The Acolytes of Crane Updated Edition

by Tew, J. D.

  Lichen. I am reminded of my training in the Valeon Galaxy—the planet Tritillia. That place was covered in lichen.

  I need more water, and this time I should bargain some more out of them. I pace across the room, trying to muster up the moxie to make the request. My feet pass over a couple of loose pebbles. I pick them up, polish them off with my damp shirt, and swallow them. They barely make it to my stomach.

  Today I would rather spend energy trying to pass stones, than go hungry. Some of the guards are starving me, and the warden is kept in the dark of these misdeeds perpetuated on me.

  “Guard, I need some water in here. If you want me to go on through the day, I will need more than yesterday! Guard!”

  “Prisoner, number eight-six-seven-five, open request, guns at the ready—over,” he says, mimicking the trained request protocol. “Get in the static position, prisoner.”

  With the absence of the warden, there is excruciating inconsistency in how they address my basic needs. I hear the plop of a filled paper cup hit the floor. The vault closes, and my control is wavering.

  I run over to the water and drink it, lapping it up like a dog on all fours. I stop, because I want to ration this water. I place it in the corner next to my mats to prevent it from falling, and I pick up the tablet to continue.

  “Where was I? Oh yeah, the tree near the courtyard of the apartment complex—the oak. It was a beast. I was now at the top of the tree, nearing the apex, and could see beyond the Red Bricks. The amulet shone even brighter the higher I went. For the first time ever, even in living daylight, it hurt my eyes to look directly at it.”

  Now, I was stable and secured between two thick branches. My thoughts of the extraordinary amulet were interrupted by the sound of a dispute coming from Travis’s apartment, through his screen.

  The screen was duct-taped to fix a large hole. I could only see the outline of their bodies through it, because the sun was blinding and the screen’s mesh obscured my view.

  The voices escalated in intensity and volume, as if a fight was building up. Despite the amulet being the object of my intense fascination, I could not ignore the urgency of the situation unfolding several feet away from me. One voice was Travis’s for sure, but there was a man angrily out-shouting him. I looked in their direction and squinted my eyes to see further.

  I saw something that was etched upon my mind forever. It was weird to be a witness to something so private, so shameful that you knew you were not welcome to watch. The man, whom I assumed was Travis’ dad, was smacking Travis’ face! Shocked, I covered my eyes with my hands and leaned against the tree.

  ‘I hate you!’ Travis yelled to his dad.

  I had to see more, and even though I was sick to my stomach with what I was observing and hearing, my curiosity prevailed. I edged closer.

  They say curiosity killed the cat. It appeared as if that was going to apply to me too.

  I lost my balance.

  With a loud creak, the branch cracked beneath my feet. In an instant, my body was flailing out of control. I felt a blow to my leg, then arm, and shoulder, as I struck branches on the way down. I landed on the grass below with a thud. I rolled around in the grass as I struggled to block the scream that was desperate to emerge from the back of my throat.

  I felt like I was inside a submarine with a marching band. The horizon spun, and my vision was littered with swirling blues and blacks. As I stood up, I felt nauseated. I walked unsteadily toward the park bench, crunching the dried-up crabgrass as I did so.

  Unable to keep my balance, I stumbled. I braced for my fall by extending my arm downward, but my elbow easily collapsed during the jolt on the ground. Every sound was amplified, and my head was like a speaker ready to explode. I laid my body upon the sun-warmed concrete and blacked out.

  It was about seven minutes later that I was awakened by a garbage truck lifting the dumpster behind me. My head felt like it was bashed with a baseball bat, or the butt stroke from a rifle. I pulled myself together, and I thought about what I witnessed. My instincts were correct. From my memory of Travis being smacked across the face by his dad, I recalled he had a look on his face that defined pain. He was in misery, because he was abused like me.

  I felt shaken. The return to my apartment only required a forty-yard walk to the door and an ascent of three flights of stairs, but it seemed like the longest walk ever. I was dizzy and still seeing stars. My mouth was dry.

  I had to cup my palm over my eyes to block the sunlight, which was searing my brain. I knew what I saw, but I could not distill my scattered thoughts into a clear image. The fall had struck the exact memory from my mind. Once inside, I staggered up the stairs, and gripped the rail to hoist myself to the next flight. In passing, I saw Travis and Jason, who were descending the stairs.

  They didn’t even seem to care for my bedraggled appearance. ‘Hey Theodore,’ Jason said, ‘You want to hang out with us?’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t feel well,’ I said.

  Travis chimed in and said, ‘I saw him falling from the tree through the window of my house.’

  Jason swiveled his head to face me, and for once, showed concern on my behalf. ‘Are you okay? We can hang out some other time.’

  I told Jason I was fine, and he carried on past me down the stairs, while Travis hung back slightly. Travis had a menacing look in his eyes that momentarily terrified me.

  When he ensured that Jason was out of earshot, he spoke to me deep and quiet. He said, ‘If I ever catch you looking through my window again you little jerk, the pain that your dad puts you through will be nothing in comparison to what I will do to you.’ Glowering, Travis turned from me and walked down the stairs. As soon as his back was turned, I sprinted for my apartment.

  Back in my “safe” refuge in my bedroom, I mulled over what Travis had said. I also pulled my amulet from under my T-shirt, staring at it blankly, since my head was unable to formulate anything resembling a thought. Then I shrugged.

  Travis and I had a lot in common, I thought. And it wasn’t pretty. No wonder he hated me.

  The days grew long, and the buzz of fall slipped away. I was experiencing a weird feeling of fatigue almost every day, and sometimes it was accompanied by annoying aches. The winter was full of action figure battles, and time spent pondering over boredom. Winters were usually depressing and slow.

  Fortunately, the expected long days of sheer drudgery of winter zipped by with a new video game system—thanks to my mother, who made me swear to have a story ready for my dad if he ever asked—it was a gift from her parents. Weeks and then months passed. Spring was gone and summer approached. I had a birthday, which wasn’t interesting—unless turning thirteen was exciting—and it wasn’t. Although, I thought I was cooler than before, because now I was a teen.

  My friendship with Jason became stronger, and that made me happy in the midst of my situation. Only, that meant I had to be around Travis more, because he and Jason were best friends to begin with. I still dreaded Travis.

  A girl at school provoked my interest that year. Her name was Mariah Espinosa. She was amazingly gorgeous. Not to be cliché, but I figured she was out of my league. She was the only one who made school bearable for me—because that’s the only place where I was certain to grab a view of her.

  I kept finding trouble at school. The principal mandated that I take a note home every day. It was a form signed by my teacher to confirm that I had been well behaved. I was a distracted kid. I had the smarts, but lacked the drive.

  During class one day, I left without permission to visit the drinking fountain in order to avoid the “rush hour” in the school’s hallways that inevitably took place during intermissions in between classes. During such times of pandemonium, there were kids pushing, pulling, and pinching. Proud of myself for plotting ahead, I strolled down to the drinking fountain through the quiet, empty hallway.

  Actually, not so empty. With a sense of impending doom, I saw Travis, who had altered course and was purposely attempting
to intimidate me. I didn’t like the scowl on his face. He looked over at me and gestured with his fist, driving it into his opposing hand. Glancing away, I started drinking from the fountain.

  With his hip, Travis quickly but decisively shunted me aside, away from the fountain. A volcano of crescendoing anger rose within me, ready to spew forward at this jerk, who was calmly sipping away right in front of me.

  Raging, I spun him around, and kicked him square in the nuts. Water shot out of his mouth, but I ducked in time. In a combative stance, I sized him up, waiting for his reaction as he wiped his mouth, his face contorted with fury. Yet, half of me wanted to run—after all, Travis was a pretty big guy.

  It was then my stomach sank. Travis suddenly cowered, and guiltily looked past me. I knew that meant only one thing: I was in deep doo-doo.

  As if I were being recorded in slow motion on video, my head slowly turned around. Ms. Bricky, a tall, ramrod woman with horn-rimmed glasses and wrinkles deep-lining her rigid face, was futilely patting at a huge water stain on her dress, just below her sagging boobs. I realized what had happened. Ms. Bricky was just about to nab me for leaving class unsupervised. And Travis had accidentally spit water on her. Now this was worse. Much, much worse.

  She grabbed me firmly by my arm; any harder, and she would have broken it. We called her the Bricky because her body had a boxy shape, and she could have moonlighted as a professional wrestler.

  After leaving the class in the hands of a teacher’s aide, the Bricky started marching me down the hallway, en route to the principal’s office. Travis witnessed the entire spectacle, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

  With the Bricky’s steely grip latched onto my biceps, I passed a group of girls who were giggling and pointing at me. My heart sank as I realized one of those girls was Mariah Espinosa.

  In track meets, she finished first place in the events that the boys typically dominated. She was bright, beautiful, and she made me feel as if I had happily died and gone to heaven. It was magical listening to her musical-sounding Spanish banter and watching her thick black hair sway about her shoulders, while she gestured with her hands.

  I arrived at the office of Miss Pinckney, the principal. ‘Why did you do this Theodore?’ she moaned—and not for the first time, either. Reluctantly, I answered, explaining what had happened at the water fountain. I admit it felt good to tell the truth. She picked up the phone, and dialed up my mother while my stomach remained twisted in knots. I kept staring at her perfectly coiffured hairdo as I listened to everything she said to my mother. ‘Uh huh,’ Miss Pinckney said, as she decisively lowered the phone back into its holder. “Your mother’s on her way.”

  I knew Ann had been at home packing for our trip to Taylors Falls. I wasn’t looking forward to her coming to my school, because my friend Jason was supposed to go to the falls with us and I didn’t want to ruin that.

  Taylors Falls was north of the Twin Cities. It was breathtakingly beautiful in autumn, when the colors of red, orange, and yellow proudly staked out their domain over the forest canopy. The numerous cliffs of Taylors Falls had eons ago been carved out and shaped by the powerful St. Croix River. To miss such a craved opportunity to escape the Red Bricks over mischief would have been a shame.

  At school, I waited for further pain and loss from my family, as I fully expected my dad would cancel our trip to Taylors Falls. I knew what was coming, and I would have liked to crawl through a rabbit hole to disappear.

  From Miss Pinckney’s window, I could see my mother Ann pull up in her long shiny black car, with red trim riding down the side of it. It was a gift from my maternal grandparents. They had a couple of successful small businesses that afforded them the cash to buy extravagant gifts.

  When my mom stepped out of the vehicle, I could tell she was upset, because she almost tripped over the curb. She wanted to get to me. Her weapon of choice at home was the wooden spoon.

  The door of the principal’s office swung open, and my mother stood stiffly before me, as if she meant business. ‘What did he do this time?’ Ann demanded, with her hands over her hips and eyes that could burn through a concrete road barrier. ‘Wait till your dad gets a hold of you!’

  ‘Your son kicked a boy in the private area today and from what he told us we reasoned to believe that he learned this action from his father. You don’t condone this type of action, do you Mrs. Crane?’ Miss Pinckney asked, as she strutted across the room in her hideous pink suit-dress. If Miss Pinckney waved her finger one more time, my mom would have chewed it off her hand in one bite.

  Ann scoffed and said, ‘Of course not. Why his father?’

  ‘I am curious, what would his father do?’ Miss Pinckney asked, suddenly softening her tone. ‘What will you do to discipline him? Theodore told me that his dad hits him. Is this true?’ Stunned, I looked at my principal as she faced my mother. It appeared as if the revelation had softened my principal’s harsh expression, and now she was pleading to protect me.

  Ann looked ferociously angry. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth draped open. I could probably fit the end of a pop can in it.

  Without retort, she yanked my arm and dragged me to the car. Once inside, she screamed at me. She told me, not for the first time, that she had never planned on having me, and that I was an ‘accident.’

  I screamed back at her, ‘You guys don’t care about me. You and dad are jerks!’

  The car screeched to a stop.

  ‘Get out of the car, you little son of a bitch!’ she said with spit flying, causing me to wipe my eyes. Oddly, I was distracted by her faint, but perceptible moustache too.

  Shaken, I opened the door wide and put one foot on the ground. Appearing flustered and apologetic, she told me to get back in. Confused, I started to shift my weight back into the car. As if Ann had a panic attack, she shifted the car forward with a burst, causing me to lose my balance. Panting heavily with my adrenalin out of control, I grabbed onto the handle of my door, with the toe of my sneaker scraping along the pavement. I feared I would fall onto the asphalt and be run over by the car.

  “I’m sorry, Ted,” my mother gasped as she realized she had lost control of her senses. She gazed at me with pleading eyes.

  I solemnly entered the car, closed the door, and we took off. When we both stopped crying, there was silence.

  Punctuating our brooding silence, the horn blared as my mother firmly swerved her steering wheel. We knowingly looked at each other and, to our mutual relief, exchanged the thinnest of smiles. My mom’s car looked nice and had a great interior, but every time she made a hard right, the horn went off. It was something that only seemed to occur in the best of times to bring about some humor.

  I sat there briefly thinking about our engagement, but I was distracted by a pressing desire to pee, and I twisted my legs like pretzels in hope of deterring the urgency.

  We finally arrived home, and I ran off to the bathroom.

  Since my misdeed had occurred “offside” from my father’s domain, he laughed it off as a school incident. I think he just liked hearing about how a guy got it in the nuts. From there it went into parental “damage control” overdrive. Ann called Travis’s dad and told him about the entire thing. I was worried that Travis himself would catch a beating. It wasn’t what I planned to do. I was carried away with the whole thing. But, no. Nothing immediate would happen to Travis, to my relief. You see, the four parents involved all had an “adult” discussion in bits and pieces and gleefully conspired to make things right.

  So it was all settled. Despite the ordeal, we Cranes still made the trip to Taylors Falls, on one condition: Travis had to go. Since Jason was already invited, I sarcastically imagined he would be thrilled to bits at the last-minute invite extended to Travis.

  “Yes, my father and Travis’s father decided that it would be good for us to be men about it, and it would help if we were forced into hanging with each other. Travis, Jason, and I—we all rode to the cliffs, squished together in the back of a Chrysler Lebaro
n. I wasn’t happy, but thankfully, Jason sat between us.”

  I glance at my recording device, my throat hoarse. I stand up and pace for a moment, then lean against this wall, sliding my back downward until my butt touches the gritty floor.

  There is only a bit of muscle or fat between my bones and the hardness of the cell. I sigh. Every rustle and scrape seems loud against the silence. Even when I refresh my mouth, I can sense tiny ‘slurps,’ as my saliva courses through the gaps between my teeth.

  Where my tailbone meets the floor, I slip my hand underneath my butt to futilely cushion the impact. I am feeling weak and skinny. My body has long been deteriorating in this hell hole.

  I realize that even the acts of pacing and speaking into the tablet exhaust me. There is no rest in a small cell when oppressive boredom stalks you, minute by minute, and all you have are your own memories to entertain and torment you.

  I pick the tablet up, and even though it is light like a full can of pop, my limp fingers buckle under its weight. Gravity almost snatches the tablet out of my palm, but I rescue it at the last second. Turning it on, I warily see double images, and figure it is best to get on with it before I pass out.

  “Okay, now for the dirty business.” I say, breathing deeply to tally some strength to push through, “In the car, we were joking, singing, and producing fart sounds. It was amazing what a vacation would do to people: it has an amnesiac effect.”

  Jason and Travis talked quietly about something. They whispered, to evade earshot, and the sound of psychedelic rock from the car radio masked their conspiring.

  ‘I actually thought MJ sounded like a wimp,’ Jason whispered.

  ‘Jason, I hate to break your heart, but that was a pre-recorded message. You didn’t say anything. So what makes you think a professional ball player would take the time to talk to you?’ Travis asked, with a whisper and a roll of his eyes. Jason shrugged his shoulders, crossed his arms, and leaned toward Travis’s face, as if about to break a sinister secret.