The Hummingbirds

by Ross McMeekin

  Hudson gestured toward the expanse of lawn and they strolled. “Are you in the business?”

  “No, sir.” Ezra was often asked some version of that. And when people wouldn’t ask, they’d stare. As he walked down the sidewalk. As he fingered shirts at thrift stores. While on the bus. At the park. The grocery store. The gym. The moment he left the rental property, the question buzzed. Bryce had tried to get him involved in projects, even modeling gigs—you’ve got that brooding, Byronic thing going—but Ezra hadn’t ever wanted to be in front of a camera, only behind one.

  “That’s smart,” Hudson said. “It’s a terrible racket.”

  Ezra wondered if he meant it. There were rumors that Hudson might be inching his way into politics. He didn’t seem bothered by it at the moment—hands loose in the pockets of his shorts, strolling as if he hadn’t a care.

  “I see you taking pictures out here some evenings,” Hudson said.

  A red-and-green hummingbird zipped by, as if on cue. Ezra didn’t reply at first, because he couldn’t guess what Hudson was getting at, and there wasn’t really any question for him to answer. Was he worried Ezra was paparazzi? “I’m only a nature photographer.”

  “Not human.”

  Ezra hazarded a quick laugh. “Right.” He kind of wished he hadn’t lied, but felt the need to say something definite.

  Hudson frowned, eyebrows mossy. He clasped his hands behind his back, accentuating his paunch, and peered at him from the side. “May I see some of your photos?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Should I bring them out?”

  Hudson glanced back up to the mansion. “Would you mind if we went to the pool house instead? It’s unbearably hot.”

  A car alarm went off in the distance, followed by the quack of it switching off.

  “Okay,” Ezra said.

  They started down the lawn. Hudson wanted to see his pictures? In the pool house? Ezra began to feel a distance from his body, which felt almost like indifference, though he knew from experience that it was stress to such a degree that his body couldn’t handle it. Probably later, when he was least expecting it, the panic would arrive and he’d feel a compressed version of everything he hadn’t felt at the time.

  Hudson cleared his throat and shot a wad of spit across the lawn.

  A new thought occurred to Ezra—an unlikely one, but still plausible: the photos might make an impression. Perhaps Hudson was a photography aficionado. Who knew? Maybe he’d planned to cover the walls of the mansion with nature photos. Or perhaps he was a patron. He’d heard rumors of closet altruists who enjoyed having clusters of artists they supported, people kept vaguely in their employment whose projects they could talk about with other wealthy friends over hundred-dollar bottles of wine and incredible cheese.

  Ezra’d be happy to be a topic of conversation. Maybe he’d get a chance to pitch his dream of photographing birds of paradise in the rainforests of the South Pacific. He figured it’d be nothing for Hudson to secure a gallery opening downtown, much less a private chat with magazine editors.

  They arrived. Ezra opened the door and realized that he hadn’t cleaned, plus he’d left an adult magazine on the couch. He nabbed it. “I apologize—”

  Hudson waved away the concern and took the magazine from his hands. “We’re men.” He thumbed through the magazine, spread the centerfold, and shook his head. “Weak issue. The girls almost look CG. Over the last few months, it seems they’re trying to convince us of a shortage of beauty in the world.”

  Ezra contrived a laugh. “How about a drink?”

  Hudson flipped through a few more pages. “A beer if you’ve got it.”

  Ezra grabbed an IPA from the fridge and key-chained the top. They were silent again, and it occurred to Ezra how much people would pay for just five minutes to pitch to this guy. What the hell did he want?

  Hudson set down the magazine, took a swig of beer, and paused in front of one of the photos on the wall, a close-up of a male Costa’s hummingbird, shiny purple gorget reaching down its chest. It had received third place in a contest put on by one of the second-tier nature magazines. “Amazing how much effort they put into keeping still.”

  “I took that photo by the bed of foxglove and hyssop in the northwest corner,” Ezra said. Over the last few years he’d slowly populated the garden with dozens of species of flora—aloe, beardtongue, bottlebrush, trumpetbush—to attract hummingbirds so he could photograph them. Considering the water shortage, the grounds were still immaculate. He couldn’t stand them to be otherwise.

  “Here?” asked Hudson, pointing at the floor.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hudson toasted Ezra with the beer.

  “I’ll bring out a few more pics.” He left Hudson with the photographs on the wall. From a drawer in the living room desk he slid a manila envelope containing his best shots, a portfolio he’d been hoping to someday release as a book. He tried to steady his hands while giving it over.

  Hudson sat down on the couch and crossed one leg over his knee and set his beer on the side table. He unfolded a pair of glasses from his breast pocket, leaned back, and began looking through the photos, occasionally licking his finger and thumb in order to separate the prints. He said nothing, only grunted occasionally, mouth slightly open.

  This was hell, witnessing someone examining your art. Ezra excused himself, claiming he needed to use the john, and instead walked down the hallway to his bedroom. He sat down at his desk and flipped open his laptop. He scrolled through all the hummingbird photos Hudson was at that very moment judging, and felt his shoulders tighten as each bright image filled the screen. All the potential flaws in the photographs glared back, and for a moment he wished he’d touched them up. But weren’t the imperfections what made them more realistic? Didn’t he prefer it that way?

  He couldn’t look at these. He closed the laptop and felt his breath shorten. He pressed his fingers into his neck and felt his pulse. Stay cool. Just relax. He glanced at a picture on the desk of his twelve-year-old self and his mother. Her arms were around his shoulders, smile rigged, as was his.

  The shot was taken just a few months before his mother’s prophesied date of the Apocalypse. By that point in time, a lot of regulars in their community had already dropped out, uncomfortable with the attention beginning to buzz. They were replaced by brand-new believers, many of whom seemed troubled, looking for something, maybe help, maybe a way out, maybe a way to be right. Maybe a more profound way of saying fuck you to the world. These new bodies slowly collected until a swarm flew around Ezra and his mother at an ever-increasing speed.

  Though he didn’t understand it at the time, Ezra recognized now that beneath the forced smile in the photograph, his mother must have felt it all. Every bit of tension, discord, and desperation. She was the Prophetess, the cipher whose words had caused it. Her sensitivity was being tested to its limits. At home, there’d been more and more evenings where she locked his bedroom door from the outside so she could entertain late-night visitors, more subsequent mornings that he had to cover for her at school. As she advised, he would tell them she was in prayer, which—granted—she most likely was: when he’d leave for school in the morning after one of her bad nights, she’d often be on her knees by the couch, eyes closed but surely bloodshot, hands clasped, muttering.

  There was one evening during that time when Ezra was awakened from a light sleep by his mother’s drunk, thick-tongued voice calling out. He jumped from his bed and opened the door—surprised it wasn’t locked—and ran from his room. He never outright worried that something terrible might happen during one of her fits, but neither did he sleep well.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, in her bathrobe, the knobs of her knees jutting out, both scaled and bruised a purplish red from so many years spent in prayer. A late-night talk show gleamed in the background. She stared blankly at the screen, her eyeliner streaked and blotched, though she wasn’t crying anymore. Suddenly her face contorted and she again hollered his name.
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br />   He grasped her shoulder. “Mom.”

  She looked up, startled.

  He pulled back his hand. “It’s me. Ezra. Are you okay?”

  Her eyes bore into his. There was recognition in them, but also distance. “There’s something you need to know.”

  “Mom, it’s really late.” He held out a hand. “Let me help you to bed.”

  She took it and pulled him down so they were sitting side by side in front of the television. “It was a Saturday,” she said. “Fourteen years ago.” She continued the story as if in a trance: she was at church late, alone, preparing nativity cutouts for the Sunday school class the next morning, part of her job as the youth minister. She was single, but had many suitors; in fact, one earnest parishioner had asked her to marry him just the week before. But she’d declined. She’d decided not just to save herself for marriage, but forever. She would be married to the will of the Lord. This wasn’t something she’d told anyone, because she was still afraid of what people would think, and she had yet to come to terms with her gift of foresight. There in her tidy office she finished the last of the paper lambs before gathering her purse and flipping off the lights.

  She closed the door to the church, the snow light and twinkling and unprovoked by wind. The parking lot was empty, save her sedan and a white pickup truck parked a few spaces away. The church itself was tucked back from the main road, crowning the middle of a large field guarded by tall hickories. The sun had long since set, but the coating of snow reflected the smallest bit of porch light. Ezra’s mother paused at the steps and that’s when she saw the pickup truck.

  “I thought maybe someone needed a safe place to spend the night. Maybe they’d been evicted from their home,” she told Ezra, and laughed, scratching her elbow.

  She continued, saying that she’d liked to think that her church would be such a place where one would seek refuge. So she held the chilly rails and made her way down the icy steps. The frosty, sucking sound of the truck door opening made her stop for a moment. Someone with broad shoulders slid out of the cab. She could see the orange dot of a cigarette swell and then taper, but she could see little else. The shadow began walking toward her, arms slumped inward as if its hands were in the front pockets of its pants.

  “Hello,” she called out.

  The shadow didn’t answer. It kept walking toward her, and once again the little bloom on the end of the cigarette glowed and vanished, leaving a trail of smoke behind.

  “Stop,” Ezra said to his mother.

  She kept talking.

  “Please, stop.” Ezra turned and tried to run away but she grabbed him and held him there and made him listen. “No. Please.”

  But she kept going. What he would have given to break into her memory and tear that man from his mother and pummel him until he could no longer lift his arms.

  Then, not realizing what he’d done until he’d already done it, Ezra broke away and slapped her. He couldn’t forget the awful sound, there in the room, just the two of them, so terrible and intimate.

  She blinked. “You need to hear this, Ezra. What you just did is proof. The sins of the father are visited on the son for generations. You need to feel this so that it won’t be true for you.”

  He couldn’t look at her. He felt marked by what he’d done, by what his father had done. It was already festering inside him.

  “Look at me,” she said.

  He wouldn’t.

  “Look at me, Ezra.”

  He looked up at her, crying and wanting to die.

  “I have you because of this.”

  “He—”

  “Was a terribly broken man. But look at what came from it. Look.” He glanced up. She was pointing at him.

  “I—” he started, but couldn’t put words to what he felt.

  “You are my son. My son.” She reached out and grabbed both of his hands. “The Lord turns everything to His will.”

  Hudson grunted loudly from the living room and Ezra woke from the memory. His toes felt bright with static. He forked his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and flipped the picture facedown.

  “Ezra?”

  He hurried into the living room. Hudson’s arm was stretched out along the back of the couch. The television was on, photos back in the envelope. Hudson muted the sound and looked at Ezra. “You look pale.”

  “It’s nothing,” Ezra said. He could feel sweat beading on his brow. “A yellow jacket got in the house.” He rubbed his elbow as if stung.

  Hudson studied him. “Sorry to hear it.” He tapped the envelope of photos lying on the couch. “I like your photos.”

  Ezra tried to gather some poise. “Glad to hear it.”

  “I fear my wife is sleeping with other men.”

  Ezra stopped.

  “For all I know she’s slept with you. You’re an attractive guy.” He uncrossed his legs and stared. “Remarkably so.”

  “No,” he said. “No, sir, nothing . . .”

  “I’m kidding. You would have been a lot more nervous if she had. I can tell when people are trying to hide something. No, you’re just nervous because you’re wondering what on earth I want. And I saw your magazine—Sybil was in last February’s issue.”

  Her image, laid out on cream satin sheets, flashed in Ezra’s mind. He opened his mouth to speak, but what could he say? All Hudson needed to do was ask to see his camera, turn it on, and scroll through the pictures he’d taken the night before.

  “—and you’re trying to shift the blame to some bee.”

  “Mr. Hudson—”

  “Now don’t worry. Half of the people in America have seen her naked. I don’t care about that. I just don’t want them fucking her.” He laughed and gestured for Ezra to take a seat.

  Ezra complied. His throat felt parched. He couldn’t find a place to rest his hands.

  Hudson leaned forward. His reading glasses edged to the tip of his nose. “You’re already taking bird pictures in the yard, so this should be simple. What I want is for you to take pictures of any cars that drive up—license plates would be ideal—and of any men you see hanging around, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “I—”

  “You’ll never have to sneak around inside the house or do anything illegal. Just be around. Hell, you already are. For all I know you have pictures already. Do you? No, don’t answer that. Unless they’re with other men.”

  Hudson appraised him. Ezra’d never seen that look in a person before, both cold and savage.

  But then, as if it were nothing, Hudson’s glare vanished, and his warmth returned. He patted his thighs and got up. “No matter. What you need to know is that, from here on out, I will match whatever you get paid now for the garden, even if you don’t find anything.”

  “Mr. Hudson, I don’t know.”

  “I’m returning to Vancouver for a few weeks. I just want you to think about it. No, that’s not true. I want you to do it. You won’t be out of a job or anything if you decide against it. I don’t like to manipulate the people who work for me. This is just an opportunity to make a little extra on the side. When you think about it, think about the money. Don’t think about my wife or our relationship. That isn’t your concern.”

  His concern? That was the least of them.

  Hudson chugged the last bit of beer and handed over the empty bottle. “Thanks for the drink,” he said, walking toward the door. “When I get back, I will be prepared to write you a check.” He stopped beneath the awning and turned. “Hey.”

  “Yeah?” Ezra stuffed his hands in his pockets before he could realize how much the gesture revealed.

  “I know that I can be a little, well, intense. People around me are used to me being brash. They learn not to take it personally. But we’ve never met, so there’s no way you’d know that.”

  Ezra nodded.

  “You’ve got to understand, Ezra, that she’s my wife. I love her.”

  “Of course.”

  “And for that reason, also, you must realize th
at no one can know about this.” Hudson slapped Ezra’s shoulder and gripped it. “Good man.” He turned and left.

  Ezra crept to the window and watched as Hudson hiked up the lawn. As much as the setup and content of the conversation bothered him, the last bit pleased him in a fundamental way he didn’t like, nor understand. Was it that he felt included? Flattered? Was it being confided in by a great man, or as simple as being in his presence?

  Or was it that Hudson’s tenor and confidence reminded him of his mother? Dishing out advice to congregants, slamming down a take-home point on the Sunday morning pulpit, then afterward standing by the front steps glad-handing in that warm, inviting way ministers often have. Ezra knew that—Hudson being a tenant—his attention had already, in a way, been bought. While Hudson wasn’t selling something like discipline or virtue, he did want Ezra’s trust. And it didn’t take a pastor’s kid to know how thin the line was between trust and obedience.

  Ezra watched until Hudson disappeared into the mansion. He felt ashamed that being told what to do comforted him. Who, deep down, didn’t want a patriarch or matriarch? Someone with power to look over your interests, guide you toward your next move? He wasn’t proud of it, but it was one of the things he missed most about his mother: to have so many decisions already made, so many questions already answered, so many thoughts already, well, thought. People spoke of deference as though it wasn’t among the greatest temptations a person could face.

  He sat down on the couch and picked up his portfolio and flipped through the photographs. They were beautiful, damn it. He wished he could claim that mattered more.

  FOUR

  That night, in the back booth of a diner, surrounded by signed black-and-white photographs of movie stars and ballplayers and various other items of paraphernalia meant to make a person nostalgic for a time they never lived, Ezra sat with his two best friends, Bryce and Maria, who’d been together for just over a year. They’d parlayed their weekly get-together into a birthday party for Ezra. The overhead speakers warbled Elvis and everywhere wafted the smell of butter and sugared rolls and all the foods Ezra never allowed himself to eat.