The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" (10 page)

I
now felt horrible about what I had said to Lincoln about his mother.

Lost
in our thoughts, we said nothing during the rest of our bus ride.

There
were some weird characters on the bus that night. We had a man who was sitting
next to us drinking from a brown bag. He was probably washing away the pains of
the day with a bottle of whiskey. He kept blurting out at people in the bus;
‘This is my world, my world.’ He repeated it at least twenty times during the
ride. I tried my best not to make eye contact. When the bus stopped in our
neighborhood, we exited quickly to avoid interaction with any of the bus
regulars.

We
stepped down at our stop and said goodbye. When I arrived at home, I lay on my
bed, shuffling through all my baseball cards. No, not any I had stolen
recently, as I had not. It was the personal collection I had amassed over the
years.

Upon
further reflection, I wished that I didn’t drag Lincoln into
The
Intervention
business, and I wished that I knew why everything was
happening to me.

There
was no way of telling what could happen. For my birthday that year, I received
a ‘greatest hits’ CD. I plunked it into my player and began to rock to some
clever vocals that were accompanied by a piano. Just as I was drifting away, my
grandma entered the room and sat next to me in my bed.

‘Honey,
we are not going to Taylors Falls tomorrow. I know that you have wanted to go
up there, and we have delayed it a lot, but we cannot this year. We cannot
afford the trip,’ my grandma said.

‘Well,
that is too bad. I get sad after I go anyway. Things are good right now,’ I
told her, but I suspected something was going on. She sighed, as if troubled. I
decided not to ask.

‘Goodnight,
granny,’ I said.

She
flipped the light switch and said, ‘Goodnight, Theodore.’

That
night, the sky reminded us of its power with a thunderstorm that ripped through
our neighborhood. Gusty winds pounded the walls and rattled the windows. My
grandparents, who had survived times of war and economic depression, slept
through the fierce storm. In contrast, I watched through my window briefly as
the storm rocked the trees at mid-trunk.

The
bolts of lightning streaked across on the tumultuous sky canvas, instantly
dabbing the edges of the otherwise lead-granite colored clouds with brilliant
flashes of cream, illuminating the ground below.

My
astonishment turned to fear, after a bolt of lightning split the picturesque
window scene in front of me. The jagged sword of lightning splintered the elder
tree in our front yard, leaving it a smoldering wreck.

The
proximity of the blast forced me back; the boom had taken my breath away. I
retreated to my covers, because I was shaking from the bolt's impact on that
tree.

That
tree spent nearly sixty years reaching for the sun, only to be destroyed in a
millisecond.

I
tried to sleep for the remainder of the morning, but I was left tossing and
turning. It seemed the days were becoming chronically weird.

My
grandma read the paper bright and early before my grandpa at around four in the
morning. She preferred to read the paper before Marv, because he usually left
it in a state of disorder after pulling out his favorite sections.

Typically,
I was the final person to read whatever was left of the paper, because during
the summer, I was the last to wake up.

That
morning after that huge storm, my grandparents were out instructing the workers
where to put all of the excess wood from the tree. The sounds of the worker's
chainsaws and chatter pulled me out of bed.

My
grandmother left some food out for me on the stove. I grabbed a few bites and
walked toward the living room. The taste of scrambled eggs still fresh in my
mouth, I grabbed the paper. Typically, I could bypass all local news if it
didn’t interest me, and I would cut straight to the comics.

I
sat in my granny’s chair and kicked up my feet on the tiny ottoman that sat
next to it.  Usually, when I sat on that chair, I felt like I became my
grandma, as if I was looking through her perspective: a cold drop of tea in the
bottom of a cup, a pen laying atop the day’s crosswords, and a pair of soft and
stinky slippers. I slipped them on and gazed at the folded stack of papers.

My
heart stopped.

There
was a clean, rectangular hole on the first sheet of the newspaper section on
top of the pile. Where the crossword puzzle usually was. But my shock was not
from the fact that my grandpa must have cut out the crossword puzzle for
himself.

Peering
through the cut-out hole, as if a ghost, the face of my sworn enemy leapt out
at me.

In
bold print, underneath the photo, the caption read,
Travis Jackson,
2001-2016.

I
blinked. This must be a mistake.

I
snatched the page where the photo was and threw aside the cut-out crossword
page. It was the obituary section.

But
this was no mistake. The blurry black-and-white photo of Travis, sullen, looked
out at me again. He looked a bit older than the last time I saw him. But that
forlorn expression still dominated. He didn’t look happy.

I
read on, my heart pounding. It was Travis’ obituary.

Apparently,
Travis was camping at Taylors Falls with his dad, and he disappeared. His
father reported him missing, and there was an ongoing investigation. Now, he
was presumed dead.

The
paper’s columnist questioned Travis’ affiliation with Jason’s death, and
presumed that Travis may have thrown himself from the cliff into the river.

In
shock, I breathed deeply, unsure what to think.

Was
this a clue left behind by
The Intervention
? I had to do some detective work
to further my understanding of the unknown force, starting with the cliff that
potentially stole the life of two kids. Did Taylors Falls hold the meaning to
my amulet? After all, it had glowed there too.

I
didn’t mention anything about what I read from the paper to my guardians, and I
had good reason. I had a plan.

I
sat on the three-season porch taking in the smell of the moist cherry wood. I
sat in a white wicker chair that left imprints on my arms where they rested on
the surface. I noticed these creases on my skin as I pulled away from the chair
to grab some cookies.

My
grandma sat on a chair by the wooden kitchen table, sipping some Earl Grey. She
would always ask me if I wanted tea, and I would say yes. After all, tea and
cookies was quite the combo. ‘What is eating you, Theodore?’ she said while
looking at me with an inquisitive squint, ‘I know there is something bothering
you, Ted.’

I
started crying. I cried so hard and dreadfully long; I was hysterical. My body
shook with sobs. My grandmother held me and ran her fingers through my hair. 
My sadness was always transformed into anger and motivation to do more—to enjoy
life better. I wanted to make good of what I could do and the time that I had
with her.

‘Theodore,
you are special. I am not saying that because I have to, I am saying it because
you have proven how strong you really are. You don’t have to be tough and hold
in all of your sorrow. It helps to belt it out and shed some tears from time to
time,’ Grandma Laverne said, ‘There is something else. Well, I think I will
wait for your grandfather to come home to tell you.’

She
always had a way with words. After all, she is a grandma; comforting was her
job. I found out soon enough what she was waiting to tell me, but not from her
own lips.

She
was right on one thing. I was different.

I
furiously thought of an escape from my dour mood. I had it! For the last
several years, my rich uncle always sent me fifty dollars for each of my
birthdays. I had that money stashed away inside a T-ball trophy that I had on
the top of my dresser. It was the perfect time to spend some of that money.

I
skateboarded up to the Big-Mart and used the pay phone to call a cab. The cab
arrived, and the driver asked, ‘Where to, sir?’

‘Taylors
Falls,’ I said.

‘Whoa,’
he said. ‘Why so far?’

I
served him some lie about visiting my grandparents who retired there and wanted
me to stay with them at their campsite near town.

As
I read the driver’s expression, my only worry was that
The Intervention
,
that unknown power, could intervene. I dismissed the thought. Its jurisdiction
was obviously limited to my surroundings, and not my mind.

Hey.
Maybe I was doing what it wanted me to do. That was precisely it, I figured.
Perhaps, now, destiny was calling me. Travis’s obituary was the tipping point.

 Fortunately,
the cab driver bought it. ‘We got a long ride. Geez, you are going to have to
pay half now. Twenty dollars up front, and pay the rest later. That is the
deal,’ the driver requested, with his hand extended through the slot in the Plexiglas. 

“After
the driver spoke, I knew Lincoln was right about the slang word geez.  I paid
the man his money, and we left for Taylors Falls.”

“The
funneled sound of an awesome classic folk-rock band lifted me from my slumber.
My eyes still shut, the foggy sensation of color at backs of my lids reverted
from deep brown to a glowing orange.”

The
roll of band’s fluid guitar solos and appealing vocals jarred uneasily with the
off-tune pitch of the cab driver.

There
was something familiar about waking up to the smell of an armpit. My vision
went from a blur to clear, and I had a flash of Jason’s arm extended with his
pit firing stench into my direction. I wanted so badly to be with him. His
image faded away after I rubbed the sleep out of the corners of my eyes.

My
neck was incredibly sore on both sides. I wiped the drool from the corner of my
mouth.

My
hot breath stank; the smell was not unlike that of the stench of sweat pouring
out from a Muay Thai boxer after several rounds of fighting, combined with that
of camel poop. The smell of my hot breath could not contend with the
nostril-flaring, olfactory-nerve-depleting stench of the second-hand smoke of
cheap cigars, the sickly artificial scent of a half-dozen vanilla air fresheners,
and the ongoing perspiration of the cab driver, itself a
manly-man-sweat-factory of death. Put simply, the cab and its operator reeked.
For a moment, I thought about my dad. The cabby reminded me of him with his
rough demeanor.

My
dad had three important mottos. Of course, number one was; don’t ever eat the
yellow snow. The rest were inherited by my great grandfather Willard: number
two, you will not succeed in anything without a little hard work, and number
three, trust is based on predicting from experience.

Whenever
my father told me these three things, he fashioned his voice in a way such that
he sounded like a newscaster. I was thankful that I had the pleasure to meet
his granddaddy Willard before he passed away.

‘Well
kid, the ride takes around an hour, and you have managed to take up fifty
minutes of that by snoring. We are almost there. You sure you know your way
around town?’ he asked.

Always
having been escorted to and from the place, and having only been allowed to
freely roam the campgrounds themselves, I really didn’t know much about the
town of Taylors Falls itself. I only knew how to find the cliffs from the gas
station, but even that was going to be difficult. I continued to put up a show
of demonstrating maturity and confidence.

‘You
can drop me off at the gas station,’ I said.

‘Whatever
you say, sir. You have the dough, you do have more money right?’ he asked
letting out a wild cackle that spun off into a coughing tangent. ‘I am only
messing with ya, you little turkey.’ He continued driving, thumping at the
steering wheel with his right thumb from time to time.

‘Yes
sir, what happened to your neck?’ I asked as I pointed out the four-inch long
scar across his hairy neck, beneath his ear.

He
said, ‘Oh, that old thing? That is from shrapnel I caught in the bush. I am not
talking about casualties from the lady-folk,’ he said, breaking to laugh over a
joke that must have gone beyond me, because I didn’t laugh, ‘In ’Nam, I was
doing a patrol through the jungle, and my battle buddy stepped out of formation
onto a land-mine. Well, my poor buddy was cut clean in half, and I caught the
rough edge of some shrapnel in my neck. The doc told me it was a metal shard
from my buddy’s canteen! I almost lost my life to a canteen! Hit a centimeter
away from my jugular. Well, it got me a ticket home. I’ve been driving this cab
ever since.’

He
had a huge lump of chewing tobacco protruding from his lip; there was slimy
brown spit, teasing an exit near the corner of his mouth. One unexpected bump
while driving, and it could have landed on the fur-covered steering wheel. I
nearly heaved at the smell when he talked.

I
asked him where he was from, and he told me originally that he lived in
Palmyra, Missouri. He said he grew up on a cattle farm. Then he rambled about
freemartin heifers and jersey cows.

It
was all too much information for me. I found back then, that whenever I asked
an adult a simple question, I typically received a long-winded answer. I really
didn’t mind. I usually found something useful among the nonsense.

I
liked his story. Throughout my life, I discovered the majority of people that
tell you the gory details of their battles were typically lying, unless they
had a scar to prove it or their details were perfectly lined up.

A
small percentage of men who see combat actually tell about it. Most of them
withhold it because they are deeply pained by what they have done and endured.

He
pulled up in the parking lot of an old gas station. ‘We are here bud,’ he said
as he reached for the money, ‘Just curious kid, who’s Jason? You are not having
those night terrors I heard about, are ya?’

‘No,’
I answered, with a lump in my throat.

‘You
kept going on about Jason in your sleep, and I heard on a talk show that night
terrors are caused by stress.’

‘Jason
is my friend. I am looking forward to seeing him. That is all,’ I said, as I
closed the door.

The
cabby rolled down the window and handed me a stained business card. He said,
‘The name’s Winston, Winston Springfield. If you ever need a ride, call the
number on the side and ask for me. Best of luck.’

I
took his card, inserted it into my shirt pocket, put up my other hand to bid
him a good day, and off he went. I stopped inside the station to grab a local
tourist map to help me in my adventure. I wasn’t too worried about navigation
because the cliffs were not far from the town. The station was a hybrid between
gift shop and gas stop. There were more than enough knick-knacks in the store
to distract me.

While
I was fighting the urge to wander the aisles, I felt eyes pressing my back. I
turned while looking and there was no one. I knew I could rely on my necklace
to warn me, but it issued no response.

I
quickly left and I began my hike, which really only consisted of pounding
pavement and following signs.

The
campgrounds were organized. I wasn’t scared of the dark anymore, but there was
something about unfamiliar locations, large swaths of forest, and sparse
traffic zooming by recklessly that made me feel uneasy.

Sighing,
I stopped and gazed at my map, confused and alone. My head acted like a beacon
as I swiveled to find a landmark—anything that would reassure me. Just as I was
about to panic, a hiker stepped out of the shady woods and walked right into my
line of sight.

The
hiker was about six feet tall and all he had with him was a walking stick.
Either he was under prepared, or his campsite was nearby. It was strange that
he appeared out of the thick of the woods.

As
he got closer, I had this weird feeling that I knew him. However, I knew I had
never seen his face before. I pushed my errant thoughts out of my head.

‘Hi
I’m David, nice to meet you. You need help finding anything? You look kind of
young to be roaming the woods by yourself.’

His
tone placated me, although I still had this innate fear of strangers, especially
young men, bred into me by my safety-conscious grandparents. Still, he appeared
genuinely warm, and I had no choice. ‘My name is Ted, but if you are not busy,
do you think you could lead me to the shoreline by the cliffs?’ I asked.

‘Ted,
it would be my pleasure, let’s go. There is no time better than the present.’
He let out a peculiar laugh, as if he was sharing a private joke with himself.

We
strolled along the road, and he began to sing a familiar tune. I recognized
that song—it was something my grandma taught me. I had happily hummed it on
occasion during moments of privacy in years past, but by now had forgotten the
lyrics. He sang badly—real badly. I felt like covering my ears or breaking my
pencil in two and plugging my ear canals with each end.

 We
were approaching the beach, and the water was rustling along the river’s shore.
I tried to peer through the near-black murky surface, but failed. Eddies of
white foam swirled about. Only by standing right in front of the powerful river
can you truly appreciate its commanding magnificence.

To
my right were the cliffs. The cliffs started out at about fifteen feet from the
water and ascended to nearly fifty. They were tall and unwavering. David stood
by as I marveled at the cliffs.

David
turned to me with a benign, but quizzical expression on his face. ‘You know
there is a kid they have been looking for out here. His name is Travis, have
you seen him?’

Dread
coursed throughout my veins. Fear knotted itself within the pit of my stomach.

Why
was he asking me?

I
stammered at first, then massaged my voice more steadily as I went on. ‘No, I
have not seen him. I have not heard of him.’

 ‘Hmm,’
he said, still staring at me.

I
nervously glanced at his expression. Still blank.

Then
he laughed and swung his head aside.

‘Well,
this is it Ted, you know a fifteen-year-old should never be in the woods by
himself, see ya later,’ David said, as he strolled away.

I
froze at his words. Robotically I said, ‘Goodbye.’

What
did he just say?

‘
A
fifteen-year-old should never be in the woods by himself
.’

Was
it a warning?

And
how did he know my age? I had never mentioned it to him.

Immediately,
I checked my amulet for clues. Indeed, it had been glowing, but now was fading
out.

I
turned my head to take stock of the whereabouts of the strange hiker. David had
already vanished.

I
decided that there was no reason to worry, everything would be all right. I was
here, at my intended destination. I shrugged. Maybe David was just darn good at
guessing people’s ages. After all, it is easier to guess the age of a teenager
than that of an older adult.

Feeling
better, I picked up some rocks and began to skip them across the water. The
first couple of stones that I grabbed were oddly shaped and plunked into the
river. I then searched for some flat circular rocks. Jason had suggested thin
and smooth rocks were the best.

I
was wasting time. I knew that soon, my grandparents would be noticing my long
absence. With their built-up apprehension, it wouldn’t be long before people
would be joining hands around the vicinity, as part of a massive manhunt,
looking for me. I took that old familiar path along the St. Croix River. As I
recessed within my memories, I recalled laughing and running up those steep
hills years before with Jason and Travis. How times had changed.

I
had to grab the base of saplings to pull my way past the steeper inclines. I
could not remember the rule in avoiding poisonous plants; leaves in groups of
three, or was it five? Whatever. I just hoped I wouldn’t encounter any. A branch
from a sapling whipped upward as I brushed by it, and its rebound sting lashed
my arm, leaving a slight abrasion on my skin.

I
completed my advancement to the highest point of the cliffs—the spot where
Jason had died. And maybe Travis, too. Tears welled up in my eyes. That large
tall oak tree, the tree that could have saved Jason, was precariously perched
on the edge of the cliff, alone and forlorn. It saved Travis, but not Jason. My
heart pounded.

When
I firmly clasped its trunk, and slowly moved my head aside past the tree to
glance at the sheer rocky outface below, I knew both of us were clinging for
dear life. I rubbed the bark. Careful not to stumble toward my death, I put my
back against the tree, and then I slowly, inch by inch, slid my back down until
I was sitting at its base.

That
day before I left for the cliffs, I had an epiphany. I believed that if I could
do no wrong, then I could not hurt myself, with
The Intervention
on
guard. Lincoln and I were certain that
The Intervention
stepped in when
it detected wrongdoing.

I
wanted to be with Jason so badly. My mind was tainted with the thought of his
death. Naive, I figured if I did something really stupid there, and if
The
Intervention
stood aside passively, I could be with Jason in heaven, On the
other hand, if the power intervened, I would simply get soaked.

I
stood up and leaned forward, nearing the edge of the cliff. The stiff wind
chilled the parts of my body that were exposed. The wind pressed on,
uninhibited, through the openings of my sleeves and slightly tickled my elbows.

When
the kids jumped from that height for the thrill, they had to climb up the tree
and out on the sturdiest branch, the one facing toward the water, before they
hurled themselves safely into the deep part of the river. It was necessary to
do so in order to avoid the vengeful sides of the cliff, which flexed roughly
outward.

The
toes of my shoes were hanging over the edge, slightly. I closed my eyes. I felt
my heels teetering at the edge of the cliff. My body swayed from the wind’s
gentle push. I was now at peace.