The Acolytes of Crane

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.

It was then my stomach sank. Travis suddenly cowered, and guiltily looked past me. I knew that meant only one thing: I was in deep doo-doo.

As if I were being recorded in slow motion on video, my head slowly turned around. Ms. Bricky, a tall, ramrod woman with horn-rimmed glasses and wrinkles deep-lining her rigid face, was futilely patting at a huge water stain on her dress, just below her sagging boobs. I realized what had happened. Ms. Bricky was just about to nab me for leaving class unsupervised. And Travis had accidentally spit water on her. Now this was worse. Much, much worse.

She grabbed me firmly by my arm; any harder, and she would have broken it. We called her the Bricky because her body had a boxy shape, and she could have moonlighted as a professional wrestler.

After leaving the class in the hands of a teacher’s aide, the Bricky started marching me down the hallway, en route to the principal’s office. Travis witnessed the entire spectacle, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

With the Bricky’s steely grip latched onto my biceps, I passed a group of girls who were giggling and pointing at me. My heart sank as I realized one of those girls was Mariah Espinosa.

In track meets, she finished first place in the events that the boys typically dominated. She was bright, beautiful, and she made me feel as if I had happily died and gone to heaven. It was magical listening to her musical-sounding Spanish banter and watching her thick black hair sway about her shoulders, while she gestured with her hands.

I arrived at the office of Miss Pinckney, the principal. ‘Why did you do this Theodore?’ she moaned—and not for the first time, either. Reluctantly, I answered, explaining what had happened at the water fountain. I admit it felt good to tell the truth. She picked up the phone, and dialed up my mother while my stomach remained twisted in knots. I kept staring at her perfectly coiffured hairdo as I listened to everything she said to my mother. ‘Uh huh,’ Miss Pinckney said, as she decisively lowered the phone back into its holder. “Your mother’s on her way.”

I knew Ann had been at home packing for our trip to Taylors Falls. I wasn’t looking forward to her coming to my school, because my friend Jason was supposed to go to the falls with us and I didn’t want to ruin that.

Taylors Falls was north of the Twin Cities. It was breathtakingly beautiful in autumn, when the colors of red, orange, and yellow proudly staked out their domain over the forest canopy. The numerous cliffs of Taylors Falls had eons ago been carved out and shaped by the powerful St. Croix River. To miss such a craved opportunity to escape the Red Bricks over mischief would have been a shame.


At school, I waited for further pain and loss from my family, as I fully expected my dad would cancel our trip to Taylors Falls. I knew what was coming, and I would have liked to crawl through a rabbit hole to disappear.

From Miss Pinckney’s window, I could see my mother Ann pull up in her long shiny black car, with red trim riding down the side of it. It was a gift from my maternal grandparents. They had a couple of successful small businesses that afforded them the cash to buy extravagant gifts.

When my mom stepped out of the vehicle, I could tell she was upset, because she almost tripped over the curb. She wanted to get to me. Her weapon of choice at home was the wooden spoon.

The door of the principal’s office swung open, and my mother stood stiffly before me, as if she meant business. ‘What did he do this time?’ Ann demanded, with her hands over her hips and eyes that could burn through a concrete road barrier. ‘Wait till your dad gets a hold of you!’

‘Your son kicked a boy in the private area today and from what he told us we reasoned to believe that he learned this action from his father. You don’t condone this type of action, do you Mrs. Crane?’ Miss Pinckney asked, as she strutted across the room in her hideous pink suit-dress. If Miss Pinckney waved her finger one more time, my mom would have chewed it off her hand in one bite.

Ann scoffed and said, ‘Of course not. Why his father?’

‘I am curious, what would his father do?’ Miss Pinckney asked, suddenly softening her tone. ‘What will you do to discipline him? Theodore told me that his dad hits him. Is this true?’ Stunned, I looked at my principal as she faced my mother. It appeared as if the revelation had softened my principal’s harsh expression, and now she was pleading to protect me.

Ann looked ferociously angry. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth draped open. I could probably fit the end of a pop can in it.

Without retort, she yanked my arm and dragged me to the car. Once inside, she screamed at me. She told me, not for the first time, that she had never planned on having me, and that I was an ‘accident.’

I screamed back at her, ‘You guys don’t care about me. You and dad are jerks!’

The car screeched to a stop.

‘Get out of the car, you little son of a bitch!’ she said with spit flying, causing me to wipe my eyes. Oddly, I was distracted by her faint, but perceptible moustache too.

Shaken, I opened the door wide and put one foot on the ground. Appearing flustered and apologetic, she told me to get back in. Confused, I started to shift my weight back into the car. As if Ann had a panic attack, she shifted the car forward with a burst, causing me to lose my balance. Panting heavily with my adrenalin out of control, I grabbed onto the handle of my door, with the toe of my sneaker scraping along the pavement. I feared I would fall onto the asphalt and be run over by the car.

“I’m sorry, Ted,” my mother gasped as she realized she had lost control of her senses. She gazed at me with pleading eyes.

I solemnly entered the car, closed the door, and we took off. When we both stopped crying, there was silence.

Punctuating our brooding silence, the horn blared as my mother firmly swerved her steering wheel. We knowingly looked at each other and, to our mutual relief, exchanged the thinnest of smiles. My mom’s car looked nice and had a great interior, but every time she made a hard right, the horn went off. It was something that only seemed to occur in the best of times to bring about some humor.

I sat there briefly thinking about our engagement, but I was distracted by a pressing desire to pee, and I twisted my legs like pretzels in hope of deterring the urgency.

We finally arrived home, and I ran off to the bathroom.

Since my misdeed had occurred “offside” from my father’s domain, he laughed it off as a school incident. I think he just liked hearing about how a guy got it in the nuts. From there it went into parental “damage control” overdrive. Ann called Travis’s dad and told him about the entire thing. I was worried that Travis himself would catch a beating. It wasn’t what I planned to do. I was carried away with the whole thing. But, no. Nothing immediate would happen to Travis, to my relief. You see, the four parents involved all had an “adult” discussion in bits and pieces and gleefully conspired to make things right.

So it was all settled. Despite the ordeal, we Cranes still made the trip to Taylors Falls, on one condition: Travis had to go. Since Jason was already invited, I sarcastically imagined he would be thrilled to bits at the last-minute invite extended to Travis.

“Yes, my father and Travis’s father decided that it would be good for us to be men about it, and it would help if we were forced into hanging with each other. Travis, Jason, and I—we all rode to the cliffs, squished together in the back of a Chrysler Lebaron. I wasn’t happy, but thankfully, Jason sat between us.”

I glance at my recording device, my throat hoarse. I stand up and pace for a moment, then lean against this wall, sliding my back downward until my butt touches the gritty floor.

There is only a bit of muscle or fat between my bones and the hardness of the cell. I sigh. Every rustle and scrape seems loud against the silence. Even when I refresh my mouth, I can sense tiny ‘slurps,’ as my saliva courses through the gaps between my teeth.

Where my tailbone meets the floor, I slip my hand underneath my butt to futilely cushion the impact. I am feeling weak and skinny. My body has long been deteriorating in this hell hole.

I realize that even the acts of pacing and speaking into the tablet exhaust me. There is no rest in a small cell when oppressive boredom stalks you, minute by minute, and all you have are your own memories to entertain and torment you.

I pick the tablet up, and even though it is light like a full can of pop, my limp fingers buckle under its weight. Gravity almost snatches the tablet out of my palm, but I rescue it at the last second. Turning it on, I warily see double images, and figure it is best to get on with it before I pass out.

“Okay, now for the dirty business.” I say, breathing deeply to tally some strength to push through, “In the car, we were joking, singing, and producing fart sounds. It was amazing what a vacation would do to people: it has an amnesiac effect.”



Jason and Travis talked quietly about something. They whispered, to evade earshot, and the sound of psychedelic rock from the car radio masked their conspiring.

‘I actually thought MJ sounded like a wimp,’ Jason whispered.

‘Jason, I hate to break your heart, but that was a pre-recorded message. You didn’t say anything. So what makes you think a professional ball player would take the time to talk to you?’ Travis asked, with a whisper and a roll of his eyes. Jason shrugged his shoulders, crossed his arms, and leaned toward Travis’s face, as if about to break a sinister secret.

‘Your breath smells like a cow’s butt-hole,’ Travis said, deliberately not whispering enough.

Everyone heard him, and after a slight pause, we all laughed. Now, let me tell you about what they were speaking of previously.

See, they snuck a football-shaped phone into Jason’s room, and they used it to call the code nine-hundred numbers displayed on sports card packages. They also pranked a suburban cab company twenty times. The cab company’s number was (651) 555-2222. Really, what did they expect?

The trip continued. After all these games of padiddle and slug-bug, I grew tired enough to fall asleep.

I awoke as our journey neared the end, covered in sweat and greeted by Jason’s armpit stench. His hand was cupped against his underarm, ripping manufactured farts and wafting body odor in my direction. It was playful and funny.


We drove through the town of Taylors Falls; there were many people hauling the necessary camping equipment. People had kayaks, canoes, fishing poles and tackle. Excitement hung in the air. The woods were thick, and the ground around the base of each tree was woven with ferns and other vegetation.

I could smell the presence of a river. It smelled fresh and brisk rather than give off the odor of a port-a-potty. If you wanted that pungent smell, go visit the Mississippi River on one of its best days.

We stopped to fuel up. I pressed my face against the window of my parents’ car to make a face at a neighboring vehicle that also had a kid pressing his face against a window.

I contorted my face to look ugly, so I took it as a win. I left the trace of my oily skin from my nose and forehead onto the window. I then wiped them away quickly with the edge of my shirt, because my dad hated such nonsense.

After leaving the station, we drove about a mile to the campsite, parked, and it was time to unpack. My mom and dad waved us off, preferring to set up tent without us kids horseplaying around.

‘Here are the ground rules, guys,’ my dad said, even as he looked up at the darkening sky; a storm seemed to be approaching. He always set guidelines, even though he rarely abided by any. ‘No cliff jumping. That crap is for the older kids and grown-ups. If I catch you guys doing anything out of the ordinary, which includes pyrotechnics, Jason—you will be in for hell. Do you guys understand me?’

‘Yes sir,’ we all said in harmony, with false motivation.

We were instructed to walk east if we became lost, and to look for the fire. ‘Which would be difficult if it rains,’ I pointed out. My dad just shrugged.

As soon as Bill cut us loose, we started to rush to the wood-line, eagerly grabbing our compasses and flashlights. My dad yelled for me to come back before I got very far. Checking to make sure that Jason and Travis were out of earshot, he whispered conspiratorially to me, ‘Good job teaching that boy a lesson today in class. He will not mess with you again.’ Bill patted me on my ass and told me to catch up to them. He hardly ever gave me praise for anything; and when he did, it was always for the wrong reason. Still, I’d take what I could get.

It was a mad sprint, but eventually I met up with Jason and Travis.

We took the worn paths along the edge of the cliffs. The weather took a turn for the worse, as drizzling rain fell and temperatures plunged. The sky was dark and sinister, as a storm approached.

I had a coat on that my grandmother bought me from Big-Mart, back when it was actually a cool place to shop. On the coat, there was a label: Flyboy. I thought that was so cool.

When we had finally arrived at the highest cliff, we found ourselves peering out to the gloomy river, a sheer fifty feet below. Perhaps it was the worsening weather, combined with the dizzying sight from the cliffs, but when we rested, the mood among us changed entirely.

‘You retard! What were you thinking? I can’t believe you kicked me in the nuts!’ Travis shouted, his eyes scrunched. ‘You’re lucky the Bricky was right behind you, otherwise it would have been your death wish!’

‘Whoa,’ I said, caught off guard. ‘What’s gotten into your beehive now?’

Jason said, ‘Travis, you have been tough on him, though, picking on him and stuff.’

‘I don’t care,’ Travis said, and shoved me. Jason jumped in.

‘You don’t need to push him, Travis!’ Jason said.

I stood tall, realizing Jason had just stuck up for me.

Trying to calm Travis down, I desperately tried to figure out what set him off. ‘Is this about your dad beating you? Because...’

‘What!’ Jason turned to Travis, stunned.

Travis glowered with a dangerous look in his eyes. ‘No,’ he sneered, ‘it’s all about you.’ He grabbed my collar and read out loud the label on it. ‘Flyboy, it should say freak-boy.’

Jason leaned over and whispered, ‘Don’t take that crap from anyone, Theodore.”

Despite Jason’s gesture, I just lost my temper. I grabbed Travis’s shoulder, and as he swung out in defense, I received the point of his elbow cleanly on my nose. My nostrils were pouring blood, and once the blood hit my hands, my rage knew no limits. I charged Travis. I was fueled by the hatred of being belittled and battered for so long.

All my peripheral vision went black, and at the end of the tunnel was my nemesis. In the thick of the frenzy, I felt Jason’s presence as his hands split the two of us, trying desperately to break up the fight.

The storm delivered a thwack and boom of thunder. My necklace shone bright in the dark wild terror of the fight, and I feared they would see the amulet. The rain drenched our altercation in downpour. Drops of water dripped downward off the edge of my hood, creating a curtain of water that obstructed my sight. I took in water through my nostrils from my heavy breathing.

Travis lost his step near the edge of the cliff, and in reaction, grabbed onto Jason for safety. When Jason also started to stumble toward the precipice, Travis reached desperately for the tree next to him, grabbing a branch to safety. In contrast, Jason had nothing to hold on to.

Looking up from my burning amulet, I reached for Jason’s jacket. I had it in my hand for a second, but the downpour loosened my grip. Jason slipped from my grasp.

Travis and I watched in horror, kneeling over the edge, as our best friend fell down the side of the cliff. Jason’s last act of his life—his blood-curdling scream—struck terror into our hearts, creating an indelible memory of sheer horror. The sound of a lifeless body smacked the water, and all that remained was the rain pattering the stone of the cliffs. Aided by a flash of lightning, Travis and I see Jason’s body as he floated lifeless with the river’s current.

“Then, the rumble of the thunder came, and all was engulfed by blackness and eerie calm. Jason’s life was taken by the rocky sides of the cliff and the murky waters below it.”

I glance around at the equally foreboding gloominess of my prison cell. While shedding a tear at Jason’s memory, I figure I cannot afford to waste a drop more, because I am at point of severe dehydration. Mustering my courage, I wipe away the tear. My body sinks slowly to the mat on the hard floor as I am overcome with exhaustion.

Time goes by, as I drift in and out of consciousness.

“Roll him over,” one of the guards says. “You forgot to restrain him, you idiot. Fire up the cannon and keep it locked on eight-six-seven-five’s signature. Do you have any idea who this is?”

“He’s asleep, boss,” the rookie says.

Between blinks, I see the veteran guard does not look like he wants to be here today. He says to his colleague, “I will put you to sleep, if you screw up again, rookie. Grab him up under the armpits there. I will slip the temporalysis over his head.” As the device is placed behind my head, its bands magically wrap around my skull, and its nodes press hard at my temples. I stir somewhat.

“Hey, that temporalysis thing really works. He was as limp as a dead fish, now look at him! Who is he?”

“He is Theodore Crane.”

“No way! I should’ve known!”

“It’s okay, rookie. It’s your first day. Come, I will tell you a secret. He isn’t the toughest prisoner in here.”

The rookie asks, “Really?”

“We have the Ghost of Sephera here, as well,” the veteran guard says, and the rookie’s eyes light up. Strategic information about the prison is being blabbed away, because the two knuckleheads handling me believe I am still unconscious. The veteran guard sees me recover further, and he promptly shuts up, then says, “We will have the nurse check on him and then we’re out. Nurse! Get your ass in here.”


The nurse rushes in. She pierces my skin painlessly and hooks up a saline feeder tube. After she injects something into the line, I suddenly become jittery. My bladder is near explosion; my willpower is nil, and thus I am left with only the humiliation of unloading.

“Haha! He pissed himself,” the rookie says.

“Guns at the ready, rookie,” the guard says.

“Oops,” said the nurse, looking down at the ground next to me. She turned her head angrily at the turrets and shouted, “Look what you’ve done! You’ve scared me!”

“Sorry, missus,” the guard apologizes. Apparently his hardened persona could soften at the sight of a pretty nurse.

She kneels down into the ground, searching for an object. “Got it. I dropped a needle. Alright sirs, I am finished,” the nurse announces out loud. Before standing up, she leans in close next to my ear. Her lips are but a hair-width away, and she breathlessly whispers to me, “See you, Theo.” Aroused, I recognize her voice, but it would not be the first time my ears play a trick on me.

The guard removes the temporalysis and I bounce up quickly to identify the woman, because few ever call me by that name. The rookie perceives my alertness as a show of strength and yells, “Keep your head down prisoner! Don’t move. The turret cannon is on you.”

The veteran looks at the rookie and says, “Good job, kid.”

I cower at the thought of the formidable weapon trained upon my head. I take off my clothes to let them dry, becoming stark naked in the chilly damp air. I am beyond embarrassment.

I pick up the tablet and continue anything to keep my mind off the current situation. I cannot cry, because weeping will dehydrate me further. Picking up the tablet, I begin:

“We went to Jason’s wake and then his funeral. I never saw such sadness before. The casket was two-thirds the size of my great grandfather Willard’s.”

Travis glared at me from across the room where Jason lay. Even though I felt Jason’s death was an accident, Travis seemed as if he was holding me responsible.

We left the funeral and while we drove along the road in my mom’s car, I stared out the window. My mom was in tears. I tried to console her, but she was saddened by the death of Jason deeply, as if he was her own son. She blamed herself, moaning that she should’ve never allowed us three to head toward the cliff. No one could convince her otherwise.

In the car, I thought about the days of mourning before the funeral. I remembered wishing that Jason were delivered to heaven. I cried out to God from the salvation of my covers at night. I prayed that he could hear me and see my anguish.

I didn’t know then if God was there. God according to the Bible was omniscient and omnipotent. When he didn’t respond to my complaint, I lashed out and cursed his storied existence.

I found out in one of my encyclopedias that only twenty-five percent of people in America would see a bluebird once in their lifetime. It made me think what percentage might see an eagle, or a macaw, or God in their lives.

We arrived at home, and I was tired. It was time to grab some much-needed sleep, as Jason’s death had replayed over and over in my mind while I attempted to sleep the last few nights. I lay down in my parents’ bed for a nap, because the apartment caretaker was shampooing our carpets, and he started in my room. In my hand, I gripped my amulet.

The amulet was my caretaker, and my canary in the mines of danger. I went through a great deal of trouble to hide it from everyone. Always wearing a shirt outside in the scorching heat was sometimes annoying.

The next few weeks I spent a lot of time lying around because my depression and fatigue were becoming worse. There was something wrong with me, and no one seemed to care, not even myself. I chose to deal with only the symptoms, not the cause, because the outcome of a trip to the doctor frightened me. It was fear-induced denial.

The beatings were getting worse, and sometimes they were brought on by the slightest mistake: talking back to my mom, not making my bed, or even not brushing my teeth was enough to receive a beat-down.

Although I was resting a lot, emotionally I was strained to the breaking point. Even with my necklace alerting me to imminent danger every time my father’s anger was channeled toward me, there was no avoiding his wrath. He had recently been fired for being late to work too many times. When he lost his job, his temper teetered toward further abuse, and the frequency increased.

I was lying in my bed listening to the radio; a singer was belting out, ‘It’s a secret rendez-vous / They won’t discover / That it’s me and it’s you…’ Classic rock always felt good to the ears and soothed my everyday worries, much like our laundry machine would discharge the dirty water out with the suds. My dad had made a trip to the main floor’s laundry room to buy a cola, and my mom was boiling water for tea over the stove. The sound of the kettle whistling punctuated the relaxing music from time to time, but I blissfully ignored it.

My inner peace was about to be brutally shattered. A door in the hallway slammed. Belligerent, heated accusations rang out, then I heard a long shrill scream that must have reverberated throughout the entire apartment complex.

My amulet burned a fiery red color and scorched my chest. I took cover behind my two down feather pillows in an attempt to barricade my body from the situation.

Startled, I now heard glass shattering in the kitchen. Then, another scream. Ominous footsteps, and banging on the walls of the hallways, now racing toward my bedroom and escalating within precious seconds. Terrified, I braced myself.

Suddenly, my bedroom door burst open, and I recoiled instantly. In a blur, my mother’s face materialized in front of me. Her eyes, wide open with panic. On her cheek, a fat, ugly bruise. Totally degraded, hunted as prey, she stumbled like a wild animal, falling by my bed.

Moments like that happen in a snap of a finger. The way I think about it now, I see my dad barging into my room in a whirl—as crisply recorded in my deepest consciousness in slow motion, never to fade away. In his hand, he held a weapon unfamiliar to his regular antics, a hot teapot.

I cannot recall my dad in that moment because the sight of the teapot detained my attention. I remember screaming and burying my face afterwards in the comforter as my father slammed the steaming steel teapot into my mother’s thigh.

If something of that heat contacts a body, it smears skin like a searing hot pan would to the adjacent side of a raw filet mignon.

Really, the weapon was what separated that battle from all the rest.

Victims of domestic abuse usually feel helpless to defend themselves, even as the bar is continually raised. Moreover, the assailant often begs for forgiveness, thus confusing an already wounded victim. This classic scenario replayed itself here. After my dad defaced the side of my mother’s leg, he started in with his manipulative trickery, and she, dazed, was simply incapable of formulating any thought of her own.

‘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.”