The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(13)

‘What have I done? Honey, I am so sorry. Please forgive me. All I care about is you. I am angry and this is how I react. I wish you would not make me this way,’ he said, busting out every cliché in the book, and infusing them all into one.

He had a big book of convenient lies, and his lips seeped more sweet-sounding poison, but I had the antidote. Before another tired cliché-mish-mash broke from the lips of the tyrant, he was interrupted by a long drawn-out tone from our phone.

It was the sound of a phone disconnected after I had completed my call to the Ferndale police station.


‘Who did you call? What did you say?’ they asked me fearfully.

I had called the one institution that I hoped would fight for me, the police. Based on the bruising, my mother’s injury, the testimony from my teachers at school, and the state of our thrashed apartment—the cops had a clear idea. Due to the shock that registered with my parents—even with their sorry history of cycles of abuse—they left me alone during the foreboding few minutes it took for the police to arrive. The prospect of jail does focus the mind wonderfully.

The events that transpired unraveled all misconceptions of my family. I, Theodore Daniel Crane, would arrive at my grandparents’ house that day. My mother’s parents.

Throughout the year, in court and in counseling, it was deemed that my parents were unsuitable. The social worker decided it was necessary for me to remain in my maternal grandparent’s custody until my parents could rehabilitate, and not just ‘talk the talk’ like a couple of failing addicts.

They never did rehabilitate.

My father did hard time in county jail, and that day at the Red Bricks was the last I would ever see of him.

My mother slipped further into depression over my father’s incarceration. She moved to Florida, where she was born. My grandparents said she was happy, and that in turn, made me happy.

“I found love in the arms of my grandparents, who were named Marvin and Laverne. Finally, I experienced triumph, despite the deeply repressed stigma of failure, which threatened to re-surface anytime if I were not careful.”





4 THEODORE: METALONS





“Every year for the next couple of years I visited Taylors Falls to pay my respects to Jason. My grandparents and I camped in the woods east of the cliffs. They loved driving north and observing the change in leaf color. What the—”

I hear the vault start to open, and I make a run for the far wall of the cell, accidentally ramming into it. I throw myself quickly into the static pose.

“Prisoner, are you talking to yourself in here? Do I need to get the warden?”

I shake my head and say, “I am talking into this tablet.” Looking down, I realize the tablet is absent from my hands.

“I have been watching you for about an hour now, and that tablet has not been activated. I am going to shut the door, if you so much as fart while it is closing—I will flame you up so quick!”

“Yes, sir.”

I worry about wasting my time, and that I might be losing my mind. My pants are dry, but they still stink. My tablet is sitting flat on the mat, off and charging. I pick it up quickly, irrational in my concern that it will not work anymore.

I slide my finger across the screen to activate it, and I jump up and down.

“Yes, I knew you were not broken!” That’s how dubious my mental state was. The tablet was my only friend in the prison, and here I was, experiencing separation anxiety with this cold, rigid device. I definitely need warm human conversation and contact.

“Is there a problem in there, prisoner?”

“No sir,” I say, and I start up right away to satisfy my longing for it. Under my breath, I continue, “I wish some people would mind their own business.”

“What is that, prisoner, did you say something?”

I lower my voice to a squeak and say, “No, nothing.”

I caress my new toy; the tablet is on and working great, so I start by saying, “Okay it is only you and I now, so let’s begin. Each visit to the cliffs I did the same ritual. I hiked up the cliff, yelled out Jason’s name—loud enough to disturb the dead, and carved an inspirational message in the lone tree at the top. Almost every time that I returned to the scene, I found that my words were ignominiously overlayed by fresh carvings left behind by other people.”

The ground was at times littered with the remains of a party. Another annoyance was the shards of glass from broken bottles or the occasional revolting needle or tourniquet. I thought the drunken punks that wandered the cliffs on the weekends were defacing my etchings.

The next trip to Taylors Falls was the last time I could practice the tradition.

It was 2016, two years after Jason’s accident. I was fifteen years old and still could not command enough charisma to increase my popularity. I spurted quite a bit, but I wasn’t attracting the girls—just yet.

My hair sprouted sandy in color. I was a dirty blond, my grandmother proclaimed. I was still a twig of a boy and was tanned from cruising around town on my bicycle.

My eyes were still bluish-green in color. My granny Laverne always compared them to an old print of a ship at sea, mounted above her bed. She said that when she looked deep into my eyes, she could see that eager ship battling the raging waves. My grandmother was as tall as I was, with a curly permed hairdo and a face that was cute like a kitten.