The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" by J. D. Tew Page B

really are. You don’t have to be tough and hold
in all of your sorrow. It helps to belt it out and shed some tears from time to
time,’ Grandma Laverne said, ‘There is something else. Well, I think I will
wait for your grandfather to come home to tell you.’
    She
always had a way with words. After all, she is a grandma; comforting was her
job. I found out soon enough what she was waiting to tell me, but not from her
own lips.
    She
was right on one thing. I was different.
    I
furiously thought of an escape from my dour mood. I had it! For the last
several years, my rich uncle always sent me fifty dollars for each of my
birthdays. I had that money stashed away inside a T-ball trophy that I had on
the top of my dresser. It was the perfect time to spend some of that money.
    I
skateboarded up to the Big-Mart and used the pay phone to call a cab. The cab
arrived, and the driver asked, ‘Where to, sir?’
    ‘Taylors
Falls,’ I said.
    ‘Whoa,’
he said. ‘Why so far?’
    I
served him some lie about visiting my grandparents who retired there and wanted
me to stay with them at their campsite near town.
    As
I read the driver’s expression, my only worry was that The Intervention ,
that unknown power, could intervene. I dismissed the thought. Its jurisdiction
was obviously limited to my surroundings, and not my mind.
    Hey.
Maybe I was doing what it wanted me to do. That was precisely it, I figured.
Perhaps, now, destiny was calling me. Travis’s obituary was the tipping point.
     Fortunately,
the cab driver bought it. ‘We got a long ride. Geez, you are going to have to
pay half now. Twenty dollars up front, and pay the rest later. That is the
deal,’ the driver requested, with his hand extended through the slot in the Plexiglas. 

    “After
the driver spoke, I knew Lincoln was right about the slang word geez.  I paid
the man his money, and we left for Taylors Falls.”

7
theodore: K. T.
     
     
    “The
funneled sound of an awesome classic folk-rock band lifted me from my slumber.
My eyes still shut, the foggy sensation of color at backs of my lids reverted
from deep brown to a glowing orange.”
    The
roll of band’s fluid guitar solos and appealing vocals jarred uneasily with the
off-tune pitch of the cab driver.
    There
was something familiar about waking up to the smell of an armpit. My vision
went from a blur to clear, and I had a flash of Jason’s arm extended with his
pit firing stench into my direction. I wanted so badly to be with him. His
image faded away after I rubbed the sleep out of the corners of my eyes.
    My
neck was incredibly sore on both sides. I wiped the drool from the corner of my
mouth.
    My
hot breath stank; the smell was not unlike that of the stench of sweat pouring
out from a Muay Thai boxer after several rounds of fighting, combined with that
of camel poop. The smell of my hot breath could not contend with the
nostril-flaring, olfactory-nerve-depleting stench of the second-hand smoke of
cheap cigars, the sickly artificial scent of a half-dozen vanilla air fresheners,
and the ongoing perspiration of the cab driver, itself a
manly-man-sweat-factory of death. Put simply, the cab and its operator reeked.
For a moment, I thought about my dad. The cabby reminded me of him with his
rough demeanor.
    My
dad had three important mottos. Of course, number one was; don’t ever eat the
yellow snow. The rest were inherited by my great grandfather Willard: number
two, you will not succeed in anything without a little hard work, and number
three, trust is based on predicting from experience.
    Whenever
my father told me these three things, he fashioned his voice in a way such that
he sounded like a newscaster. I was thankful that I had the pleasure to meet
his granddaddy Willard before he passed away.
    ‘Well
kid, the ride takes around an hour, and you have managed to take up fifty
minutes of that by snoring. We are almost there. You sure you know your way
around town?’ he asked.
    Always
having been escorted