The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" Read Online Free PDF Page B

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