Huddy's Eats

Huddy awoke to the smell of the desert morning and that of his unwashed self.

Except for his eyelids going up, he did not move. Nothing moved, not anywhere. Huddy lay on his back with his head on a forward angle, supported by a sweat-stained, balled-up pillow. Looking straight ahead, he saw the ponderous mound of his belly, looking like a smooth blob of dough that had dropped from the ceiling during the night. On the ridgeline of this mound, looking back at him like a line of gravestones, Huddy saw his toes. The nails were broken and dirty.

He listened and heard nothing, then wondered what he was listening for. He wondered what time it was, then wondered why he wondered. He didn't even have a clock. He got up when he awoke, ate when he was hungry, and went back to bed when it was dark and he was tired again. Who needed a clock for that? Not Huddy. Let the rest of the world worry about clocks.

With an effort, he rolled to the left and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, which was really just a folding cot. It shook and creaked ominously. Huddy sat there in his grimy boxer shorts, contemplating his next move. He looked down at the floor and his feet. More sand had drifted in during the night. He really would have to repair the chinks in the walls and the shutters on the windows or one night there was going to be a real wowser of a windstorm and Huddy was going to wake up in sand up to his eyeballs. Okay, put that on the list, but right now it was time for a good-morning pee.

He stood and walked toward the back door. He felt the building shake from his great weight. One day it would simply fall down around him and then where would he be? Standing in the middle of a pile of rotten wood in the middle of the desert with nobody around to give a damn, that's where. Better shore up the house. Better do that. Put that on the list, too.

He reached the back door, swung it open, and began to pee over the short flight of steps onto the sand. He broke wind loudly. Finished, he decided to go down the steps to look around, to see if anything had changed during the night.

Nothing had. Nothing ever changed. Same featureless desert stretching to the same flat horizon; same cloudless blue sky. Directly ahead of him was the outhouse. Soon, when the sun got higher, it would become intolerable to be in, so if anyone had need of it, better use it now, but why would anyone want to use it? Didn't he have a well and indoor plumbing and a flush toilet? Didn't he? Huddy couldn't remember right now. He'd have to check went he went inside. If he remembered. If he still cared by that time.

To the left of the outhouse was the garage where cars were worked on. Where they used to be worked on, that is. Huddy could not remember a time when anyone actually did such a thing (and he had been here since forever), but there were signs that such an activity had once taken place. Half a dozen rotting, parts-scavenged cars sat randomly outside the garage, windshields broken, hoods up or missing entirely, doors gone, displaying their sand-scoured innards. Inside the garage, Huddy knew, was another car, this one whole. Tools, greasy rags, ancient cigarette butts and empty beer cans lay about, all as if someone--and Huddy had no idea who--had simply walked away in the middle of a repair job and never came back. There it sat waiting stupidly for the repair job to continue, like a man left alone in a dentist chair with his mouth propped open and filled with instruments of torture, who doesn't know yet that everybody else in the world has disappeared around him. The old car (and he had no idea what make, model, or year it was; Huddy had no knowledge of such things) was simply part of the scenery, for now and forever, amen.

Almost at Huddy's feet as he stood there feeling the sand grow steadily warmer was a half-buried engine block. Stripped of everything that the mysterious, long-gone mechanic had been able to remove, its empty cavities were always there to stare at Huddy while he took his good-morning whiz, reminding him of the fossilized skull of some great beast, a mechanized metal Tyrannosaurus Rex, perhaps. He had tried to move it, once, thinking that it had no business being where it was, there at the bottom of his steps where he might trip and fall over it some night when he stepped outside to take a leak (for Huddy, a man of infinite variety and refined tastes, did not always pee from the top of the steps), but it was heavy beyond even his considerable strength, heavy beyond the slightest movement. So there it still sat, and no one in the whole history of the world, or the whole universe for that matter, would ever know how or why it was there in that particular spot. Not unless the Mystery Mechanic returned one day to say to Huddy, Huddy, I’m the Mystery Mechanic and I have returned from faraway and exciting places that you can't even imagine to tell you about that engine block and also why I left that job in the garage undone. Y'see, it was like this... No, no, that was not likely. Certainly he, Huddy, would not return from faraway and exciting places for such a purpose. Not that he, Huddy, had any immediate plans for visiting faraway and exciting places, but...

No point standing here musing, he thought. Can't get anything done this way. Got a job to do. Anybody here doubt it? Anyone of you hombres wanna step forward and make something of it? No? I didn't think so. Since there are no objections from the peanut gallery, then, I'll just get about my business, thank you, and I suggest the rest of you do the same, but what business? Was there really something that needed to be done? Well, of course, you simple-minded desert rat! What's the matter with you? Did your mind blow away in a sandstorm during the night? Did a scorpion crawl in your ear and eat your brain? There was HUDDY'S EATS to be done! That was it, and in his mind he saw the desert night aglow with his own brilliant neon sign, beckoning and welcoming, welcoming and beckoning, with the words Take Your Seats At Huddy's Eats flashing bright and brazen, with a fancy starburst pattern at the top. There was no such sign yet, of course, but it was all in the works. Yessir, everything was in the works and under his own personal control.

He turned and climbed back up the short steps and into his room. Inside, the day's heat had begun to gather and Huddy smelled his own sweat and unwashed bedding again. He raised his arm and smelled his armpit. Not too bad, but maybe a shower would be in order. Except that he didn't have a shower. Only a tiny washroom that served as a public restroom for both men and women. He knew that; knew it better than anyone else in the whole wide world because he lived here and they didn't. So why did he always think of a shower in the morning? He didn't know. Well, good-morning ablutions could wait, anyway. Might as well get some work done first, then a good wash-up would feel even better. Huddy found his bib overalls on the floor and put them on. He wore no shirt or shoes. Might as well be comfortable until he actually put the OPEN sign on the door. Time enough for dressing up.

He left the bedroom and walked down a short hallway. On his right was the small washroom. He looked in. The toilet bowl was dry as a desert bone and definitely needed a good scouring. He looked in the sink just in time to see a scorpion's barbed tail descend into the drain. Lordy, he'd sure have to do something about that little situation. Huddy understood that things like that happened out here in the desert, but some of his high-toned city-folk customers might not like it. Well, he'd get back in here later and pour something down the drain to flush the little buggers out. Better find out why there was no water in the crapper, too. Wouldn't do at all to have something come crawling up out of that at the wrong moment. No sir. What's that, ma'am? You say something stung you on the butt while you were takin' a squirt? Yeah, guess you gotta be careful where you squat these days, but have your hamburger and pie on the house to make up for it, and don't worry. These things are rarely fatal to humans, in spite of what you might see in the movies...

He left the hallway and went into the front of the building. There he perused the long lunch counter and rows of tables next to the windows. Lordy, had those windows been broken like that yesterday? And just look at all the sand that had blown in. Lordy, what a mess. People might as well sit outside as be in here. He'd better get his rear in gear for real today before the highway out front was log jammed with hungry motorists. Huddy's clientele wouldn't tolerate broken windows and sand on the floor. There was a dustpan and broom around somewhere, but he couldn't think of just where at the moment. Okay, never mind. He'd get to that later. Better check behind the counter and in the kitchen to make sure everything's squared away back there. People will put up with a little desert atmosphere if the chow is really good, but, my dear, you must try this little place out on the desert highway. It's positively awful to look at, but you've never had such fine food, if you don't mind a little grit...

Huddy went behind the counter, noticing that the counter was completely empty. No delicate pies and pastries in clear plastic cases to accompany the morning coffee on its errand; no napkins or other amenities stood waiting to serve. He must have done a bang-up job of cleaning up last time, putting everything away like that, but that's the way he was. When he got to movin' he was like a big ol' eighteen wheeler highballin' down that desert highway nonstop at ninety miles plus and if you can’t keep up you better git outa my way. Well, he'd find everything. Nothing could be too far away.

He went through the swinging doors behind the counter and into the small kitchen. Gonna have to hustle, workin' the counter and the kitchen. Definitely gonna have to get some part-time help one day... Two feet inside the doorway he stopped and looked around. The small room was empty. Only greasy outlines against the walls and bits of ancient pipes and wiring showed where appliances once stood. More wires dangled from the ceiling where lights used to be, but now the only illumination came through two small broken windows high up on the rear wall, and a chink of light came through an ancient exhaust fan whose blades were black as midnight with caked grease.

Huddy looked around for a moment longer and thought, Think I'll just pump gas today. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Sit outside in a shady spot and pump gas, and diesel for the big rigs, of course. The truck drivers'll be disappointed when they can't chow down this morning, but I'll put up a sign saying PLEASE EXCUSE OUR APPEARANCE WHILE WE REMODEL. WATCH FOR GRAND REOPENING. Yeah, that's it, and I better make some calls and get some new appliances...

Huddy left the kitchen, walked back around the lunch counter and out the front door, making a mental note to repair the screenless door that hung with great delicacy on one hinge. He walked toward the highway and the single gas pump. The sandblasted antique pump had no hose and no glass or needle on its numbered face. Huddy stared at it for a moment then looked out at the highway. Patches of it were visible in front of the station, but most of it was covered with sand for as far as he could see in both directions. He was alone in a world of infinite granules and it didn't look as though the big eighteen wheelers and hungry motorists were going to be along anytime soon.

His shoulders slumped and he let out a long sigh. He walked back toward the main building and found a rickety wooden chair near the door. He moved it into a shady spot and sat. He closed his eyes and slept. Later, the sun awoke him. He got up, moved the chair out of the sun, sat, and slept again. He did this several more times until the sun went down. Then, when the desert chill set in and he could see the stars clearly from horizon to horizon, he went inside and went to bed.

In the morning, he awoke to the smell of the desert and his unwashed self and wondered why he wondered what time it was.

THE END

Bio: Mr. Cushnie is 72 years old and lives in Connecticut. He has been writing short stories off and on since 1980. He embraced the short story genre since reading "The Martian Chronicles" in 1956 but doesn't always know what his stories mean. His last Aphelion appearance was Honeylips in our June, 2014 issue.

E-mail: Peter Cushnie

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