The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(3)

My eyes flashed a mischievous glance as I formulated a devious plan to get back at Jason for his cruel mocking of me. Running in the direction where the bus had headed, I hid behind some pine trees that were next to the “Red Bricks.”

The Red Bricks was the informal name we gave the broken-down apartment complex we lived in. The residents who lived there usually fit one of three categories; lower class families struggling to survive with the assistance of Section Eight and welfare; older kids on their own, in limbo between high school and college; or destitute old geezers who had long ago decided to wither away. The first description defined my family. People on the outside expected us Cranes to be an average family. The reality was the exact opposite.

Behind that pine tree, I sat waiting, plotting. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at—I never have. That mentality thrust me into trouble all the time.

At my feet, on the poorly maintained lawn of the apartments, there were three small well-composed rocks placed close by, taunting me like little devils. As if each had two tiny horns growing out. I picked up all three rocks and, pulling the edge of my T-shirt out, made a convenient “sling” for these objects of revenge. I straightened up behind my hiding location, giddy with anticipation. As Jason emerged within sight, surrounded by his entourage, I chucked the first stone like a four-year-old girl. With a bounce, the stone settled at Jason’s feet.

The hopping stone had distracted Jason and his friends. Startled, they looked about, still unaware of my location. That was all the fuel I needed. Any young kid could describe that giddy feeling. I was mischief, in the flesh.

They could not see me concealed behind the tree. Too bad for them. My attention snapped to the remaining two rocks, wrapped within the fold of my shirt. I didn’t even think about that second toss; it came so naturally. What I do remember is that it felt good leaving my fingertips—a perfect toss that arced like a jump shot from the three-point line.

That second rock soared ominously through the air. My target wasn’t Jason’s girlfriend Roxanne Schneider, but that was how it ended. I struck her dead on the left ear. I felt remorseful, and began a retreat into survival mode.

I should have deployed the third and remaining rock, because I had never seen Jason run that fast. I wish he had caught me. The beat-down I could have received from him was a fraction of what my dad would dish out. I think Jason just wanted to tell on me. Vigorously running up the stairs, I escaped into my unit in the complex, but I could not escape the punishment that would follow. Jason’s girlfriend Roxanne knocked on the door, waking up my dad Bill. She told my dad everything.

Next thing I knew, Jason and Roxanne were shooting me smug glances as they linked arms in solidarity on their way out of my apartment. ‘Dude, if you want to hang out, just ask me next time,’ Jason growled.

‘Yeah, Theodore, that hurt,’ Roxanne said, tilting her head back in disgust.

‘Theodore!! You know what to say, boy!’ my dad shouted, as he held my shirt by the collar.

‘I am really sorry, guys! I wasn’t trying to hit you, Roxanne!’ I yelled after my friends just before the door shut.

Pain and regret are profoundly experienced by any kid in all walks of life. In my case, my misfortune was to be the son of a father who still beats the crap out of his kid. First, the beating. Then, the grounding. Trouble was my middle name.

My dad enjoyed taking out the frustrations upon me. It was his release from his wounded pride, which resulted from his lowly position as security guard during graveyard shifts.


The punishment may have been fitting for my crime, if it was only a couple of thwacks.

I received twenty-three.

Initially, Bill had sent me to my room immediately. For now, I had escaped the prospect of a beating, although I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. As I lay there flexing my fists, full of fury, I remember thinking I would do anything to escape this place.

I had dozed off, and later I felt a chill on my feet that woke me up. The air conditioner was in my room at full blast, and I had to cover up my feet, if I was ever going back to sleep.

As I twisted, I pulled up what I thought was my blanket wrapped around my ankles. Suddenly, a snap and a bang occurred, followed by a series of booms. What I had thought was the blanket, were actually the bottoms of my spaceship curtains. As my bed lay firmly adjacent to the wall under these curtains, I had unknowingly dragged them into tangling with the creases of my blanket. The snap was the curtain rod detaching from its brackets. The bang was the rod smashing into the first of many junior encyclopedias off the nearby shelf. The booms of the heavy books pounding the floor, one at a time, were an insult to injury, because by that time my dad was standing near the foot of my bed.

There was a fearsome dangling belt beside him that could make a professional wrestler let out a triumphant, ‘Oh yeah!’

The Enforcer was two and half inches wide with metal studs. I think I saw that belt holding up the leather pants of a gas thief in a post-apocalyptic movie. It wasn’t a light plastic replication of metal, either. The studs were metal, and the belt weighed at least a pound and a half.

I knew pain because I was a familiar customer. After three strikes of the dreaded belt caused mind-searing pain, my mind went numb. Shocked to my core, I could no longer absorb any further anguish from the remaining twenty blows.

As my mind reverted to fog, my dad stood tall in front of me, withdrawing the lethal belt and rolling it up with his hands. He proudly announced the terms of the grounding: a full two weeks. I stood dumbfounded, contemplating my punishment: a couple of weeks stuck in my room, and an ass I could not sit on for days.