The Redemption of Michael Hollister

by Shawn Inmon

  Curt flushed, then turned and strode double-time across the great hall, toward a set of double doors in the back. Michael grabbed his suitcase and followed as fast as his legs would allow. Curt pushed through the double doors onto a sidewalk that led to a two-story building with a flat mansard roof. Red doors punctuated each end of the building, and Curt used the far door. Michael struggled to catch up, barely making it inside before the heavy door slammed shut.

  Inside was a hallway running the entire length of the building, with only two doors on each side. Curtis walked to a door on the left and pushed it open. “This is home, at least until the prefect in charge of your unit gets back here next month and you are assigned your regular quarters. Enjoy the privacy, cadet. In the fall, you’ll be sharing with a few dozen of your new closest friends.”

  The room was long, with another door at the back that Michael assumed led to a communal bathroom. On each side of the aisle down the middle of the room were eight steel-framed bunk beds. Two footlockers stood lengthwise at the end of each bunk.

  “That’s where your stuff goes,” Curt said, pointing to a locker. If you’ve got more than will fit in there, you might as well toss it. You won’t need it, anyway. When you’ve unpacked your suitcase, put it on top of the locker. It will be collected and stored until you go home for a visit.”

  Each bed had a thin mattress, rolled up, with a small pillow on top. “Pick whichever bunk you want for the summer. You’ll be assigned your permanent home when the new semester starts. During the summer, meals are served one building over, in the staff dining room. Breakfast is at oh-six-hundred. If you get there one minute late, the doors will be locked and the next meal will be at 1200 hours. Being on time is very important at Hartfield Academy. You might as well learn that now.”

  Curt snap-turned, went out the door and closed it behind him.

  Aside from the bunks and lockers, there was no other furniture in the room.

  Spartan. What else would you expect from a place with a motto like “We turn boys into men and men into soldiers,” or whatever nonsense was on the sign out front.

  Michael pushed the door open and poked his head outside the room. Quiet as a tomb.

  Must be all alone here. They really weren’t expecting students this early. Must have cost dear old Father a pretty penny to get rid of me. Good.

  Michael went to the door at the back and pushed it open. There was no locking mechanism.

  Privacy is going to be in short supply once the semester starts.

  Inside was a tile floor, half a dozen washbasins, toilets, and showers.

  Michael crept out to the exterior door and pushed against it. It opened without a sound. They’re not locking me in, so at least I’m not a prisoner. Or, at least, not yet.

  Michael slipped off one of his Keds and wedged it into the door. Out in the cool night air, he took his other shoe and socks off and placed them against the building. Full darkness had descended, but a three-quarter moon gave light to see well enough. He stood to get his bearings, so he wouldn’t get lost.

  Great Hall there. Staff dining room probably over there. More buildings that look like barracks over there. Okay. He slipped between the shadows of the buildings, always waiting for a sentry to challenge him with a “Who goes there?” but none came.

  I wonder if this place is fenced in. Let’s find out.

  He walked to the rear buildings: oversized, two-story wood structures that Michael assumed were the rest of the barracks. Behind them was another huge grass lawn, this one with a cinder track cut through it. Michael ventured onto the field but hurried as he did so. He felt exposed out in the open. He reached the far end of the mowed grass, which was bordered with more overgrown grass and weeds. He took five more steps forward and came to a halt. Two feet in front of him was a drop-off that led to another, and another. At the bottom of the cliffs lay large rocks, then a small thread of sandy beach and the Pacific Ocean. Moonlight glimmered over the chop of the waves.

  Holy shit, what a view! Why in the hell would they use land like this for a crappy boys’ school? They could develop this and sell this land for millions.

  Michael stood looking out over the Pacific for a long time but eventually got cold and picked his way back to his room. He had a moment of panic when he thought he was lost, but he was just turned around. He found the door that still had his shoe wedged into it, picked up his other shoe and socks, and made his way back to what was, for the moment, his room.

  Well. I guess this is it. Home. Might not be too bad, if I can find something to keep myself from dying of boredom. At least I’m away from him.

  Michael set his suitcase on a bed at the very back of the room and opened it. He’d had no idea what was in his suitcase all day, as Tess had packed it for him the night before. He riffled through the clothes. Socks, underwear, T-shirts, and pants. One pair of pajamas, which he tossed on the bed. As he did, he saw the edge of a piece of paper poking out of the top pocket of the pajamas.

  It was torn off the notepad Tess kept beside the refrigerator. In Tess’s neat script were six words: Michael. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

  Michael drew a deep breath. A lump formed in his throat that made it painful to swallow. Tears formed in his eyes, but he blinked them away.

  No crying here. No signs of weakness. Boys who cry, boys who are homesick, boys who wet the bed, will get the worst of it. Not me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Michael woke the next morning before the sun was up. He had no watch, and there was no clock in the room, but he remembered seeing one in the bathroom. He padded there barefoot, relieved himself, and noted that it was 5:25. The Payday candy bar of the night before was long since gone, and he didn’t want to miss breakfast.

  He returned to his room and got dressed in the same clothes he had worn the day before.

  Don’t know what the laundry situation is like here, but no sense in going through clothes when I don’t need to.

  Once dressed, he pushed out into the foggy coastal air. Summer, yes, but summer by the ocean, which left a slippery coating of dew on every surface.

  Now. What the hell did “one building over” mean?

  Michael walked to the building directly across from the one where he had slept, but it was a replica of the building he had stayed in, and it was locked tight. Kitty corner from that, he saw another building with a glassed-in entryway and standard-sized double doors. A simple sign above the doors read, “Staff Only.”

  Michael walked forward when he saw, through the glass, an older man emerging from an interior door. The man held up his hand in the universal “wait a minute” sign. He pulled a key ring from his belt, searched through dozens of keys for the right one, then unlocked the exterior door.

  “You’re early. Must be hungry.”

  “Curt said if I was late, I didn’t eat.”

  “Curt’s right, so, good for you for being early. Come in, you can help me set things out.”

  Through the interior doors he came into an open room with half a dozen round tables scattered about, each covered in a white plastic tablecloth.

  “Follow me,” the old man said. Michael did, noting that he walked with a slightly stooped gait and a pronounced limp. He pushed through a swinging door at the side of the room. When Michael followed, he saw metal platters loaded with sausage, scrambled eggs, and pancakes.

  The smell filled his nostrils and made his knees weak.

  “Those are heavy,” the old man said, nodding to the platters of food. “I’ll get them. You start carrying this stuff out.” He waved toward pitchers of orange and apple juice, bottles of syrup and bowls of butter.

  In the dining room, the old man said, “Put them down here. Skeleton crew in the summer, so we use one table to serve. Go on, get yourself a plate and dig in.” He glanced at the clock, which read 5:55. “Everyone else will be here in the next two minutes.”

  Michael grabbed a plate off the stack and filled it. He moved to the farthest table, sat down and
began to eat. Everything was delicious, but he found that he had overestimated the ability of his eight-year-old stomach to accommodate food. Halfway through the plate, he was stuffed to bursting.

  At two minutes to six, the doors burst open and a small line of men walked through. They were all neatly dressed in uniforms with the Hartfield Academy logo on both shoulders, along with insignia that no doubt indicated some rank, had Michael known what each represented. Many of the men had catastrophic injuries—missing limbs, visible scars, terrible limps.

  None of the men spoke; instead, they quietly moved to the long table with the food, loaded their plates and sat down at the same table.

  The sound of silverware scratching against plates was the only sound as breakfast proceeded. The older man, whom Michael had decided to call “Cook” in his mind, sat with the other men and ate.

  Michael did his best to persevere over the food he had mounded on his plate, but in the end, the physical limitations of his stomach did him in. He looked around, wondering where to put the remaining food on his plate, but didn’t see anything obvious.

  The oldest man sitting at the table stood, stacked his dishes and silverware back on the food table, then walked straight toward Michael. He was of average height and slightly on the lean side. What remained of his gray hair was in a crew cut. He looked down at the half-filled plate.

  “My name is Peterson. You can call me sir, or Captain. At Hartfield, we eat all the food we take. This is your first meal here, so consider this your only warning. If you leave food on your plate again, it will be wrapped and served to you as your next meal. Understand?”

  Michael nodded.

  The man looked Michael up and down, from his slightly floppy haircut to his white T-shirt and khakis to his Keds. “We’ll need to get you a haircut and uniform immediately. We never wear civilian clothes unless we are leaving the Academy for the day. You can provide your own socks and underwear, as long as it meets our standards.”

  So, my Batman underwear and argyle socks are a definite no-no, then?

  Michael nodded again.

  “Put your plate on the serving table, then follow me.” He managed to make the word plate sound distasteful.

  Michael hustled it to the table. All the other plates were empty. He set his off to the side of them and jogged to catch up with Captain Peterson, who turned down a side hall, then pushed into a small room marked Supplies.

  He cast an appraising eye over Michael, then searched through several stacks of shirts and pants. He plucked out three khaki shirts, two pairs of navy blue pants, and two pairs of equally blue shorts, stacked them, and handed them to Michael. “What’s your shoe size?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Cadet, you need to know that information. Take off your shoe.”

  Michael removed his shoe and handed it into Peterson’s outstretched hand, who turned it over and peered at the bottom.

  “Thirteen, eh? I’m not going to have anything that small until we get our new supplies in. Congratulations. You just got promoted to a size one.” He plucked a pair of boots off a shelf and stacked them on top of the pile Michael was holding. He glanced at his watch. “I’ll need you to report for work at oh-eight-hundred sharp, at the big flower bed at the front of the school.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes, work, cadet. Everyone works at Hartfield. Did you have visions of floating around the Academy swimming pool by yourself all day while everyone else works? Be at the front flower beds by oh-eight-hundred. Wait, one more thing.”

  He opened a drawer behind him and withdrew a large electric hair trimmer. “Stand still.”

  Michael winced, but closed his eyes and stood as frozen as a doe in the headlights of an onrushing Camaro.

  Ninety seconds later, all of Michael’s hair was on the ground.

  Michael rubbed his hand over his almost-nonexistent stubble.

  Whatever. Who cares. Hair grows back.

  Peterson admired his handiwork, then reached to the top of one of the shelving units and produced a blue cadet hat. “Here. You’re going to be working outside, so you’ll need this.”

  Michael didn’t know if he was supposed to salute or not, so he settled for a nod. Before he was out the door, Peterson had a broom out and was sweeping up the hair.

  Michael made his way back to his room.

  Okay. It could be worse. Food’s good. So far, no one’s trying to sneak into my bunk in the middle of the night. I have to work, but there’s worse things than that, I guess.

  Michael felt tired and heavy-lidded after a late night and early morning, but he resisted lying down on his bunk for his free hour.

  Not going to make a shitty impression by being late first thing.

  Instead, he changed into the Academy uniform, choosing the shorts over the pants, and including the boots. He stared at himself in the mirror in the bathroom. He rubbed his hand again over the stubble that had been his hair a few minutes before. The boots seemed a bit too big, but the khaki shirt with the Hartfield emblem above the left breast pocket fit well. He put the blue cadet hat on and pushed it down into a slightly rakish angle.

  Totally different. Shave all my hair off, put me in a uniform, and I look ... I don’t know ... more adult, I guess. Since I actually am an adult, that’s good, right?

  Michael left the barracks and walked around the campus, mapping it in his mind, marking spots to explore later, under cover of darkness.

  By 7:45, he was waiting in front of the flower bed that ringed the large grassy area at the front of the school. There was a towering flagpole dead center, with an American flag the size of Clayton Hollister’s Cadillac flapping in the coastal breeze. Beside that was a slightly shorter pole with a Hollister Academy flag.

  You know you’ve arrived when you go to a school that has its own flag.

  Curtis M. Hartfield IV, his chauffeur of the previous night, approached from the west. Where Michael still felt stiff and uncomfortable in his newly issued uniform, Curt wore his like he had been born to it.

  “Right on time, cadet. Good idea.”

  Michael squinted at him and said, “Fifteen minutes early, actually.”

  “Fifteen minutes early is right on time, cadet. Good that you’ve figured that out already. Now. This flower bed hasn’t been weeded since school ended. It is a tragic tale of man vs. nature, with nature winning at the moment. You will spend your day here, reversing that outcome. Am I clear?”

  “What tools do I have?”

  “Tools? Cadet, you have those marvelous tools at the end of your arms. Eight fingers and two thumbs, which separate us from the apes.”

  Weird. Last night, he sounded almost like a normal teenager. Today, back on home turf, he sounds like a shrunken-down version of Peterson.

  “Once you collect a big enough pile of weeds, there is a wheelbarrow in the gardening shed at the back of the compound. Weeds can be dumped in the burn pile beside the shed. Any questions?”

  “How many kids are here right now?”

  “Not the kind of question I was talking about, but I’ll give you a freebie. There are three cadets on campus. Me, you, and my brother, Max. You’ll meet Max at lunch. He skips breakfast, just like me, because it’s not worth waking up that early to eat the same sausage, eggs, and pancakes every damn day.”

  Curt turned to leave, then stopped. When he turned back around, his official persona slipped away for a moment. He made steady eye contact with Michael.

  “Max is ... slow. He’s twelve, but he’s the only cadet who has a separate room.” Curt nodded his head in the direction of the big building. “He’s slow, but he’s not stupid. If I hear of you or anyone being mean to Max, they’re gonna get whatever they dished out back in quadruple. Understand?”

  Michael nodded, then said, “I don’t have a watch. How will I know when it’s time for lunch?”

  Curt pointed to a bell tower atop the main building. “That bell rings exactly fifteen minutes before lunch and dinner. When you
hear it, get washed up and report for chow.”

  Curt spun neatly and walked back the direction he had come.

  Michael kneeled down and gave a test tug on the first weed of the day. It did not give way easily.

  Chapter 20

  Michael was grateful dinner was served early. The dinner bell pealed at 4:30. That meant the day was done. He had sent thousands of weeds to their final reward—enough to fill three wheelbarrow loads to overflowing. His back ached, the muscles in his arms quivered, and the back of his neck was red with sunburn, even though it had been overcast all afternoon.

  He stood, brushed as much of the caked-on dirt off his knees as he could, and looked at what he had accomplished. A day’s hard labor had weeded a quarter of the front flower bed.

  Gonna be here for a few days, I guess.

  Dinner, like breakfast and lunch, was consumed mostly in silence.

  Have these guys all taken a vow of silence, or do they just have nothing to say? Either way, fine by me. I am dead to the world.

  Peterson had come by the front flower beds to inspect his work in midafternoon and had told him what his work schedule would be: breakfast to dinner, Monday through Friday, with after-hours and weekends free for study or physical activity. There were no televisions anywhere on the Academy grounds—at least none where Michael could watch them. Maybe the Commander had a TV tucked away somewhere in his private quarters so he could watch Rat Patrol, or Gomer Pyle, USMC, but nothing for cadets.

  The personnel present for dinner were essentially the same as for breakfast, with two additions: Curt and Max Hartfield. Curt was tall and lean. Max was a head shorter and stockier, with a round face, split by a wide grin.

  Curt and Max were already seated at a table when Michael came in. There were large serving bowls of salad and mashed potatoes and a heated tray of Salisbury steak. After so many hours of hard work, Michael was starved, but he didn’t want to run afoul of the rules again and be served a cold dollop of leftover mashed potatoes for breakfast tomorrow, so he took much smaller portions than he wanted.