The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" (2 page)

After
several more minutes, I once again became restless. Muted voices—those of
boys—lassoed my attention. They sounded familiar. 

I
heard Jason talking outside, and I rose up to look through my window. That was
the day I first saw Travis Jackson.

Travis
stood taller than Jason did by at least a head’s length. He had chestnut hair
and a prominent nose like a gladiator’s. I was watching from my bedroom when I saw
Jason shaking Travis’s hand. I could only see the tops of their heads.

Travis
was new to the Red Bricks. He moved in that day. If I was there to meet him in
person, I might have known his pain from the sight of him. I would come to find
out later Travis was abused by his father, like me. Travis and Jason were the
same age as me, and I wanted to be a part of their instantly formed clique.
Badly.

‘Welcome
to the corniest place on Earth, dude,’ Jason said.

‘Is
there really a lot of corn here?’ Travis snickered.

‘No,
this place just sucks, but there are some cute girls who live in Century
Place,’ Jason said, answering Travis’s odd query. ‘Did you see anything cool on
your trip up here?’

‘Well,
if you consider twenty dead armadillos on the side of the road cool. We saw a
motorcycle accident. There was a dead dude and I think he was gone because they
wrapped him in a bag,’ Travis answered.

‘Wow,’
Jason said. Travis excited him, and I think that is when they became pals.
Travis picked up on Jason’s excitement. ‘Do you want to see my new place?’
Jason nodded his head, and they both walked toward the front door of the
building.

I
liked Jason, because he was intriguing. I ached to become closer friends with
him. He had set fire to the plains surrounding our area before they were paved
over for suburbia. Jason was bad, and that was interesting.

Jason
always cuffed his pants about two inches up from his shoes and wore shirts that
were stretched in the neck from being so rough with other kids. He had brown
hair, and his eyes were always welcoming—even if you knew he was about to pull
off a prank the next second. He had the charisma I was missing. He lived in the
complex just across the drab courtyard, which was nothing but a square of
parched crabgrass, really.

“I
once again became aware of very distant, muted voices that sounded exactly like
those a few minutes ago. These voices were emanating from through my bedroom
floor, which like all the other floors and walls, was paper-thin in this crummy
building. In a kneeling position, I placed my ear down on the cold surface. I
could hear Travis and Jason in the apartment below!
This must be where
Travis’s new apartment is!
Stoked about my discovery, I heard Jason carry
on to Travis about his old prank in setting fire to the woods in front of our
apartments.”

Water.

My
mind jolts back to reality, to the present day. Without saliva, my tongue feels
parched against the roof of my mouth. Sitting in this cell is bad enough; I am
wasting energy telling stories to a computer. Of course, now the battery is
dying. The beeping indicator notifies me repeatedly that the device will soon
shut down.

“Guard.
I need some water and a charger for this damn computer. Guard!”

The
intercom cues up with a buzz and click. The guard says, “Step back! I said,
step back!”

Beyond
the view box opening, he throws a splash of water at me, and I catch it with my
shirt. I am no stranger to thirst, and I don’t think twice. I wring out the
water that he tossed, over my lips, and into my mouth. He tells me the device
will charge when it isn’t in use. It makes sense to me.

“Get
back to it, prisoner!”

Without
a thought, conditioned by several months of brutality in solitary confinement,
I meekly say, “Yes, sir.” I will not sass him. Prison guards are notorious for
lashing out, and it is usually a group effort. My side still throbs and
continues to swell from the prod.
Back to it
, I guess. I should get back
to how this all started, but it feels good to talk about my family—yes. Tears
run down my cheeks. Even with the upsetting memories swirling around in my
head, I know a universal truth—a child cannot “unlove” his parents.

“It
was the second to the last day of my grounding. I was still bored in bed,
having re-read my adventure books for the third time. There was a beam of light
entering through the window, and I was fascinated by the highlighted dust I
could scatter around with my hand.”

There
was a brisk smell of possibly an early frost in the air. I had my window open,
and I could hear some couple outside yelling at each other at eight in the
morning. They were fighting about the garbage, of all things. Apparently, she
threw out his sports listing and a bottle of high fat milk that was ninety-five
percent depleted anyway.

My
calico cat Meghan entered the room. She hopped into my lap and kneaded my
belly. There was sudden excitement on her face, because a fly had just snuck
through a dime-sized hole through the mesh screen of my window. My cat went
into a berserk attack mode. It was thrilling. I was cheering her on. Meghan
snagged the fly with her claw, and brought it to her mouth.

‘Please
no, don’t eat it whatever you do!’ I exclaimed, forgetting my dad was asleep.

She
ate it. Immediately, the contents of my stomach became the contents of my
throat, then mouth. I was like a bulimic squirrel. I ran toward the bathroom as
fast as I could, puking with sporadic bursts on the tan apartment carpeting in
the hallway, despite my hands over my mouth. Just before I reached the
bathroom, I encountered an immovable force—my dad.

‘What
in the hell is going on here Theodore? You are puking all over my God damn
house?’ my dad asked furiously. His face was red on the left side, probably
from sleeping awkwardly, and his mustache was crinkled at the left corner of
his upper lip as it twitched.

I
firmly pressed my left hand against my mouth, still in a delicate state. I
pointed with my right index finger to my face, with pleading eyes, and he
reluctantly understood.

‘Go
clean yourself up!’ he roared at me as he shoved me in the bathroom, closing
the door onto me.

Gasping,
I finished off my vomit in the porcelain sink. As my stomach dry heaved, I knew
there was no more to come. Deadly afraid that my dad would open the door any
moment, I quickly splashed water on my face and grabbed a towel to dry myself
off.

My
premonition proved correct. The door flung wide open as my father, out of
control, grasped me by my pajamas collar. He shoved me, still maintaining a
steel grip on my collar, toward the scene of the crime. Splotches of vomit
still decked the hallway, plus some backsplash on the walls near the floor.

Spinning
me around ferociously, he clasped his rough hands around my neck, and just like
that, lifted me off the floor, my feet dangling. In that fateful moment, two
lessons were branded on me like a searing cattle prod. Abuse of power was the
first lesson—a familiar one he had pummeled into me several times in the past.
Second—and the most fresh and damning—my dad could drain the life from my body
any time he wanted. My dad wasn’t trying to strangle me. Rather, he was showing
me that he held the power and that one wrong move could mean the end.

My
feet were not touching the floor, and it was a good indication that the trial
wasn’t over. I swallowed the rest of my puke. It tasted extremely acidic with
crunchy peanut butter
a la mode
. Then, the balls of my feet hit the
carpet, stiff in the spot where someone spilled mustard weeks before, and I
realized that it was over. My dad faded into the darkness of the hallway and
disappeared behind the slam of a bedroom door.

After
spending the next hour trying to clean up the vomit, I set up a war game in my
room. I wore myself out marshaling my anger into a fierce engagement. Mainly,
the battle was between a plastic muscular commando and his army of transforming
robots, versus the relentless onslaught of monochromatic green army men with
baseplates. They were essential to any army or battle scene forged by the
imagination of a kid.

The
day crept on. When it was dark out, a sweeping series of elongated shadows
intermingled on my floor, as the bright lamp on my dresser relentlessly shone
through the darting miniature figures embroiled into battle.

It
was now way past bedtime, and no one had yet checked on me. Exhausted yet still
haywire from my war games, I retreated quickly to my blankets after I turned
off the lights. I had darted across the floor as if it was sprinkled with hot
coals. Once under my blanket, I hummed a popular cartoon theme song.

My
eyes shuttered and slowly began to close. Just as my eyes were about to close
entirely, something bizarre, shimmering with iridescence, slipped in through my
window.

I
sat up quickly, and the blood rushing through my head made me wobble. Hovering
just above my feet at the end of the bed, the strange object glowed and
flickered against the walls in my room. It was a warm and gentle light. I
gasped. Was it a tiny spaceship?

The
object bearing the multicolored radiance steadily hummed as it deliberately
glided toward me. Its trajectory was in line with my window sill. Now, it was
as if anti-freeze was being poured into  the crevices in my brain. Panicking, I
inched to my side away from the hovering object, feeling the full effect of the
“flight” instinct. In doing so, I fell off my bed and thudded clumsily against
the floor. Panting, I sat up on the floor, placed my hands at the edge of the
bed, and peeked over my comforter that was bundled upward.

‘What!
Is this for real?’ I exclaimed.

The
object was foreign and weird. It had a jewel the size of a quarter linked to a
necklace. Finally, as if surrendering, it stopped glowing, quickly descended
right before my eyes, and landed on the apex of a blanket wrinkle. I leaned in
and held out my hand to scoop it up. Suddenly, like the projector at a
drive-in, it emitted a luminescent array of cryptic characters through the
darkness, against my bedroom wall. The message read—

Theodore,
you may be our only hope. Keep this around your neck, because someday it will
be the only thing preventing your death and the ruin of the multiverse - K. T.

—or
something like that. The glowing message simply vanished before I could commit
it to memory. I brought my hands closer to grasp the amulet, supposedly the
premonition of my fate. Once in hand, it felt warm, like the side of my TV.
When I thought it to be safe, I gingerly lay the strings around my neck.
Reluctantly releasing my grip on the amulet for a few seconds, I clicked
together the links at the ends of the necklace. As my eyes grew wide with
wonder, the necklace itself miraculously retracted to snugly fit my
pencil-shaped neck.
Cool
. Once the necklace was secured, I clasped the
amulet itself as if I could never let it go. Didn’t want to risk it, you see.
What kid wants to die, or ruin the multiverse?

“As
I crawled onto the bed, I wondered what the multiverse might want with a dork
like me—and who was K. T.? I figured it to be a dream. I gripped the prismatic
jewel firmly, and continued to hum until another day of grounding diminished. I
fell asleep.”

I
stop recording. I look at the gloomy walls of my prison cell, feeling at one
with my just-concluded parable of me falling asleep. I yawn. Enough talking. I
will sleep for now in this place in hell, having had the satisfaction of
venting my past.

I
turn off the tablet and allow it to charge. Lying down on the mats causes my
side to sting. I roll over to position myself in a way that is comfortable,
with my back against the floor.

Staring
down multiple barrels of a chain gun is a situation not too far from the normal
reality outside of this fortress. Closing my eyes, I fantasize about my escape
from prison for the hundred and fourteenth time.

3 Theodore: The tragedy at taylors falls

True
freedom is the product of defeated burdens and an admiration for one’s past.
Those days, I must have deserved a brief liberation.

I
sit in prison, with a tablet in hand, providing intelligence to the Multiversal
Council—which itself deserves nothing from me. I know they proclaim their
neutral position, but I still will alter information slightly to avoid
implication. I slide my finger across the screen to record, and I start:

“Alright,
finally, my grounding at home had ended. Exhilarated, I felt as if I were ready
for ‘lift-off.’ It was the end of one of my longest stints in ‘
Crane County
Jail
.’ That morning before school, as I lovingly rubbed my amulet which lay
on my chest, I reminded myself that the vision of it flittering about in my
room was not a dream—perhaps linked to my fate—but real on all accounts.”

The
very next day was several uneventful hours at school. On the bus, heading into
the direction of the Red Bricks, I once again admired my amulet. I had
daydreamed about it so often in class, that two teachers had snapped at me to
pay attention. At the back of the bus sat Jason and Travis, laughing out loud
together every thirty seconds during their frenzied, non-stop jabbering. If it
weren’t for the new strange object that was now mine, I would have felt a
strong pang of jealousy. The bus halted at our regular stop, and we three
stepped off.

Still
in a trance, I headed to the park to play by myself. I didn’t have confidence
that Jason could tear himself away from Travis to be with me.

‘Hey,
Theodore! You want to come to our fort?’ someone asked. I turned, curious. It
was Jason, with the widest grin on his face. Jason, with Travis eagerly looking
on, invited me to his fort, which was nice, but today was different. The
astonishing discovery last night still captivated me, and I wanted to be alone
with my amulet. I had the fleeting thought that just this once, I should play
hard to get. It would serve Jason right.

‘Nah,
I have something I need to do. You guys go on without me,’ I said.

‘Come
on Jason, let’s go! I have to go ask my dad if I can go,’ Travis said.

Leaving
behind my stunned friends, I ran to the park. It was a sweltering day. The sky
was vast and blue. Gazing at the Red Bricks, which bordered the park, I felt
that the dilapidated complex could have devoured me whole or crushed me
completely just because of its huge size. Its monolithic presence was slightly
creepy, casting a huge shadow over the park.

Shuddering
at how even my home could cause trepidation inside myself, I just had to climb
a tree to achieve a better vantage point and fiddle with my amulet in private.
I was now focused on a particular tree just down from the courtyard in the Red
Bricks. Even though it was awfully close to my residence, it had those awesome
thick limbs that stuck out sideways and enabled me to climb like a squirrel.

 I
arrived at the base of the desired tree, and there was no one in sight. There
were cars in the lot, a few of which lacked working engines or were up on
concrete blocks due to having their rims jacked.

As
I ascended the formidable tree, I felt like I was entering a different realm.
The theme music to a weird mystery show was blaring from someone’s living room
window on the first floor. Safely ensconced on a thick branch, I squeezed my
eyes shut, mentally blocking out the music.

As
if awakened by the beat, the amulet glowed through my shirt. I was spellbound,
staring at it. There were noisy laundry rooms in use on two floors. I briefly
jived to the rhythm of the washer’s rotation and the percussion of a pair of
shoes in the dryer. Excited, I discovered that the amulet was glowing in tandem
with the intricate melody of background sounds! Eager to start climbing the
more narrow branches toward the thinning canopy of the tree, I ditched my
shoes, and they rolled away on the ground.

“The
bark felt rough against my feet. My clumsy forearms scraped from the trunk,
adding to a collection of wounds that symbolized my childhood fun. The tree was
covered in green lichen.”

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.