FICTION
from The Season of Gene, a novel
/ Dallas Hudgens
09.25.07
The Season of Gene
by Dallas Hudgens
224 pages. Scribner. $24
ISBN-10: 1416541489
Chapter 20
Sometimes, to my disadvantage, Theresa might let a book influence her thinking on particular matters. For example, she decided that I had mistaken laziness for contentment after reading The Purpose Driven Life. She also believed that thirty-six months was the limit of most relationships. Seeing how she and I were pushing the envelope at thirty-two months, I wasn’t all that surprised when she told me she was moving to Florida to manage a bar for an old boyfriend. Apparently, they had only dated for a year.
Theresa was heading down to Tampa for the weekend to scout some housing options and asked if I would keep her twelve-year-old son, Louis, while she was gone. Louis had been diagnosed with something called oppositional defiance disorder, but he and I got along pretty well. I kept him on Wednesday nights when Theresa tended bar and had even helped him write a school paper about the blue crab of the Chesapeake (We made an F on the report due to footnote problems.). Louis was a good kid – a motor-mouth smart ass, but not unlike my own self at that age. The only downside to having him around was that he routinely whipped my ass at Madden NFL on the PS2. He was something of a prodigy at that game; or at least I thought so.
I’d read about a Madden tournament online –– a grand to the winner –– being held at a Ramada Inn up in Philadelphia. It was the same weekend as Theresa’s trip to Florida, so I decided to take Louis to this tourney and see what kind of damage he could do in a high-pressure situation. I didn’t inform Theresa of the road trip since she wasn’t always comfortable with me driving Louis places due to the reasonable amount of pain medication that I had to take for the meniscus tear in my knee. So, Louis and I agreed to keep the trip to ourselves, not to mention any money we covered in the process.
I got a double room at the Ramada and brought along my PS2 so Louis could take some snaps the night before the competition. We ordered a couple of strip steaks from room service, some Black Forest cake, a half-dozen Heinekens for me, Cokes for Louis.
“Play something besides a cover two,” he said. “I’ll eat that shit up all day.”
“Well, what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Move your linemen around, blitz a fucking linebacker every now and then, maybe a safety. I gotta get my eyes tight checking the defense. You’re too damn easy.”
I was sitting on the end of the bed, atop the dirty, flowered spread. Louis was on the floor in his McNabb jersey.
I tossed my controller on the carpet. “Fuck this,” I said. “You’re ready. Besides, you don’t wanna overdo it. Save something for tomorrow.”
Louis got up and went to the mini-bar, grabbed some peanut M&Ms and a Coke.
“How many of those you had?” I asked.
He looked at the Coke label as if it held the answer. “I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t overdo it,” I said. “You’ll never get to sleep.”
by Dallas Hudgens
224 pages. Scribner. $24
ISBN-10: 1416541489
Chapter 20
Sometimes, to my disadvantage, Theresa might let a book influence her thinking on particular matters. For example, she decided that I had mistaken laziness for contentment after reading The Purpose Driven Life. She also believed that thirty-six months was the limit of most relationships. Seeing how she and I were pushing the envelope at thirty-two months, I wasn’t all that surprised when she told me she was moving to Florida to manage a bar for an old boyfriend. Apparently, they had only dated for a year.
Theresa was heading down to Tampa for the weekend to scout some housing options and asked if I would keep her twelve-year-old son, Louis, while she was gone. Louis had been diagnosed with something called oppositional defiance disorder, but he and I got along pretty well. I kept him on Wednesday nights when Theresa tended bar and had even helped him write a school paper about the blue crab of the Chesapeake (We made an F on the report due to footnote problems.). Louis was a good kid – a motor-mouth smart ass, but not unlike my own self at that age. The only downside to having him around was that he routinely whipped my ass at Madden NFL on the PS2. He was something of a prodigy at that game; or at least I thought so.
I’d read about a Madden tournament online –– a grand to the winner –– being held at a Ramada Inn up in Philadelphia. It was the same weekend as Theresa’s trip to Florida, so I decided to take Louis to this tourney and see what kind of damage he could do in a high-pressure situation. I didn’t inform Theresa of the road trip since she wasn’t always comfortable with me driving Louis places due to the reasonable amount of pain medication that I had to take for the meniscus tear in my knee. So, Louis and I agreed to keep the trip to ourselves, not to mention any money we covered in the process.
I got a double room at the Ramada and brought along my PS2 so Louis could take some snaps the night before the competition. We ordered a couple of strip steaks from room service, some Black Forest cake, a half-dozen Heinekens for me, Cokes for Louis.
“Play something besides a cover two,” he said. “I’ll eat that shit up all day.”
“Well, what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. Move your linemen around, blitz a fucking linebacker every now and then, maybe a safety. I gotta get my eyes tight checking the defense. You’re too damn easy.”
I was sitting on the end of the bed, atop the dirty, flowered spread. Louis was on the floor in his McNabb jersey.
I tossed my controller on the carpet. “Fuck this,” I said. “You’re ready. Besides, you don’t wanna overdo it. Save something for tomorrow.”
Louis got up and went to the mini-bar, grabbed some peanut M&Ms and a Coke.
“How many of those you had?” I asked.
He looked at the Coke label as if it held the answer. “I don’t know.”
“Well, don’t overdo it,” I said. “You’ll never get to sleep.”