramas [He: Where are you going, Wear? She: Did you say “Wear” for the last word? Absurd. He: That’s how I spin my words — as I please. Don’t be a tease.] Hudson leans over Caleb, places his thick and calloused right hand on Caleb’s shoulder, and nudges. Son, it’s time to wake up. No response other than snoring. Wake up. Caleb. A grunt; a smack of the hairy jowls. Caleb cracks his eyes.

Hmm, yeah.

You got a job interview. One hour.

What job?

Get ready. Hudson rises to dodge Caleb’s morning breath.

For what?

What’d you have planned today?

I was gonna go, and do…a thing. A buddy of mine, says Caleb, as he coughs and stretches his limbs. 

Reschedule, says Hudson, who returns to the kitchen to make oatmeal.

Caleb inhales. He counts off in his head from one to whatever number he can reach before exhaling all his air. Afterwards, Caleb rolls off the couch and stomps up the steps that lead to the second floor, the carpet worn from years of treading. He shuts the bathroom door just loudly enough to awake his mother, Deborah, who sleeps through most weather systems, but any hint of conflict between Hudson and Caleb stirs Deborah, regardless. She hears the guest bathroom shower turn on. She feels the tink, clank, tink of dishes and pots being used in the kitchen. She sits up, her eyes still closed and prays that today her men won’t fight each other.

Deborah’s still praying to herself when she descends the steps and enters the kitchen. Good morning, she says to Hudson, who’s shoveling oatmeal into his mouth in between bites of deleting junk from his gmail account. He lifts his head to see Deborah, wrapped in her bathrobe, meander around the granite top island she keeps cluttered with scads of stuff — Hudson calls it to Deborah’s shagrin, and she rebuffs with projects — spread from one end to the other. She opens a cabinet door. 

What are you doing up, Deb?

Deborah removes an empty tea cup and displays it for Hudson, like evidence for a judge, places it beside the stove, and sets a tea bag within it. She then takes the kettle from the stovetop and fills it with filtered water and sets it back on the stove.

I was going to bring you some. After my oatmeal, says Hudson, and he turns his face back to the computer screen and the breakfast.

The kettle whistles. Deborah pours the steaming water into her teacup, dousing the bag. She dabs the bag up and down in the cup. Depresses the bag against the concave side of her spoon so the last of the tea falls into her cup. Tosses the bag into the trash can. Stirs her tea. And as she keeps her eyes on Hudson, Deborah sips her drink, adding a tiny slurp for punctuation’s sake.

Got Caleb a job interview, says Hudson.

We’re letting him drive the other car?

I’m taking him.

Your bid proposal’s today.

The guys’ll prep without me. Be ready when I roll in.   

Who’s the interview with?

Jim, says Hudson. Then he’s on his feet and headed towards the sink. Deborah scoots out of his way, but she stays close, faces him as he rinses out his bowl. His sweaty clothes reek through the smell of oatmeal and tea. Deborah drafts a comment in her head concerning Hudson’s odor. But she stays on task.

Caleb’s bones —

It’s just an interview, Deb —

In a garage. I just don’t see why —

Hudson knocks off the faucet water. Opens the dishwasher. Stuffs in his bowl and spoon and cup. Shuts the dishwasher door.

Jim’ll hire guys like Caleb.

Don’t talk about your son that way.

[The old giant king sat on his throne. His porcelain throne and groaned he had no one to heir his crown. I’ll be your man, father, said his son, the prince. Trust me. NEVER, pronounced the old giant king. And the son stood muted like a statue forever, while the old giant king’s kingdom went the way of weeds and dust.]

He’s the one with a record, Hudson says. Deborah squeezes the tea cup, afraid she might break it, but not really giving a damn if she does.

Charges were dropped, Deborah says. Hudson breathes in what he really wants to say because he doesn’t want to come home and find all the locks changed on him.

Right. I gotta get dressed.

Hudson marches out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Deborah sets down her teacup. She jerks a loaf of wheat bread from another cabinet. She untwists the tie around the bread bag and drops a piece of bread into the toaster, slamming down the toaster handle.

At the top of the stairs, Hudson knocks on the bathroom door and says, Breakfast.

 OK, says Caleb.

Hudson disappears into his bedroom, deadbolts the door. Deborah objected to the deadbolt, then conceded. Hudson’s wallet went missing; he knew Caleb stole it, and if Caleb was going to spend any more time in the house, then Hudson was going to keep his things protected, like the cable lock on the gun case. Relatives also knew, whenever they visited, to keep their valuables hidden or on them at all times. Deborah didn’t like Hudson telling family members about Caleb’s alleged thievery, but Hudson had fielded too many phone calls and face-to-face meetings with former friends and bosses of Caleb’s, each conversation having the same genesis: Caleb took something of theirs — whether money, valuables, or women. Then there was the morning the State Police arrived with a warrant for Caleb’s arrest.

[Wrongfully accused

I am bruised

Of spirit and of heart.

Father, Father:

Why hast thou forsaken me?]

Downstairs, at the kitchen island, Caleb, wearing a hoodie and cargo shorts and white, clunky ball shoes, baptizes his oatmeal with butter; covers it with cinnamon and brown sugar; wolfs it down, finishing breakfast with black coffee and a series of low, growling belches. Hudson strides in on that note. He pauses; shakes his head; his shoulders sag, then rise. Deborah sits in the breakfast nook, at the bay window, between both men. Tea cup in her hands, toast and jelly on a plate beside her. Deborah readies herself to interject.

What’s this? Hudson asks, pointing to the butter dish, smudged with butter; the butter knife smeared with butter and lying on the counter; the cinnamon and sugar containers out and open; flecks cast over everything.

Tossed some on my oatmeal, Caleb says.

Ruin it that way, Hudson says.

I’ll clean it up, Caleb says.

I love it like that, Deborah says. Hudson grins to himself, then says, We’re leaving in five minutes.

Caleb’s stuffed face reacts with an expression signaling his frustration at being rushed out the door, with all the mess still needing cleaned. Hudson ignores Caleb’s expression. Deborah sees her son and says, Don’t worry about the mess, Caleb.

*

Hudson says nothing as he drives Caleb to the job interview. He does, however, check his watch several times. When they pull in at Jim’s garage, Hudson parks the car and unbuckles his seatbelt. Caleb stays put, leans against the passenger’s door window, and says, I got this.

Do what? Hudson says.

This interview, Caleb says, I’ll be fine. His eyes leveled at Hudson, who stares right back at Caleb, and nods.

Sure, Hudson says. Caleb opens his door, shoves it open wider with his shoulder, bounds out, shuts the door, saunters around the car, and leans down at the driver’s window. Hudson rolls down the glass.

I can get a ride home, too, Caleb says, staring down at his father. Hudson flexes his jaw muscles, rubs his chin.  Caleb, his voice pitched higher than usual, says, I know you’ve got to get to work, Dad. The Germany contract. That’s a big deal. It’s cool. I got it from here. Thanks.

Caleb’s cheeks move toward his eyes. Hudson does need to get to work. He studies Caleb’s scruffy, portly face. He glances at his watch, again. OK, Hudson says.

With the palm of his hand, Caleb pats the open car window. Hudson sees — really sees — Caleb’s hands: slender, pale fingers, capped with kempt fingernails, hands that remind Hudson of the hands of the young, effeminate Second Lieutenant pilot who went missing from base, between the hours of 01200 and 0600, during Hudson’s tour in Grenada with Operation Urgent Fury. He’d heard soldiers ragging the young G.I. for being gay and joke about the faggot not making roll call if he wasn’t careful. Hudson neither condoned or condemned his subordinates. Then the morning came when the gay man didn’t show for roll call, and didn’t show up ever again.

Hudson jabs the window button harder than he realizes. Caleb straightens up, still smiling, and slides both his hands into his short’s pockets. Hudson executes a three-point turn and pulls out of the parking lot. He watches Caleb in the rear-view mirror; sees his son as a goofy, fat kid.

That image of his son treads a rut in his brain from 9 to 5. The foolish, rotund, grinning son in every powerpoint slide that day.  At lunch, Hudson calls Jim to get the specs on the meeting with Caleb. Jim tells Hudson that Caleb never showed up for the interview.

*

At home, too, Caleb is nowhere to be found. Deborah’s first words, when Hudson walks through the door, are, How’d it go? Hudson sets his briefcase on the kitchen counter. The team was prepped and ready —

With Caleb, Deborah says.

Hudson pulls his briefcase from off the counter and walks toward the computer.

I don’t know. I let him go in by himself.

Why?

Said he could handle it.

You want him to lie.

No. Hudson lowers his briefcase beside the computer desk.

So you put him in a position to fail.

Or succeed. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?

What if Caleb shows up? 

He’ll be fine. Let’s do Chinese. Won the bid today, by the way. Got the contract.

Congratulations. I’m happy for you. Really. Deborah picks up her phone.  I’ll call Caleb. Chinese is his favorite. She selects his contact number.

Has he called you today?, Hudson says. 

I can call my son.

Deborah puts the phone to her ear. The phone rings until Caleb’s voicemail answers. Hudson watches Deborah as she waits for the voicemail message to finish. Deborah’s effervescent smile, the one she honed during her childhood pageants, the one that kept her father’s attention, the one Hudson fell for when they were only kids themselves, surfaces on Deborah’s face as she says, Hey, Caleb, sweetie. It’s your mom. Your father and I are going out for Chinese. I know how much you love it. Call me back, please. We’ll save you a spot. Or we can bring some home for you. Sweet and Sour Pork, or whatever you want. Love you, son. Hope you’re having a good day. Love you. Talk to you soon. She hangs up.

Hudson stands at the garage door. Deborah’s smile flattens as she strolls past Hudson without giving him a second look.

*

Hudson and Deborah eat their dinner at their usual table at their favorite Chinese restaurant. A crack in a wall of a place. Hudson munches through a hefty portion of Moo-Goo-Gai-Pan with white rice. His lips and the tip of his chin he wipes with a napkin to clean up the oil that comes standard with the dish. Deborah picks at her meal, Sweet & Sour Pork with fried rice. She pecks because her fingers fumble the chopsticks.

Just use a fork, Hudson says. But he knows not to demonstrate the correct way to use chopsticks. His two, year-long tours in Korea gave him plenty of time to practice. And more than enough time for Deborah to raise Caleb, alone, she often reminds Hudson.

Are we in a hurry?, Deborah says.

Deborah’s remark causes Hudson to feel his age. He was always moving, completing tasks, hitting his goals, but he still seemed out of time. The calico hair covering his head. The paunch that hangs out just below his navel. His bulging disks. His sleepless nights. Always in a hurry to stay a step ahead, of everything, of Caleb. Hudson studies Deborah’s face. Her wrinkled eyes that refuse the secrecy of make-up, regardless of how thick she applies it. The dimpled buttocks. The spreading hips. The knock-knees. Her hips Hudson doesn’t mind. Actually, he loves the hips. The knees, though, give his wife the pose of a bewildered P.O.W., like the ones in the photos in his coffee-table books of World War II. The knees match Caleb’s knees. Hudson has the thought that he doesn’t want to see Caleb any time soon.

You’re right, says Hudson, and he lays his heavy elbows on the table. His right arm lowering at the elbow joint to grab his sweet tea and lift it just high enough for his mouth to reach the straw. It’s a thoughtless action, like the driving of a tractor, disk blades in tow, across a dark-soil field during planting season. Atop his tireless, faithful machine, Hudson scans the two bedroom house that was his home when he and his fat, lazy younger brother were a sharecropper’s foster kids. He drives the tractor over the slanting barn, the outhouse, the scanty cows, the mangy, stray dog, and the carcass of his deceased brother, who was found dead in his home in some state far away from where he and Hudson grew up. Everything is buried. Only the house resurrected anew. He sees himself and Deborah living in the town of their births. With Deborah singing and playing piano and decorating for the small, quaint church. They are no longer the oldest members of the congregation. They no longer see the deployed soldier’s wife who visits their current church, she and Caleb joking with each other more than is appropriate for a single man and a married woman.

Deborah flicks a bite of pork and rice into her mouth. Haha!, she says, the food still visible in her open mouth. Hudson chuckles at his happy wife who grins and chews her food. She grins during the car ride home; she grins as she walks from the garage into the kitchen. Hudson follows behind Deborah and admires her wide hips as he carries a take-out box of Sweet & Sour Pork. He cradles the styrofoam box like an egg. He wants to set it down and grab ahold of Deborah’s waist and pull her to himself.

Hud.

Yes.

Do you hear that?

He does: rustling upstairs. Two people, doing God and Hudson and Deborah know what. Hudson slams the styrofoam box down, cracking it open, spilling the red sauce on the island. He strides to the stairwell.

Hudson. Please, Deborah tries to whisper as she hurries to the foot of the stairs and turns her gaze upward and watches Hudson bound the steps, taking them two at a time. She braces herself between stairwell banisters. Arms stretched out as if she intends to hold back a deluge or die trying. At the top of the stairs Hudson stops. The blood in his ears churns.

Come back, Hudson, Deborah whispers, What is it?

Moaning. Giggles. The sound of flesh slapping flesh. Hudson steps from the stairwell and faces the guest room door. He bows his chest and flexes his lat muscles. He grabs the doorknob, turns it, and opens. From his diaphragm, Hudson’s voice launches like a howitzer cannon. Get out! Get out of my house!

And Caleb, naked, pulls himself out of the soldier’s wife who bends over the foot of the bed; her haunches plop down when Caleb releases her waist and stumbles and falls on his bulbous ass and scrambles to jerk a pair of boxer briefs over himself, at the same time protecting himself from the fists he expects.

Hudson’s eyes jet back and forth between Caleb and the mistress.  No punches are thrown. Just Hudson’s swallowed rage wanting to roar.

Caleb laughs, little spurts of air escaping his clenched jaws, and the woman spits laughter too as she crawls onto the bed and lies on her back and jostles her bare body for any eyes to see. Hudson tosses a blanket from the bed over the woman’s chest and pelvis, which sets her laughing and gyrating beneath the cover. Snatching the blanket, though, reveals a prescription bottle. Hudson picks it up and hurls it at the wall next to Caleb, shattering the plastic container, scattering its pills across the carpet. Hudson’s hands tremble as he surveys the floor dappled with white dots while Caleb jerks his cargo shorts up his legs. Hudson grabs Caleb’s hoodie off the floor and throws it at his son. You dog! You, filthy. You–

Hudson! Deborah says, as she stands framed in the doorway. Caleb!  

Don’t. Deborah, Hudson says, but he sees Deborah, her hands pressed against her cheeks, and he sets his hands on his hips and drops his head.

Caleb pulls the hoodie over his tire-ringed belly laced with purple vertical stretches in the pattern of a briar patch on his skin. The mistress sits up and wraps the blanket around her body as if she were Eve hearing God’s voice in the garden. 

Mrs. Burrows, the mistress says.

Mom, it’s OK —  

How did you get here? Deborah says to the mistress.

Caleb picked me up.

She needed some help, Caleb says, now clothed, though disheveled.

Deborah stares at the other woman in her home and says, You can’t help everyone, Caleb. To which Caleb pockets his hands and nods his head.

Hudson knows he’s lost this one, again. He turns to face the soldier’s wife and says, Let’s go. She nods her head as she cries and shakes and scoots past Caleb and Deborah. Hudson, shielding the young lady from his wife and son, stares straight at Caleb. I want you out of my house.

Hudson, Deborah says, and moves to Caleb’s side.

Deb– But Hudson’s too late. Caleb wraps an arm around his mother. And, oh, the tangled web Caleb will weave for Deborah: a tapestry, vivid and convoluted, serpentine and subtle, that all his mom can do is listen, mouth open, one hand on her sternum, one hand rubbing Caleb’s back, and nod and agree with the word-game that pours from Caleb’s lips and into a cup that only his mother can drink.

[He: Mother, mother, mom. She: I hear you, son. He: You gave me life, yet you’ve given me so much more. I haven’t the words to describe how you’ve scribed on my heart. She: What’s a mother to do? He: Of course. Of course. We have each other of course.]

Hudson turns his back on his wife and son and marches down the stairs, to return Caleb’s mistress to her home.

*

Hudson keeps his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. The soldier’s wife, with arms crossed, sits slumped in the passenger’s seat and stares out the window.

How much longer on your husband’s tour?

He doesn’t care about me.

When’s the last time you spoke to him?

The mistress uncrosses her arms, sits up. Six months. He’s got six months left of a twelve month tour. And I haven’t heard from him yet.

That’s part of the life.

Who’s to say he’s not with another woman? The mistress turns her face to look dead on at Hudson. I won’t know the man when he steps off the plane. That part of the life too?

But you know Caleb.

The mistress recrosses her arms and leans back in the seat and says, Caleb is nice.

To get what he wants he can be the nicest person on earth.

He said you don’t like him.

Hudson glances at the woman, then puts his attention back on the road before him. I love my son.

That doesn’t mean you like him.

Hudson grips the steering wheel. He imagines jerking the car to the side of the road and kicking out this woman, into the dark, onto the dingy blacktop of Bragg Boulevard, its strip clubs and used car lots. He knew the wives and girlfriends of soldiers had no easy road to travel. Too many long days and nights spent alone, while the men did that which was admirable: fight for their country. But Hudson was all too familiar, also, with the scores of soldiers jerking off and addicted to porn, sleeping with hookers, or marrying new, younger brides from other lands. He tabled that issue and kept the conversation about Caleb.

There’s no commandment to like anyone, Hudson says.

But there’s a commandment to not commit adultery.

And to honor your parents.

*

At the woman’s house, Hudson lets the young bride walk herself to the front door. Once she enters and shuts herself inside the place, Hudson drives away. 

He takes the long route home before he pulls into the garage and sets foot in his kitchen. All the house lights are off, except for a lamp beside the loveseat where Deborah sleeps, still dressed in what she wore to dinner. Her eyes closed; her head tilted back; her mouth open; she snores, lightly. A song plays in the air.

Hudson walks to Deborah, and the words of the song become clearer; they are the lyrics from a gospel tune, “When God Ran,” playing on repeat. Hudson wonders why any music, and that song especially, is going on and on. Deborah told Hudson, once during a service at their church, that she didn’t care for that song; the drums were too heavy; the music too contemporary.

As Hudson crosses into the living room, he sees Caleb stretched out on the sofa; his forearm over his eyes; his effeminate hand hanging. Hudson touches Deborah’s shoulder. She snorts and awakes and pushes herself off the loveseat, and Hudson holds her elbow to help her up, but she pulls away. Deborah takes a few steps, stops beside Caleb, watches her son sleep, nests her arms around her waist, and says, What did you think was going to happen, Hudson? Actually, I don’t care. I don’t care. I do not care. Good night. 

Deborah turns and walks away, up the stairs. She doesn’t bother with changing her clothes. Instead, she lays herself down and pulls the covers up to her chin and dreams of a day when her men won’t fight each other, and not because one or both of them are dead.

With Deborah out of the room, Hudson stands over Caleb. He watches his son. It strikes him that Caleb has become immovable, like a stone embedded too deep in dirt for one man to remove. Hudson lowers his head to his chest.

*

In the garage, in the cool of the mid-March night, Hudson raises his head from off his chest to see the menu screen of his stationary bike and braces himself for his second round of five miles. He wishes the bike were a tractor, and he was setting off across the malleable soil, etching row after flawless row in the field adjacent the farmhouse where Deborah sways on the front porch swing and smiles like a pageant queen. He tries to see Caleb there, clothed and in his right mind, a proper family in tow. Hudson believes in the miracles of the Bible, but the miracle it would require to salvage his son is beyond Hudson’s scope and grasp of faith. He pedals himself into a righteous, dripping sweat, then slows, stops, and rises from the bike. He makes no attempt to wipe himself dry as he plods into the house.

In his darkened bedroom he jams his foot against the bedpost. He tumbles to the floor. Deborah lurches up in bed.

It’s me. Go back to sleep, Deb. It’s just me.

            Hudson, what are you doing?

Hudson holds his stinging foot, certain he broke a toe. He doesn’t answer Deborah.

What are you doing, Hudson? 

He remains on the floor but lays his head back against the bed and says, I don’t know.

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