The Redemption of Michael Hollister

by Shawn Inmon

  Michael had been at the Academy almost a month, but aside from a few glimpses across a yard of a retreating back, he had never actually seen Curtis Hartfield III. These were not the circumstances he would have wanted for a first meeting.

  Peterson led Michael into the great hall of the main building, down a heavily carpeted hallway and into a waiting room. There was a desk and a row of uncomfortable-looking chairs against the wall.

  Peterson nodded toward the chairs. “Sit there.” He knocked lightly, once, on the door to the inner office, paused for a moment, then let himself in, closing the door behind him.

  Michael climbed up into one of the chairs, feet dangling, and waited. And waited. A small wall clock chimed five o’clock, which meant he had missed dinner.

  Fine. Who cares? Don’t think I could eat anything anyway, and I’d end up having leftover goulash or whatever we’re having tonight for breakfast tomorrow.

  Finally, the door opened quietly and Peterson took a half-step out, motioning for Michael to come inside.

  Commander Hartfield’s office was impressive. The window to his left looked out onto the front lawn, where Michael had been weeding a few minutes before. Didn’t know he could see me out there busting my butt.

  There were glass-fronted bookshelves along the wall behind him. Two flags hung down from poles in opposite corners: the American flag to his right, and the gold and blue Hartfield Academy flag to the left. His desk was massive, and Michael thought Hartfield was either a very tall man, or his chair was higher than anything else in the room. In front of the oak desk were three chairs. Two were already filled by Curt and Max Hartfield. Max appeared unconcerned. He waved and smiled at Michael. Curt stared straight ahead.

  Curtis Hartfield III stood, and Michael realized he was indeed a tall man. Whereas his elder son was whippet-lean, Hartfield was solid and imposing. His craggy face was inscrutable. A full head of iron-gray hair came to a widow’s peak in front.

  “Cadet Hollister? Take a seat.” His voice was gravel.

  Michael did as he was told.

  “You were at Grayson’s Mercantile with my sons today.”

  It was not a question, so Michael sat still, unblinking.

  “There was ...” he paused to knock a pipe against an ashtray, “a conflict there. A boy, George Bittle, is hurt and in the hospital. Curtis says you were there, but only as a witness. The girl who was there,” he referred to a piece of paper in front of him, “Lisa Wheeler, says you were actually the one who pushed this George off the dock.”

  He leaned forward a few inches. “Both can’t be true. So, which is it?”

  Michael glanced to his right, looking for some clue from Curt what to do.

  “Look at me, son, don’t look at him. You need to tell me the truth of what happened.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I’m screwed either way here, I think. I tell the truth, and Curt thinks I betrayed him. I lie, the truth comes out eventually, and I probably get kicked out.

  “Curt said I was only a witness, sir, because he is trying to protect me. The boy who is injured threw a cigarette at Max, then sucker-punched Curt. I saw he was off-balance, so I did what I could. I pushed him down. I didn’t intend for him to fall off the loading dock.”

  Well, that’s most of the truth.

  Hartfield leaned back in his chair. He allowed himself a small smile.

  “That is an intelligent answer, Cadet. I forget. Why are you here with us in summer?”

  Bullshit, you forgot. I don’t think you forgot what you had for lunch fifteen years ago.

  “I wasn’t privy to the full scope of the discussion, sir. I believe my father just wanted me out of the house and kept pulling strings until he made that happen.”

  Hartfield chortled, a deep, bullfrog croak that ended as quickly as it began.

  “I think you are one to keep an eye on, cadet. All right, enough nonsense. Curtis.”

  Curt sat even straighter, which Michael would have bet was impossible. “Sir.”

  “You had to choose from a conflicting set of orders here: to never cause problems in town, but to always protect your brother. I appreciate that you chose to protect your brother, but it was a bad decision. This girl being involved might have been as much on your mind as the cigarette thrown at Max. You can’t afford to make bad decisions in the heat of battle. If you do, eventually, men will die, and it will be my fault, because I didn’t train you properly. You are confined to campus for the rest of the summer and on MRE rations until school starts. I will deal with the local police on this matter.”

  He looked sharply at Captain Peterson, who had melted back into a wall. “I’m sure this George and Lisa both have some things on their records that will undermine their credibility. Have Morton do his normal research and dig up whatever he needs to take care of it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Peterson said, making a notation on a clipboard.

  “Hollister. It appears to me that you made the best decisions you could in a difficult situation. Impressive for one so young.” He glanced at his watch. “I see I’ve made you miss dinner. No call for that. Please go to the canteen. I’ll call Iggy and tell him to unlock the door and make you a plate.”

  Michael knew he was dismissed. He clambered down from the chair and opened the heavy door to the waiting room. He glanced back to see if he could catch Curt’s eye, but he was still staring straight ahead.

  Did I goof up?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Michael walked out of the office that evening sweating bullets about how Curt might react to him, but he needn’t have worried. For the next few weeks, he never even saw him, and soon after, the school year started.

  Cadets began to arrive early on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. All across America, families were enjoying one last blowout barbecue or a day at the lake. Not so, the families of boys who would become men at Hartfield Academy. Those families drove from wherever they were to mark the start of a new year.

  A few cars trickled in that morning, eager to disgorge their offspring and be on about their lives. By early afternoon, the cars became a steady stream of Buicks, Cadillacs, Fords, and Chevys. Not a single Datsun, Peugeot, or Mercedes in sight. At two o’clock, it was difficult to find a parking spot along the great lawn, but by early evening, the boys, already dressed in their Hartfield Academy uniforms, were settling into their new quarters.

  There were three barracks for the cadets and another for the staff. Each cadet barrack consisted of three floors, with one year per floor. The First Year, or third grade, barrack was the largest, because so many started at that age, but almost half had dropped out for one reason or another by the time they reached the upper years.

  The other First Years look so small and scared, like they’d much rather crawl back into their parents’ backseat and head for home. Of course, I’m sure people thought that about me, too, and life here is better than it was at home. So far. This place has been okay while it was empty. Add a few hundred boys ranging in age from eight to eighteen, though, and that might change. There will be bullies here, looking for victims. The logical place to look will be in the First Years.

  A series of bleachers had been set up on the front lawn, and a welcome and orientation was held for both students and parents who weren’t already on the road home to Portland, San Francisco, and points beyond.

  The staff sat in folding chairs behind a lectern, and many of them came up to say a few words and make a point about the various rules of Hartfield Academy.

  It all boils down to this: if you can think of it, they’ve already got a rule. If it’s fun, you can’t do it. If it’s a lot of hard work, it’s required. Oh, and be respectful of everyone above you, in age, rank, or both. Pretty simple.

  Back in the First Year barrack, Michael found he had been assigned to the same bunk he had slept in all summer—bottom bunk, right side, all the way to the back, near the bathroom. The boy assigned to the bunk above him was a dark-haired, dark-eyed boy. He didn’t speak to Michael
or anyone as he unpacked his suitcase into his footlocker, set it on top as instructed, then climbed up and sat on his bunk, quietly watching the other boys with an amused expression on his face.

  Now that there are so many people in here, you’d think they’d give us locks for our footlockers. No such luck, though. That means no real privacy, no way to stash anything anywhere.

  The door to the barrack slammed open and a stocky older boy burst in, carrying a clipboard and a green duffel bag. “Hello, shit for brains. I am a Tenth Year. I have been assigned as your prefect. I will oversee you for the rest of the year. My name is Lt. Tim Pusser.”

  A few snickers sounded around the barracks.

  Pusser homed in on them with long-practiced radar, walking up and down the aisle, making check marks on a piece of paper on his clipboard. He smiled, but it was a jack-o’-lantern grin. He nodded as though he understood. “Pusser’s a funny name, isn’t it? Lends itself to funny nicknames, doesn’t it?” He pointed to a redheaded boy halfway down the left side. “You.” He consulted his clipboard again. “Cadet Markson, is that right?”

  The redheaded boy nodded, uncertainly.

  “I saw you laugh. So, let’s hear it. What’s a funny nickname that Pusser makes you think of?”

  Markson, still unpacking his suitcase, turned sunburn red, looked at the floor, and remained silent.

  “Nothing? Damn. I was sure you were going to be the class clown. I am disappointed. Give me twenty-five push-ups.”

  The boy hesitated. Pusser took three long strides toward him and slammed his clipboard against the side of the bunk with a bang. “Now, cadet!”

  Markson dropped down and started doing something that looked similar to push-ups.

  “Oh my God!” Pusser yelled. “You look like a monkey humping a football, boy! Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to do a proper push-up?”

  Markson continued to pump his body up and down, butt pointed to the ceiling. He shook his head.

  Pusser set his clipboard on the top bunk and dropped easily to the ground. He did one smooth push-up, then another, and another. He stood up without wrinkling his uniform. He had not broken a sweat. “You see that, cadet? That’s how you do a push-up.”

  Markson nodded, but continued to struggle awkwardly.

  “Stop, stop, just stop! You’re embarrassing yourself, and since I am in command of this class, you are embarrassing me. I can see we’ll all need a good round of callisthenics technique before lights-out tonight.” He retrieved his clipboard and started to pace up and down the aisle between the bunks. “Where was I? Oh, right. My name is Lt. Tim Pusser.” He paused, looked around. No one moved or snickered. In truth, no one breathed.

  This guy’s seen too many war movies, I think. What an idiot.

  “I will be the officer in charge of your lives for the rest of your first year here at Hartfield Academy. After that, I will be gone, and a new officer will be in charge of making your life hell next year. In addition to the Academy’s rules, I have a few of my own. Once it is lights-out, we will have total silence in this barrack. Feel a need to cry because you miss your mommy? Do it into a pillow so I don’t hear it.”

  He got to the end of the row of bunks, turned, and looked at Michael briefly. Michael met his eyes and would not look away.

  “If you need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, do it, but do it quietly.” He pointed one finger at his own face. “As you can see, I need all the beauty sleep I can get. If you wake me up, I will make sure everyone is awake, and we will drill for an hour, right here at our bunks.”

  He paused, surveyed his charges, and obviously found them wanting. “You want to make it here at Hartfield? Three things: Show up, keep up, and shut up.”

  Pusser retrieved his duffel bag, walked to the bunk at the front corner of the room, nearest the door. “This is my bunk. Yes, princesses, don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone. I will be right here with you all night, every night.”

  He looked at his watch. “It is twenty-one hundred hours. That gives you thirty minutes until lights out. Get your kits unpacked, then place your suitcases on top of your footlocker. Reveille is at oh-six-hundred.”

  Michael looked around at the other boys. Most of them were stripping down to T-shirts and underwear. No pajamas. Michael did the same, slipped under the green blanket, and closed his eyes.

  I liked this place a lot better when I was the only one here. He looked around at the other boys. Most looked shell-shocked, but a few were already regaining an eight-year-old’s false sense of invulnerability. What would I have been like if I was that young? I’d have been just as scared as they are.

  Michael lay awake on his bunk, getting used to the reality of having so many bodies so close to him. Within fifteen minutes, a harsh noise started at the other end of the barrack.

  Shit. That’ll get Pusser all riled up.

  It continued unabated, with an odd, resonant rhythm. Finally, curiosity got the better of him and Michael slipped out of his bunk on cat’s feet. He took a few steps, then paused to see if he had been noticed. As he passed the bunks, several boys sat up and looked a question at him. He ignored them.

  When he finally reached the far end, he discovered why Pusser hadn’t yelled at the transgressor.

  He was the transgressor. He was lying flat on his back, head back, mouth wide open, with a steady chainsaw noise emanating from his larynx. Michael stifled a laugh, then walked much more deliberately back to his bunk.

  It took Michael hours to go to sleep, but he wasn’t alone. Deep into the night, he heard muffled sighs and crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Each class at Hartfield is given a mascot. The First Years of 1966 were dubbed “The Turtles” by Lieutenant Pusser. He said it was because they were so small, and most baby sea turtles got eaten by carnivores as they made their first dash to the ocean. Insulting or not, it was their nickname, and it would stay with the class until graduation.

  The life of a Turtle at Hartfield Academy was hard, but aside from nightly tirades from Pusser, it was good enough. Reveille played through speakers at both ends of the barracks at 6 a.m. sharp, Monday through Friday. On weekends, they were allowed to sleep in until 6:30. They didn’t have class on weekends, but Pusser drilled them endlessly around the track, teaching formation, discipline and stamina. Pusser was not a smart boy, but he could march. Soon enough, so could all the Turtles.

  Another of Pusser’s special rules was that every boy’s feet had to be on the floor within thirty seconds of reveille. On the second day, several boys dawdled a bit and found themselves dumped on the cold concrete floor by Pusser. He was surprisingly quick first thing in the morning, especially when hunting layabouts. By the fifth day, each boy had learned to put his feet on the floor while still mostly asleep, often not truly waking up until he was completely dressed.

  All Turtles were to be lined up in front of their bunks by 6:25. Breakfast was served in the huge cafeteria at 6:30. On the way to breakfast that first day, Pusser said, “Meals at Hartfield are for nutrition, not for socializing and not for grab-assing. Eat everything you take, stack your plate, and be ready for class by oh-seven-hundred.”

  Classes were fifty-five minutes long and started on the hour, for seven hours each day. There were no optional classes.

  The first class of the first day was English, taught by Mr. Guzman, a black-haired man with a scarred face and the left arm of his uniform neatly folded and safety-pinned just below his shoulder.

  Unlike Middle Falls Elementary, where Michael had stayed in the same room all day, Hartfield Academy ran more like a high school, with boys moving from class to class, teacher to teacher, each hour.

  “Good morning,” Mr. Guzman said, leaning back against his desk. “We will start by saying the Pledge of Allegiance.” All twenty-four boys rose as one, faced the flag in the front corner of the room, and saluted. They recited, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it st
ands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

  “Good,” Guzman said. “I’m glad that we all know the Pledge. Later on this year, we’ll talk more about it, and what it really means for each of us. For now, though, it’s enough that you all know it. Now, who likes to read?”

  No hands went up.

  “We’ll have to see if we can do something about that. You there,” he said, pointing to a boy in the front row. “What’s your name?”

  “Jenkins, sir.”

  “Very good. Cadet Jenkins, please pass the books out that are here on my desk.” He pointed to several dozen paperback books.

  “This book is called The Island of the Blue Dolphins. We have ...” he glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall, “Fifty minutes left in class. Let’s take 40 minutes to read the first two chapters, then we’ll discuss them.”

  So, what do I do? Act like I’m a typical eight-year-old again and die of boredom for the next however many years, or show them what I really know, and get treated like a freak?

  The book Michael received was soft with wear, but there were no rips or tears on the cover or pages. He read quickly through the first two chapters, then looked at the clock on the wall. There were still forty minutes left in class. The other boys were still on the first two pages, lips moving as they read silently, or tracing along each line with a finger. Michael closed the book, folded his hands, and looked straight ahead.

  A moment later, Mr. Guzman stood over Michael. “Cadet Hollister. Am I to assume that you have already finished your reading?”

  Heads popped up to look at Michael all over the class. One boy whispered, “No way,” under his breath.

  “Yes, sir,” Michael said.

  “Can you tell me what the first two chapters are about?”

  “They’re about a young girl and her tribe living on an island. Some Russians come and bargain with them to hunt the otters. They negotiate and come to an agreement. In the second chapter, the tribe finds a bunch of fish and eat it all themselves. The Russians ask them to share the fish, but the tribe doesn’t want to share. I would guess that doesn’t turn out very well for the tribe.”