Hutch

By Adrian Popa

Kevin, a busy business man who has subconsciously started making the movement away from family to business is confronted with a major family problem: his mentally unstable uncle who is suffering from memory loss. He tried unsuccessfully to get this responsibility out of his hands but fails and has to make the trip to Boise ID from Atlanta. He discovers that his uncle has a case that would be difficult to handle and makes arrangement at a nursing home in Atlanta for home, where his uncle should be evaluated. The journey back to Atlanta is a tortuous work when his uncle refuses to board a plane with him. He decides they'll go by car. In the event of the journey, he discovers his long dead father through his uncle, the man his uncle was, and the man he was supposed to be. He discovers that family is all that will remain when you take the world away

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adrian Popa
• Release date: May 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781513636795

Book preview

Prologue

"T

iger claws, losing altitude. I’ve been hit!" the pilot screamed into the mic. He was struggling with the controls of the fighter jet.

There was no response. He started to say something again, but his attention was taken up with the controls. The craft kept falling. One simple maneuver gone wrong and he was about to pay with a lot more than his life. The radio cackled to life then.

Tiger claws, you’re falling behind enemy lines.

Oh God, oh God, he thought, gritting his teeth and waiting for the impact which was sure to come. He had to move fast too once he got to the ground, that was if he survived. The soldier that shot him out of the skies was probably observing his jet now. The captain was saying something over the radio but he was not listening anymore. Death was staring him in the face even if he survived this fall.

The jet looked like a hawk making a dive for a little chick as it plummeted down to earth. The resounding thud and the commotion of sounds that followed announced that the fighter had hit the ground and was dragging itself at a horrible speed along the ground. The pilot inside cursed and waited for the fighter to slow down, his shoulders without feeling from cold fear. The fighter came to halt at a clearing. He struggled with his seatbelt. It seemed to be stuck. He heard something dripping and quickly panicked as the scent of petrol hit his nostrils. He pulled a knife and cut off the seatbelt, pushing the jet shield open at the same time. Then he jumped down from the fighter on shaky legs and began moving for cover. I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m still alive, he thought. Staying away from the enemy was the next thing. Radio, shit, he turned. As if the jet was waiting for him to turn back to it, it exploded in a ball of fiery orange, lighting up the sky and providing a flare for his enemies to find him with.

The explosion threw him up, lifting him completely from the ground and knocking the knife out of his hand. He landed, breathless on the ground a little farther away. He had sand all over him and had quite a few bruises. He had been lucky to leave the fighter jet when he did, if not, it would be his pieces along with those of the fighter jet that would have been flying around. On the ground the world blanked out. His ears could make out nothing. He lay there unmoving, trying to get back his bearing while every soldier instinct in him pushed him to run. He wanted to, but his body had a mind of its own. The ringing would not stop in his ears.

When he finally managed to get up, he saw them approaching from a distance. He turned and began to stumble through the clearing, heading for the forest. A shot rang out, and another followed. They were arming for his legs. He ran faster. He had seen soldiers return from being held and tortured by the enemy. They were never the same, those who managed to get back to their countries. They became empty shells, cracked and damaged in many places, lacking substance. He could not imagine himself that way.

Suddenly they stopped shooting and he wondered why till he saw the enemy uniform in front of him. They panned out, waiting for him, guns at the ready, faces unsmiling. He stopped running. If there was ever a right time to remember one’s family in one's lifetime, it was now. The only person in his mind was his brother. That was the only family he had left, George and his wife and his kids. Two beautiful kids. One a boy, the other a girl. As enemy soldiers approached him, he remembered how the boy looked at him.

Uncle Hutch, the boy called. Will you take him to fly in your plane?

Not now, kiddo.

My dad says you fly in the air while he walks on the ground. Why don’t you take him?

That is how it is. Some walk, some swim, some fly.

Why did you write Hutch on your plane?

Because it’s my home.

Don’t you have a wife? Like dad.

It’s okay, champ. Save the questions for tomorrow.

Get down on your knees and raise your hands! a voice barked, breaking through his thought.

He was surprised to hear someone speaking English among the Vietnamese. He knelt down slowly, counting five of them, plus the two behind him. Immediately the closest grabbed his hands, he heard the shot. A bullet tore through the chest of his capturer, throwing him up and to the ground. He quickly sought the ground to stay away from the sniper’s targets—he was sure it was a sniper. The soldiers ran this way and that, getting bullets in their bodies as they tried to locate the sniper till only two were left. The first one turned to run but was cut down by a bullet. It blasted through his head, cracking it open and spilling the inside in a potpourri of blood and white matter. The English speaking Vietnamese quickly grabbed the pilot who had just found his knife on the ground.

Come out! Come out or I’ll kill hi...

His words ended abruptly, courtesy of a knife jutting out of his throat, placed there by the frenzied hand of the pilot. Blood replaced his words, filling his mouth to the brim and dripping down the sides. His hand reached up to touch the knife but merely brushed against it before returning weakly to his side. His eyes spoke many languages as he slumped first to his knees in a slow display of gradual death. His hands clawed at the air, at nothing, as if trying to catch life, the idea of life as life drained from him. The pilot briefly wondered if the man had a family, a wife that wanted to kiss him again, children waiting for him to come back. Then he reached forward and pulled the knife out of the man’s neck. It was instant; the spurting of thick, red blood, the spasm that shook the very core of the dying soldier, his collapsing and the end. It ended just like that, a life.

He wiped the knife clean on the soldiers clothe and turned towards the direction his help had come from. Someone was beckoning on him to run to them, someone that did not want to leave the forest area into the clearing. He ran quickly till he was under the cover of the canopy the trees provided.

George! he screamed, recognizing his helper.

The man smiled, revealing broken teeth and momentarily softening the hardness in his eyes.

CHAPTER 1

Busy Life

"H

ey, that would be literally ripping me off, Kevin said into the mouth piece of the phone he held. It wouldn’t work that way."

He listened for a while as he walked into the kitchen, nodded at his wife and went to sit at the window while grabbing a coffee along the way.

"Listen, I’m calling it off. I’m calling everything off. It cannot work that way...well, see what you’ll do because these miracles