24. Hudson
Hudson staredat the email open on his laptop, and blinked repeatedly, but it wouldn’t disappear.
He’d applied for the residency on a whim nearly a year ago, and, quite frankly, had entirely forgotten he had. Mostly because the probability of him even interviewing for something like this was so small his chances were basically zero.
But, if the email in his inbox was to be believed, it wasn’t entirely zero. They were requesting an interview with him, as he was in the running for one of the two final openings.
With shaking hands, he responded to the email, and then clicked through to their calendar scheduler to choose a time for the meeting.
The only available time they had was directly in the middle of the day tomorrow. Which was a relief. Not that he would care about doing an interview when Alana was home. Hell, he’d had therapy sessions with her in the other room. For a New York apartment, the walls were surprisingly thick, and the noise-canceling headphones Alana used did actually cancel out all noise.
And sure, it was always weird to talk about his feelings about Alana when she was sometimes in the other room, because there was a part of him that was convinced (even though he knew it was an impossibility), that she could hear everything, that she had heard everything, that she was just sitting on this goldmine of his feelings about pining over her, waiting for the perfect time to deploy them and ruin his life.
It wasn’t like he was going to tell her about the interview, or the possibility of the residency.
Was that something to unpack? The part that he was still, after all this time, scared to tell the people whose opinions he valued and whose perception of him mattered maybe more than he wanted to acknowledge, about things that he might fail at?
Probably, but that didn’t mean he was going to.
He hadn’t told anyone when he originally applied to the residency, and he was going to keep it that way, unless he actually got in.
He tipped back in his chair, and stared sightlessly at his current work, scattered over the desk. What did one wear to an interview like this? What should he prepare? What should he do?
Why, after so many years of him trying and failing and trying and failing to have his career get off the ground and stabilize, did everything have to happen all at once?
There were three people at the interview the next day, and it seemed like each one of them had taken on a specific role for the process. The good cop, the bad cop, and the one who didn’t want to be there at all.
“So,” Marilyn, a pixie-like older woman with a shock of bright blue hair, said cheerfully. “Tell us a little bit about yourself, Hudson.”
Fuck. This was his least favorite question.
After all this time, Hudson was still terrible at open-ended questions, because he overthought all of them, no matter how many people told him that there were no alternative agendas, mostly because he didn’t actually believe those people.
”I was born and raised on Long Island, and I moved to Manhattan for college, and haven’t left. Well, I’ve left, to visit family and travel and whatever, but I’ve lived here since. I work full time as an artist now, focusing mostly on mixed-media pieces, and support myself with commissions, both from private individuals and for corporations who are looking for inoffensive but big pieces that they can use to decorate the lobbies of their buildings, as well as a community on Patreon.”
“That’s great,” Richard said. Richard looked like half the men who worked with Alana, and not in a good way. He also did not appear to be telling the truth about thinking that Hudson’s about me was great. “Tell us more about your personal life, and how it relates to the art you make.”
Hudson could hear Ben wondering if those were questions that were legally able to be asked in a situation like this, since it wasn’t for a job interview.
“Well, I was in and out of the hospital a lot as a child, due to heart problems,” Hudson said, downplaying the severity of parts of his childhood. But they were the earliest parts, and so he couldn’t really remember them all that clearly.
Did other kids have their earliest memories all take place in a hospital? No. And while he wasn’t ashamed of that, it was the reality of his medical condition, it wasn’t something he liked to talk about too often.
This was the part of art that Hudson hated. The silent demand of ‘tell us where all your soft spots are, so we can determine if they’re broken and bruised enough for us to be able to use as a selling point to others’. Sure, he understood the logic, and he wasn’t a special snowflake for having to sell himself by baring all of his most vulnerable parts to the public, but it didn’t make him like it any more.
“I see,” Richard said.
“The best ways to have a three year old learn how to express their feelings when they don’t currently have the vocabulary to do so is with play therapy and art therapy. And so I’ve been using art to work through my feelings, through any big questions I have, since I was a kid. I guess I never really stopped. Just changed my methodology, and became more intentional.”
“How do you think that influences the work you do now?” Xenia asked.
“At the end of the day, we’re all just asking ourselves the same big questions,” Hudson said baldly. “We’re all worried about death and losing power and feeling unsafe. The specifics of those worries are going to change from person to person, and sometimes they’re more conscious worries, and sometimes more subconscious. Some of the what-ifs I ask myself are different than they would have been if I was born with a healthy heart.”
“Which ones are the same?” Marilyn asked.
”What would have happened if my parents hadn’t met? How do you balance wanting to leave some sort of legacy when one day the sun is going to explode and the idea of all of humanity might be forgotten? Is it enough to have lived life well, even if nobody remembers you when you’re gone? Is that even possible? What if my dad had gotten to work on time on September 11th? What if I didn’t go to art school? Why does every generation of humanity feel the urge to shit talk the next one, and is it because there’s a clawing, desperate need to prove that your existence wasn’t for nothing? What if I grew up in a different neighborhood? How did people perceive time before the Industrial Revolution? What if my grandparents hadn’t decided to immigrate when they did? When will I think I’m enough?” He shrugged. “Most of them, honestly.”
“That’s quite the range of questions,” Marilyn replied.
Hudson laughed. “That’s nothing. Those are just the first ones that popped into my head.”
“And what do you think inspires you now? Besides the urge to answer the questions you have?” Xenia asked.
“My wife?” Hudson blurted.
Shit.
Fuck.
Motherfucker.
Goddamn, if the ground could open him up and swallow him immediately, that would be great.
But it did not. The conversation kept on going like Hudson hadn’t just opened his big stupid mouth and told the truth to people who did not need to know it.
“Wife?” Xenia asked. “There is no mention of a wife on the application paperwork.”
Of course not. When Hudson had applied, Alana was just a person in his extended friend group who he pined over.
“We got married fairly recently,” he said.
“There was no mention of a fiancee then, either.”
Hudson laughed, entirely and completely uncomfortable. “Well, I didn’t really have a fiancee for very long. The engagement to wedding timeline was a few weeks. We eloped.”
Marilyn’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Barry and I eloped, too. Did your parents not approve?”
Shit. Hudson didn’t have time now to unpack how he felt about using his relationship with Alana as a selling point for these people, but he did know that if he didn’t, she would get upset at him for not using it as an opportunity.
So he compartmentalized his conflicted feelings, and told them the same story that Alana had told Patrick, though with probably a little bit more truth than she had. “We’d been friends for a long time. We’re in the same larger friend group, but there was always something different about the relationship the two of us had. Took us a while to realize it was because neither of us thought of the other one as just a friend. Once we figured that one out, things moved pretty quickly.”
“And how are things now?” Xenia asked. “Sometimes those sorts of relationships don’t work out well in the long run.”
Conflicted and a little heart sore, Hudson didn’t say, because Xenia was kind of right, but not for the reasons she thought.
“Things are really good,” Hudson said. “It’s been surprisingly easy to mesh our lives together. Almost like we’d been unconsciously doing it the whole time.”
That part, at least, was partially true.
“Well, that’s good to hear.” Richard was lying. He did not care at all about Hudson’s personal life. “I’d like to talk more about these pieces you did for the Peterson Group. Would this be a direction you’d like to continue with, artistically?”
Hudson heaved an internal sigh of relief. Back to bullshitting about corporate art pieces. He could do that.
‘Hudson, how did the interview go??’ His mom texted in the family chat later that evening.
‘Wait, what interview?’ demanded Jessie. ‘Ugh, I hate being out of state.’
‘For the fancy residency in Hot Sauce????’ Leah texted. ‘OMGGG. HOW WAS.’
‘Still called Tabasco,’ Hudson replied. ‘And I think well? The ladies had a lot of personal life questions, but I think it was okay? I’m going to find out in a few days.’
‘Tabasco sponsors an artist’s residency?’ Nathan asked. ‘Damn, I’m in the wrong field.’
‘No, there’s a town in the Catskills called Tabasco,’ Hudson answered. ‘And anyway, your whole job and research and stuff is being funded by the federal government, which means that’s a lot more job security than this potential six week residency.’
‘It is!! Thank you, military overlords! I am grateful, as always, for your continued support!’ Nathan responded, then sent seven American flag emojis. ‘But cool. Keep us updated.’
‘Will do.’
‘Because we’ll bother you if you don’t?’ Leah asked.
‘I mean, I wasn’t going to say it, but you did.’
‘That’s only because I type faster than you do.’
‘I love when my children interact with peace and harmony,’ his mom texted. ‘Proud of all of you. And thanks, DoD, for employing my baby.’
‘Can I say that I don’t think Nathan’s personal NSA guy is reading the texts in this chat?’ Jessie said. ‘Or do we think I’ll mysteriously vanish if I do?’
‘Best not to, just in case,’ his dad responded. ‘And good job, Hudson. All those years of hard work are paying off.’
‘Nobody said they’re proud of meeeee,’ Leah joked.
‘I am deeply proud of all four of my beautiful and talented children,’ his mom texted. ‘But mostly Nathan.’
‘Sometimes I think mom thinks the bluebirds that hang out in her backyard are fake birds sent to spy on her by Nathan’s bosses,’ Jessie said.
‘No, only the seagulls. Snitches, each and every one of them.’
“Everything okay?” Alana asked the next day.
“Everything’s fine,” Hudson lied. “Why?”
“I don’t know, you seem a little more fidgety with your art stuff than usual,” she said. “You haven’t been like this since right before the last time you went to a cabin.”
“Just trying to figure out some shit,” he said. “And I’m overthinking it.”
“I’m not saying to try psychedelics,” Alana said, “but I know plenty of people who would.”
“Nah,” Hudson said. “I know people who’ve microdosed and stuff. But I already have a small pharmacy’s amount of medication that I take. Don’t want to throw off the carefully calibrated process just because my creativity decided it was time for a break.”
“Then, maybe…take a break?”
“The Patreon art doesn’t make itself.”
Alana pursed her lips. “Wait. Actually. Is this a whining situation, or do you want advice?”
Hudson smiled. “Mostly whining. Thanks for asking.” He shrugged. “I know what I have to do, I just…”
“Don’t feel like it?” Alana supplied.
“Something like that.”
He felt bad, after having the conversation. Like he’d done something wrong by not telling her the real reason about why he was so off balance.
It was one thing for him to lie to her about his feelings, because those would make things worse. But there was no reason, other than weird ego things, that he couldn’t just tell her about the residency application, and how part of him felt like he couldn’t make any more art until they gave him a final answer about whether or not he’d been accepted. How he was stuck buffering, even though he wanted to try to work on Patreon things, to try to get ahead, especially if he was actually going to get the residency, because if…when he got it, he wanted to make sure he had nothing hovering that would distract him from creating something new.
Well, minus his wife. She would always distract him.
The same wife he should just grow up and tell about the residency. Nothing she had ever done indicated that she would think less of him if he didn’t end up getting it. If anything, she’d threaten to write a polite and angry email to the board members, urging them to reconsider their terrible choices.
And yet. Here he was. Waffling. Lying.
Part of him wished she would have pulled out the eyeliner of truth. But then again, if she did, he had no idea what she would actually end up asking him. And even though there was the promise of not getting upset, it didn’t mean people kept that promise.
Four endless days later, Hudson received an email from board. And so, of course, he refused to open it.
‘Should I be asking you if there are any residency updates?’ his dad texted him later that day. ‘I don’t want to pressure you, but I also want to remind you that we will not think poorly of you if you didn’t get it, only poorly of the people who chose wrong.’
Hudson called his dad.
“Hi, kid. Everything okay?”
He checked the time. Shit, it was late. “Sorry, I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I guess. I was working on a piece, and lost track of time.”
“What’s up?” his dad asked.
“I got an email from them, and I’m scared to open it.”
“Because what if they say no?”
“...Yeah.” Hudson sighed. “Don’t like how quickly you knew that would be what I would say.”
“You didn’t inherit that shit from your mom, bud. That was all me. My bad.”
Hudson laughed.
“Want to open it now?”
“You should be sleeping, Dad. Don’t you have to wake up in like, three hours?”
“I actually was already up. It’s a perk with getting older. Sometimes your body likes to remind you that it is actually in charge, and to do that, it’ll wake you up at times it shouldn’t. Kind of like a dog peeing somewhere to mark its territory.”
“That’s one of the weirder metaphors you’ve used, Dad.”
“They can’t all be winners.” There was a rustle. “I put my glasses on so I can hear better. If you want to open the email, I’m ready. If you want to forward it to me so I can check for you, I can do that, too.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Working the night shift this week,” he replied. “She said it was because she hasn’t gotten good use out of the blackout curtains recently. I think it’s because she missed working with Fatima.”
“That checks out.” Fatima was his mom’s work bestie, who had switched to working nights when her kids’ after school program had closed down. “Okay. I’m opening the email.”
He took a deep breath in, blew it out slowly. Clicked on the email.
Congratulations, it began.
“I got it,” he whispered.
“Huh?”
“I got it, Dad,” he said, a little louder.
His dad whooped. “That’s my boy!”
Hudson read the rest of the email quickly. The stipend had expanded since he had applied, which meant not only was there enough money for him to cover rent for the time he wasn’t going to be home, but there was going to be enough left over for the beginnings of a small little nest egg.
Enough money that even if he lost his insurance, he could pay for a few months of medication.
“Dad, I think I have to talk to my accountant,” Hudson said, semi-jokingly. His dad was his accountant.
“Why?”
“It’s a lot more money than I thought it was.”
His dad laughed. “What a good problem for you to have. Send me the information, I’ll see how it has to be filed. Put aside at least thirty percent into the tax account just in case.”
“Will do.”
“Go call your mom. I know she’s awake, she texted me a few minutes ago on her break. She’s going to be so thrilled to hear about this.”
Hudson checked the time. Night shift break was almost over. “Okay, I’ll go call her quick.”
“Let me know the next time you’re going to be here,” his dad said. “That protein powder that you like was on sale at Costco, so I bought you some. Or let me know if you have time to come down to the office one day, and I can bring it with you.”
His dad didn’t always use the words ‘I love you’, but he said them in every way that counted.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Proud of you, kid. Go call your mom.”