The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(42)

‘What do we have here? A couple of aspiring shredders! What is up, dudes?’ Dan asked, as he carved the corner of the street.

Dan Anderson, otherwise known as Dangling Dan Anderson was sixteen years old, and our next target. Perfect timing. Dan was about the same height as me, which was just over five feet. His hair was brown and mohawked. His shoes had their giant tongues stretched halfway up to his shins. Being an adolescent, his face farmed a bit of facial hair that looked like peach fuzz.

When Dan was fourteen, he was at Fulton’s baseball fields, skating around the pavilion. That day, he took a break to rest his back against the pavilion walls. His friends were standing in front of him, chatting. One of the kids looked over and noticed something that was amusing. Dan had recently ripped his pants on a failed trick and there, draped out on the ground—through his torn up-jeans—laid Dan’s family jewels. They were displayed so prominently and unforgettable, that even Dan laughed at what happened, and he didn’t care in the slightest. The nickname stuck.

Dan was hard to impress and was volatile. On occasion, he stomped his skateboard in half or banged it against his head if he didn’t land a trick. That was his trademark personality quirk. Our plan for Dan was somewhat weak. We wanted to lure him into a game of SKATE, and impress him with our moves, mainly my kick-flip, and then coax him into our group.

The one true problem with that mission: Dan was a master among novices. Everything I did, he did way better. He was so good, I always tracked his superb moves and re-framed them into “slow motion” in my mind. He ripped the Hearth apart. He was amazing.

Three-sixty kick-flips, switch hard-flips, and anything else I could think of, he would accomplish after a few minimal attempts. Let’s face it, he was a pro in the game of SKATE. He didn’t need X73-21’s to soar. That kid could soar on his talent alone, and he flew in a sense that there were grace and beauty in what he did.

‘Hey Dan, you want to play SKATE?’ I asked.

‘You are damn right I do,’ he answered. ‘I have been waiting all day. Let’s do this.’ He was starving for action.

For about an hour, we shredded. Lincoln and I lost to Dan, and then we all shredded some more. We two lost and well—we lost some more. It was ugly, and my kick-flips were not bringing in the shock and awe in the way I needed them.

As the competition ground on, my stomach started to hurt, dismaying me with its lousy timing. Suddenly, my innards felt like they were twisting and imploding within. Constipation was about to burst. I needed a bathroom. There wasn’t a port-a-potty around to take care of business. For once, I admired women for carrying well-stocked purses—they never seemed to be out of tissue.

A twisting and wrenching pain rose up from the depths of my bowels to haunt me. It was my stomach, and it was becoming worse. I found myself pinching my butt cheeks together to hold it in, but the beast needed to escape.

I needed to do a major class two upload into the forest. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill bathroom break. It was a steaming, rolling, and writhing burn that twisted my insides. I had about three hundred yards to the forest, which now looked daunting.

‘Dude, I have to go,’ I said, looking toward Lincoln.

I fervently thrust away at my skateboard, steering it toward my dump destination as fast as I could. My legs felt the burn from pushing against the ground so robustly. I didn’t want to use my X73-21’s because I worried everyone was watching me. The faster I skated, the harder the monster within my bowels tried to breach the threshold. The rough parking lot blacktop sent vibrations up my legs, causing even more discomfort.

I was about half of the way to the forest, when I began to run, and that was a big mistake. The running churned the movement within my bowels, and then I farted. I was about ten feet from the finish line, and the blast to the insides of the legs of my pants was devastating. My trousers were now one giant stinking, high-to-heaven stink that could kill any cockroaches that lay in its path. I was soiled, and my innocent pants were defeated by one of the fiercest poops known to man.

There were two semi-trailers affording a convenient cover for my entry into the woods. I took down my pants, removed them, and tried to clean up with some surrounding leaves.

It was tough because most of the items of foliage in the woods were small and useless. The smell was absolutely wicked and morphed repugnantly into the deadliest of nose burning stenches. I cleaned up my legs and butt as much as one could in my situation, unavoidably smearing some of that brown stuff on my fingers and thumbs despite my best intentions.

In conclusion, I had no decent pair of pants, and I somehow needed to complete the mission before I went home. Which was: to find out whether Dan was fit for our team.

With my pants devastated by the brown contents of my butt, there was nothing left to do but try to get Lincoln’s attention. I needed a way out. I edged the semi-trailer and hung the clothed portion of my body by the hitch side of it. I yelled out to Lincoln.

‘What’s wrong, Ted?’ Lincoln yelled from the group. ‘C’mon guys, let’s go see what is up.’ Oh no! How many mistakes can one person make in an hour’s time? I think I was on pace to break the record. I didn’t want the entire crew to see me. Lincoln, with no clue as to the disaster lurking ahead, was leading the whole party of grungy skaters toward me while I cowered behind the trailer.


As they quickly made their way over, Dan looked upon my face. He must have been able to decipher my bright-red complexion, because he yelled, ‘Wait, guys! I think there is something up. Lincoln, why don't you just go see what is wrong with your bro.’