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  The Ushering:

  Amber

  By Dan-Dwayne

  The Ushering: Amber Copyright © 2020 by Dan-Dwayne Spencer. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by DSGA

  Art elements provided by Pixabay, pixabay.com

  No Attribution Required

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dan-Dwayne Spencer

  Visit my blog at www.Dan-Dwayne.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: February 2021

  DSGA Publishing

  ISBN: 9798593355157

  Thanks to Stacy, Taylor, Mathis, Tom, and especially Keith West and Mary Andrews of the WRCG. The people who keep the iron sharp.

  …And you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you…

  —Acts 1:8

  …Now, there are varieties of gifts … it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit, a gift for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.…

  —Corinthians 12:4-8

  …In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions … Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

  —Acts 2:17-21

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter One

  The Escape

  Remorse is a formidable emotion. It’s almost as overpowering as guilt, and I should know I’m the one who started the whole mess. Then again, I sure as Hell wasn’t responsible for all the wrong either. The problem was, people like to judge. One big question weighed on my mind, does anyone have the right to judge when something so life-changing comes along? I suppose I’m lucky to be able to pinpoint when my life took a turn, probing me to be more—at least more than whatever my miserable childhood made me.

  The events of August 15, 1969, changed my life, or should I say, it changed me into the person I have become. Like a Mustang GT spinning on ice, my life went out of control. My eyes were opened, and I started seeing the world differently; granted, I saw it all through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy. If only I could have seen it then through the eyes of wisdom only gained from life’s experience, it might have made a difference in the outcome, but then who knows—tragedy finds us no matter how we flee, and love has a way of enduring the most devastating of phenomenons. If I were to judge my own actions, I certainly couldn’t say I did everything right, but then, there was enough blame to share.

  When I awoke on that fateful day, I’d like to say the first thing I noticed was the warm summer sun beaming through my bedroom window onto my face, but it wasn’t the first thing. This morning started like so many mornings. Good weather or bad, every day started the same. Loud shouting and swearing reverberated through the wall between my room and the kitchen. I should have been used to it, but it grated on my nerves. Covering my face with my pillow, I lay regretting my very existence. A reoccurring thought blitzed once more through my mind: the world would be better without me in it.

  Dropping my pillow below my chin, I stared at the ceiling. Fifteen years of hearing the same shouts, arguing about the same things, and knowing that the shouting would never end. I could count on it just as I could expect summer to follow spring. My parents loved to hate each other. It seemed impossible how mom managed to cook breakfast between the slamming of cabinets and the banging of her skillet on the counter behind my wall—and those were the good days. The not-so-good days were when she used it to club my dad.

  From the understandable bits coming through the wall, this sounded like a not-so-good day. It was certain, if I intended to get a ride with him to the Sea Shore Swimming Pool for my diving class, I would have to hurry. Any minute Mom would chase him out of the house, skillet in hand.

  My summer strategy to escape the arduous fighting was my swimming and diving classes. Heck, the mental relief alone made them worth the class fee of fifty cents a day. It should be no surprise, I’ve worked my way up to the title of advanced swimmer; I even took all the lifeguard courses. Sadly, the State of Texas required a full-time lifeguard to be at least sixteen-years-old. I impatiently waited; biding my time so I could monitor the deep end of the pool—for cash.

  Mom thought they were still charging me a whole quarter a day, pool fee. But, because they knew me so well, Mr. Buchanan, the pool manager, allowed me to stay all day if I spent four hours guarding the shallow end of the pool. Mom knew nothing about my working part-time for old man Buchanan. Thankfully, she didn’t bug me about the hours on end I hung out there. It had been my all-day hide-away every summer since I was eight-years-old. At least my time there got me out of her hair, and she somehow convinced herself the lifeguards were watching out for me.

  She mistook them for babysitters who would give a crap regardless of whether or not I wandered off; however, since my fifteenth birthday, her attitude miraculously changed. She didn’t act like she cared where I went as long as all the family members were in their designated seats for supper; she didn’t send out a posse looking for us.

  Supper, as Mom called it, always started round one of the night’s verbal pugilistic bouts. By the time dessert hit the table, my head felt like a punching bag. Most nights I longed to find the silence between her razor-sharp insults so I could ask to go to the skating rink.

  In 1969, skating at a rink was a family event—at least for most families. Fortunately for me, The Carlyle Skating Center was only ten blocks down 34th Street, a distance I could easily bike. I could be found there nearly any night, and as a result, I became friends with the owners, an elderly couple by the name of Mavis and Ernie Gray. They bartered the entrance fee if I would take their silver whistle and skate the center of the rink, blowing shrill shrieks at rowdy little children w
ho liked to skate against the traffic flow. I conveniently pocketed the rink fee, letting my mother know nothing about my arrangement with the Grays.

  This was my life, the daily tragedy I ruefully looked forward to. But this morning the pool awaited, and it promised an entire day of happy, chattering people—away from hurtful words.

  I threw off the sheet, stood, and stretched. Off came the underwear and on went my square-cut Lycra swimming trunks, my tattered cut-off jeans followed. Shoving my feet into a pair of flops and stuffing some clean underwear in my pocket for later; I headed to the bathroom.

  Closing my eyes, I splashed water on my face. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, shuddering. How desperately I hated that mirror. It was an unrelenting prophet of truth, and nothing I could do would correct the deformities so visible there. An abundant assortment of freckles adorned my cheeks; my nose, rounded like a button, imprinting a permanent youthfulness across my face. To top it off, there were my crazy eyes—they were amber—not brown, not hazel, but amber gold. Still, as odd as they were, I knew they were also my secret weapon. I could give anyone my sad eyes look and expect them to give in.

  Other than my eyes, I had one redeeming quality on my entire skinny body, my tan. Spending so much time wearing nothing but swim trunks had turned my skin the color of shucked pecan shells. I ran a comb through my shoulder-length, chlorine-bleached hair and tightened the drawstring on my swim trunks hidden under the cut-offs. Making one more inspection in the mirror, I stood staring. The boy in the glass returning my gaze was short and thin, a sophomore in high school still chasing puberty.

  Almost sixteen years old and not a sign of a beard—not yet. With troubled fingers, I rubbed my hand across the soft peach fuzz forming on my chin. I stopped. Something moved at the edge of my vision. A darkness darted into the shadow behind the door.

  “Damn, every time that happens it startles me.” Hearing my own words gave a bit of normality to the freakish situation.

  The first time I noticed this harmless oddity was a couple of months ago. It’s never allowed me to see it. All I got was the impression of a dark streak fleeing into a corner or under some nearby furniture, so I call it Mr. Dark. It was as good a name as any. I never mentioned it. How would it sound? Even trying to explain it freaks me out. People would think I’d gone off my rocker or I’m on some kind of drug—I’ve heard about drug addicts. The principal made everyone in school watch the film, Reefer Madness—scared me shitless.

  Facing the mirror again, I took a deep breath and held it, counting slowly to ten—it was time to enter the war zone.

  Before I made it to the kitchen, Dad breezed by. Distraught and smoldering, I could read his mood like a label on a tin can.

  “Dad, wait up.”

  Mother yelled at me as I ran to his pickup truck. “Arland, where is your shirt? What will the neighbors say, you running around town more than half-naked?”

  As I scurried out to Dad’s 1962 Chevy C half-ton truck, I called back to her, “Going to the pool for my lesson. See you tonight.”

  She met my words with silence and a wave of her dish towel. I could never tell if it was a casual sign for goodbye or just exasperated good riddance, but I suspected it was the latter.

  I slammed the truck’s door as my Dad turned the key in the ignition.

  “Dad, I need money. I owe for my diving lessons and I’d like to eat lunch.”

  He put the truck in gear, leaned forward, and slipped his billfold out of his back pocket. He threw fifteen dollars on the bench seat beside me. “Will that do ya?”

  Sighing, I looked out the window as we pulled away from the curb. “The pool fee is twenty-five cents, and each class is fifty cents. I have to pay for ten weeks.” I fidgeted on the vinyl like a bird on a perch. “That’s forty-five dollars.”

  He abruptly stopped the truck in the middle of the street. Reaching for the dash a split second before the recoil threw me off the seat saved me from landing on the grimy floor mats.

  “Didn’t your mother give you money for those lessons?”

  “No, she signed a promissory note saying she’d pay at the end of the season.”

  He fished out a fifty-dollar bill and sneered as he scooped up the ten and threw the big bill on top of the five. Gazing out of the pickup’s window, I collected the money and crammed it into my pocket. Silence thick as Aunt Hattie’s roux gravy filled the space between us for the rest of the drive to the pool.

  As soon as the truck stopped, I swung the door open. “Thanks, Dad,” I called out, landing flat-footed on the pavement.

  He huffed and through gritted teeth said, “Never let it be said Norman Loveless doesn’t provide for his own.”

  Looking away from him, I pressed my lips into an arrogant smile as I shut the door. He couldn’t have seen it unless he had some kind of extrasensory perception. It was an expression I had seen on his face more than once. Perhaps he could guess I’d taken to wearing it also—just because.

  The lifeguards hadn’t opened the doors to the admission booth, so I headed straight for the Serve-U convenience store across the street from the pool. Michael and Roger Reynolds were inside pestering Sarah Hampton, the cashier. Her dad owned the Serve-U and made her work there during the summers. Two years older than me, she had the reputation of being the prettiest girl in high school and if the rumors we heard were true, the wildest.

  “Arland,” Michael quipped, “Sarah said she wants to go out with you.”

  “I did not,” Sarah insisted. “I simply mentioned we would be in the same Spanish class if you took Spanish 2 with old lady Wheeler.” She squinted, tilted her smile, and gave the tall, redheaded Michael the finger.

  I put on my best strut and leaned back against the Coke machine, like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Michael leaned back next to me, I only came up to his chin. In that instant my self-assurance melted away, but as I saw it, this could be my one and only chance with Sarah—I had to take it. I gathered all the machismo I could.

  “I put Spanish 2 on my schedule card,” I crooned at Sarah in my sexiest voice. “Maybe we can sit next to each other.”

  “Oh, I don’t think Jimmy would like that.” She smiled slyly. “He gets awful jealous, ya know.”

  Jimmy Dugan was a freak of nature. At twelve years old, he started growing facial hair and skyrocketed to his stout frame of six feet four inches in only three years. At sixteen and a junior in high school, he could pass for twenty-five. If Sarah’s dad didn’t already know him, he could’ve easily bought beer at the Serve-U, and Sarah made sure everyone knew he was her boyfriend. His reputation as the class bully made him a full-fledged legend.

  Last year, they required every guy in gym class to take part in the school-wide, fall sports intermural, and Jimmy volunteered to help Coach Garcia with his paperwork. On the last day of the competition, Jimmy brought an icepick with him to school. In the shower, after gym class, he thought it was funny to poke bare butts with it, mine included. Actually, he’s selective about who he picks on, and for some reason, he never picked on me as much as he did some of the guys. I guess that’s why I wasn’t so afraid of him. At least not as afraid as Michael.

  When Michael got bullied, he had uncontrolled outbursts of emotion, loudly pleading, and begging Jimmy to leave him alone. His pleading only fueled Jimmy’s ego and made Michael a target. Don’t get me wrong, Dugan bullied every boy in school, but no one reported him because the consequences would have been far worse than the harassment. To this day, I’ve never seen anyone who could hit as hard as Jimmy Dugan. Thank God I only had one more semester left to take gym. The downside of any athletic activity was Jimmy. His athletic prowess made him every coach’s favorite, and he participated in everything imaginable. Maybe, after Jimmy graduates, I’ll try out for the swim team. I never went out for sports before.

  Roger, still harassing Sarah, egged her on by saying, “Sally Ferguson told Debbie Hanson that Arland kisses better than Jimmy does.”

  “I do
n’t think so,” Sarah scoffed.

  “How would ya know” I added. Roger had set up Sarah just as I had done for him with Debbie Hanson. It was up to me to close the deal. “You’ve never kissed me.” Frowning, I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. If I had a superpower, it would have to be those amber eyes of mine.

  Sarah thoughtfully answered, “Ya know, I haven’t and it would be unfair to judge you without one, right?”

  “Absolutely unfair.” My head bobbed, convincing her of my total sincerity.

  She leaned over the counter towards me and puckered up. I bellied up to the counter and leaned in, prepared to kiss, when she slapped my forehead back with her palm.

  “Nice try, Arland. But you’re going to have to do better if you want a kiss from me. Debbie told me all about your hi-jinx.” Putting her hand in her hair like a fashion model, she laughed, “and I’m not falling for it, ya know.”

  Roger cackled with laughter, “She sure got you, Arland.”

  I held my head and spun around. Making a big deal of her little slap, as if she could have possibly hurt me. I pretended to peel it off my head, roll it up in a ball, and put it in my heart. Then I gave her the puppy dog eyes again. My secret weapon had failed. I dropped my head and pretended to pout. That was when I saw the newspaper on the counter by the cash register. The headlines read Woodstock Festival, thousands trek to Max Yasgur’s farm for Three days of Peace and Music.

  “Is this today’s paper?” I abruptly asked.

  Sarah shrugged and replied, “It says August fifteenth right there in black and white.”

  I grabbed the paper. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There on the front-page picture were possibly hundreds of people, many of them no older than me, and they all looked so happy. These were teenagers totally free from the pointed words adults cut with and simply enjoying the moment. I closed my eyes and imagined being one of those happy teens.