The Exodus: Book One of the Ved Ludo Series

The Exodus

Book One of the Ved Ludo Series

K. Austin

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental.

The Exodus

Copyright 2011 by K. Austin

Smashwords Edition

For Levi.

Proof that beautiful things can come from ugliness.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

After a year and a half of work, there are many to thank.

I suppose that Pearl Jam, my old friends, should be first. Not only did they help shape my generation, they guided me, like a hand on my shoulder, through the most difficult times in my life. Some people cling to the Bible in times of difficulty. I clung to the lyrics, the pulsating rhythms of a band that played pure emotion, throughout my youth and continue to do so as an adult. I have found shelter in the recordings of live shows, listening over and over again to the lyrics that have adapted, the way I have, throughout the years.

There are a couple of other bands and musicians that helped produce the brilliant thoughts and emotions needed to write such a touching epic … Joe Purdy, Widespread Panic, Chevelle, The Cave Singers, Armin van Buuren, Gary Go, Joshua Bell, The Features, BRMC … thank you.

On a beautiful sunny day, I rode around with Mark Poole, telling him stories. They flowed out of me like a tireless mountain spring, having found the perfect listener. He never failed me. Mark, your persistence and encouragement meant more to me than I’ll ever be able to express. You have been a friend to me, a listener, and a constant supporter. I am grateful.

My friends and employers, Glenn and Cathy (Shoe) Stroud, who have proven to me that there is goodness left in this world, how do I thank you? How do I impress upon you how grateful I am for all you have done for me? Every day I walk into an environment of respect and trust. People often have the ability to be good-hearted, but rarely seize it, whereas Glenn lives and breathes it every single day. I am profoundly thankful to you both.

To my wife, who has had the courage and fortitude to not read these pages, thank you. My life has come full circle, perhaps in ways I never could have imagined, because of your constant love and support. We wake in the mountains every morning, feeling and seeing some of our dreams already coming true … You’ve learned to tolerate my bullshit, to keep me in line, and to let me breathe when you know I am without breath. I am so very proud of your pursuits, seeing you accomplish your goals that, still to this day, impress me. Thank you for recognizing the hours I withdrew into these pages as time needed to make me complete, rather than something I chose to do without you. You, my beautiful wife, have been the foundation that I have sought all my life.

My longest standing friend ever, Joe Liley, know that no one has been a more powerful force in urging me to explore my talents. You are my relentless friend. Over the years, you have refused to let me get reclusive, never giving up on me, never letting the world pull me under. No friend has ever loved me so relentlessly. Through you, I have been given the one thing I could never seem to find: validation.

Cherra Wilson, you were the one who saved me from throwing it all away. Sometimes, the perfect audience is the one who’s been sitting right there all along. There would be no book without you. What is the price of honesty? A compass always points north, and Mrs. Wilson always gives it to me straight. Thank you, Wilson.

Sara Kramer, my old friend, who not only read the pages before anyone else, but who demanded I talk to her about them. You left no stone unturned, searching for inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and blatant lies. Once, you wanted to be part of something important, and now you and Jim really are. Congratulations, old friend.

Diane Kraft, Nancy Howard, Traci Schadler, Cristine Hansen, Della Wilson, Anne Mariano, Greg Montgomery, Marissa Gettman, Phil and Jen Putre, and TW Ruff … thank you for reading when things were rough, unedited, and certainly uncensored.

Krakauer, Steinbeck, Eggers, DeMille, McCort, I tried not to plagiarize, I really did. My heroes, my idols, let’s have coffee sometime? Call me when you are in town?

Even though Starbucks has still not allowed tattoos on its employees (which is archaic and ridiculous from a progressive company like Starbucks), I’d like to thank Starbucks on Belleview and Santa Fe, The Tattered Cover on Lucent, Wild Blue Coffee at the Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Starbucks on Wildcat and Red Cedar, Safeway on Mineral, Centennial Park on Federal and Decatur, and my trusty FedEx truck, 76218 … Thank you for letting me loiter for hours at a time, occupying an enormous amount of table space, in order to write these pages. Almost the entirety of this book was written in my FedEx Ground uniform, and I would be neglecting an important part of this if I didn’t thank FedEx Ground for a job that I love.

If you live in the South Denver Metro area, especially Sheridan, Englewood, Littleton or Highlands Ranch, I have delivered your package. You have looked at me and my tattoos, and made assumptions about me, but none of you guessed I was what I am.

Your FedEx, UPS, and USPS men want only three things from you:

1. Not to ask what’s in the box.

2. Not to ask who it’s from.

3. Not to flip the scanner around. Sign the damned thing the way we hand it to you!

Frank Radke, it’s never too late to redeem yourself. Months after writing the last sentence of the story, you come along and read it with enthusiasm, reestablishing the excitement I had for this story. Had you done so originally, I would have been cheated this newfound faith. I know what you are capable of, and I am excited for you to prove it to yourself. You are a good man.

And Kathy Markley … my editor, designer, critic, and friend, what do I say? How can I tell you that I know the burden this project has been, the countless hundreds of hours that you have spent? How can I repay you for all the things that you are? Days and nights, when I have been writing, I have thought about you, sitting alone, out of cell service (in the middle of town), correcting the countless errors … knowing that you too were out there reading this, understanding this. Every sentence, every idea, every theme … no matter how small, you understood.

For years, we had been passing in the mornings, a smile, some pleasantries, but nothing to link us … I find it ironic that a book that touches on the tentative nature of friendship, on best friends turning into old friends, turning into memories, could have brought me such a powerful and selfless friend … I found an ally in you. I found a creative and expressive woman, hiding among the faces of people I saw daily, but never had the time to know. You decided that this rambling story was worthy of the lonely hours you spent making sense of the chaos.

I know what you are Kathy. I know the endless potential that you have, and I am privileged to be worth the time you have spent. I knew that you cared from the beginning, but I understand now that you will see this through, and for that, you have my eternal commitment, though I am certain that I will never be able to repay you. No one could ever deserve the honor of turning over a manuscript into your care, but many will.

I will struggle to be the kind of friend to you that you have been to me, for the rest of my life.

Mom, don’t read this …

Chapter 1

In the Navy

You Ludo? the man asked.

I knew instantly who he was; I mean, how many people walk around this world wearing white from top to bottom? Even his fucking shoes were white. I was a little surprised to be meeting him here. We had agreed to meet today, but the meeting was supposed to be in the student parking lot after school when the crowds were at a minimum. My master plan was to delay the process of getting from my locker to the student parking lot in order to give the seniors and my classmates as much time as possible to get gone. Not that I was necessarily embarrassed to be joining the Navy—I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to be a walking advertisement for them either. Until this point, I’d said little or nothing to anyone close to me about the military; instead, I’d just worn a smug grin as if whatever I had planned was unexpected and prestigious. Now standing in the hall with Casper, my plans were blatant to the few people who cared enough to spot me standing there.

I certainly had not expected to be called out of class by the principal’s office during my last period in order to rendezvous with the recruiter in the middle of the hallway thirty seconds before the final bell rang. Any second the bell was going to ring, and the hall would be flooded with studen—

BEEEEEEEEEP, the bell rang.

Instantly, like the mass evacuation of a burning building, every door in the entire hall opened. Students poured into the hallway in a wave of laughter. A rumbling sound of three hundred voices blended into one steady sound of the human vocal. So much for best-laid plans, I thought.

Yeah, I’m Ludo. You must be Mr. Triplett, sir? I asked, eyes darting around the swelling mass of faces filling the hallway as the sound of locker doors slamming reverberated through the narrow corridor.

Chief Petty Officer Triplett; I work for a living, he said with a self-satisfied chuckle that sounded well rehearsed.

I looked at him quizzically to let him know that I didn’t get the joke.

Sir is what they call officers, he clarified.

I still didn’t get the joke, but moving on I said, I thought you were going to meet me in the parking lot after I got out.

He looked as if he’d anticipated my response when he answered with, Yeah, I was going to, but I thought maybe you’d want your friends to know the decision you’ve made. Maybe some of them would be interested in talking with me too, he said, eyebrows rising into little rainbow-like arches.

Oooooh, so that’s how this was going to go? As devious as my plan had been to stall my meeting, he’d gone one step further as to anticipate my maneuver and counter with this? I’d almost felt guilty about my attempt to keep this as low key as possible; I hadn’t understood until this very second that he must be used to this sort of behavior. It was now clear that this was an opportunity for him to meet some unforeseen quota, and he was planning on me being the tool he used in order to do so.

Uh … I don’t know about all that. I mean, I don’t know of anyone off hand who’s waiting for a recruiter to show up at school or anything … My eyes shifted, announcing a topic change. I uh … left all my stuff in my last period class; I gotta go get it. You want to meet me by my car in five minutes? I asked, hoping he’d take the hint but knowing he wouldn’t.

Just as I’d assumed, he replied quickly with, I’ll walk with ya, and I thought he said it as if I should be honored to have the privilege.

OK … I said, drawing out the K as far as I could get away with before sounding bluntly rude.

I had called the Navy recruiter on Monday after school and announced immediately and vigorously, I want to join the Navy, when Chief Petty Officer Triplett had answered the phone with a monotonous-yet-forceful, Navy Recruiter.

He’d asked me a couple of questions to see if this were a prank call. After I explained that I’d always wanted to be in the Navy, but I wasn’t graduating for another year, I added a purposeful is there anything I can do to lock myself in now? He was more than happy to help me fulfill my obvious lifelong wishes.

You’ll be the easiest recruit I’ve ever gotten through, he joked, leaving me to ponder what that was supposed to mean. Does he normally argue people into joining? Does he offer them girls and cars like a college football program? Was it a numbers game to him? Did he have to put X amount of people into the Navy every week, month, year?

I’d always assumed that people wanted to go into the service and the recruiter’s job was to screen out the losers—to tell them something like, Sorry, Lad. You aren’t what we’re looking for. That apparently wasn’t the case. He’d told me over the phone that if I wanted to go, he’d be happy to send me on my way. All I needed to do was meet up with him and sign some informal paperwork.

My mother isn’t too keen on me signing any papers just yet; she wants me to look around before I offer up any stool samples or anything. If you try and get me to sign something, she’s gonna be pissed. You’ll need to talk to her.

Oh yeah, I understand that completely. It’s nothing like you’re thinking. It’s just a promissory note saying that if the Navy puts the next year into your development, both physically and mentally, that you’ll happily ship off when it’s your time. It’s pretty informal, just basically assuring me that I’m not wasting my time. His eyes stayed on mine, looking for deception.

I considered that. Firstly, my mother neither got involved with decisions I made nor consequences that befell those decisions. She had not dictated these terms to me at all, but I thought it best to let the guy think that someone was watching out for me. He would be less likely to pull any bullshit if he thought I had protective parents watching his every move. She wasn’t even home, nor would she be for three more days. I hoped he wouldn’t call my bluff and suggest that we go talk to her immediately. Secondly, wasting his time? He’d met me five minutes ago and was already asking me to pimp myself out for him by reeling in my eligible friends. I hardly thought that the Navy was concerned with wasting his time.

CPO Triplett still had me sign that promissory note almost immediately after we’d walked down to my last class and retrieved my books. While I was still in the classroom gathering my stuff up, I noticed Mrs. Alston looking the two of us over. Then Triplett mentioned that I’d need the pen I was packing up to sign that informal note. I guess he wasn’t too afraid of mommy after all. That was the second plan of mine he’d foiled in the last eight minutes. I’d need to step it up with this guy.

When we finally walked back to the parking lot, the note he presented to me looked like it’d been dictated by a ten year old. I wasn’t signing anything for the courts. This was about him making me psychologically sign the line. He just wanted me to make a commitment, so I did.

The gist of the note was that I was promising to put my full effort into the training that I received; I promised to attend the biweekly meetings held at the Harrisburg Navy Recruiting Center (HNRC) when available; and finally, that I promised to represent the Navy with enthusiasm, including speaking to my peers about the opportunity that has been afforded me.

I signed the paper, thinking to myself—well, you don’t have to worry too much about breaking this commitment. Not that I’m Matlock or anything, but this was certainly not a binding agreement. This thing wouldn’t hold up in any court of law. For dramatic reasons (and because I could speculate that this guy took himself seriously), I sighed with a slight shake of the head, as if I had just taken a serious step toward my dreams and made a hefty promise in doing so.

Not to let me down with a lack of over-exaggerated showmanship, Chief Petty Officer Triplett snapped off a proper and most embarrassing salute right there in the student parking lot. My eyes wandered to the lot full of dilapidated cars and the kids still loitering around who drove them. Sure enough, too many of them were looking at me, smiling, and mocking Triplett’s salute behind his back. He noticed my eyes wandering about and corrected me with a drill sergeant like, Eyes front!

Jesus, could this get any worse? When my eyes, which felt like they would melt into my hot and suddenly red face, again met his, he offered me a handshake and a boisterous, Welcome to the Navy, Seaman Recruit Ludo.

With that over, he immediately began hounding me about trying to recollect any friends I might have who could possibly want to talk with him. I could see the disappointment flushing his face when I had no sacrificial lambs to offer up, but he recovered and did his best to act like that was OK. He was working hard at pretending he’d be satisfied with just me.

Well, when people hear about the commitment you’ve made to the Navy, they may want to talk to you about it. If that’s the case, I want you to tell them how excited you are and give them my number if they have any questions, any questions at all. I’d be happy to talk to anyone about his or her career in the Navy. You’ll be seeing a lot of me over the next year, and they’ll be seeing me with you. They’ll know you’re with me, and I’m with you. Don’t be surprised if people start coming out of the woodwork asking you questions. You just tell them what you know and leave the rest to me. People will be treating you with more respect once they get used to seeing us together. That … I can promise you.

This guy was kidding, right?

Before he left me in the parking lot, to face the snickers of my peers that afternoon, he instructed me to call his office next Monday and get directions to the HNRC. There was a meeting on Tuesday night, and I was expected to be there.

It’s nothing too formal, just all the guys in the Delayed Entry Program from around the area gather up there. We watch videos, have guest speakers, and practice drill and ceremony. There will be some food, plenty of guys to talk to, oh … and some ladies. When he said that, he smiled suggestively as if that alone were enough to encourage me to go. Tell your parents it’s a two hour deal from 1730 til 1930 hours. Dress casually and be ready to participate in some good ol’ Navy fun.

I wondered what I had gotten myself into this time. Was I making a mistake? I told myself to stay positive and to remember that I was using this as an escape more than anything, and as long as I got out of Blythe, Pennsylvania, it would be fine.

Tuesday night I borrowed my mother’s 1983 Toyota Corolla and headed up to the recruitment center for some good ol’ Navy fun. As I drove the thirty or so miles to Harrisburg, I was nervous about what would be awaiting me when I got there. I reassured myself that it would be OK; that I would fit in just fine. Hell, maybe I’d even make some really cool friends who would end up shipping out with me, but I decided that my delayed entry was probably longer than most people’s. I decided that I should have called the other branches of the military before I got to Triplett. But, oh well, it was done now. I would survive the Navy just as well as I would survive anything else …

If nothing else, I figured that I would get a taste of what the Navy would be like. I still had to take my ASVAB—a military test taken before enlistment that highlights your strengths (more accurately eliminates positions that you are too dumb for) and gives you a list of jobs that you are eligible for. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the Navy anyway, so I figured that when the results came back and all I had was a list of three things that I was eligible to do, that would help me in making the decision. Maybe I would get some ideas at the meetings over the next year. Hell, why not? I’ll try something new, like staying positive … Maybe that would prove to be something that came naturally to me later on in life.

When I got to the recruitment center, I parked my mom’s dilapidated piece of shit Corolla in the back of the parking lot. I had a one-hitter pipe in her car that I was actually bold enough to leave in there full time. It was a replica of a cigarette lighter and actually fit nicely into the outlet. Since my mother neither smoked cigarettes nor knew from firsthand experience what marijuana smelled like, I figured it unlikely that she would ever discover it. This was before cell phones and iPods, mind you, so with the exception of her Rescue Squad green light that she occasionally plugged in while hustling to an emergency situation, I had never seen her use it.

After the separation from my father, my mother was desperately looking for a hobby. She needed something to do that made her feel needed and connected. This isn’t odd behavior. Most people look to busy themselves when faced with a tragedy, and my mother (the perpetual philanthropist) decided on helping people. This didn’t shock us much, but what did surprise us was how serious she got about her volunteer time.

Blythe, Rockfield, and Logan, the three towns that populated the Red Oak School District with children, were all small and sparsely populated and therefore without a for-profit ambulance service. It was handled by volunteers, as was the fire department. The only police in town were state cops—the town being, again, too small for a town police department.

My mother was constantly on call and when the phone would ring at home she was ecstatic to answer it, foregoing the mandatory, Hello, this is the Ludo residence. My name is … (fill in the blank with your given first name), for a hasty, Hello, this is Cheryl. She demanded proper phone etiquette from the children, but when she was expecting a callout, she dismissed the rules.

Hey, Ma. You didn’t answer the phone properly.

Listen, guys, there could be an emergency, and if that’s the case, I need to get the message as quickly as possible. Every second counts to these people. They need me to get to them and if that means answering the phone improperly, I’m willing to accept that. I could tell by her tone that she was serious. Not only about cheating the phone rules, but also about the statement she had made.

We’d never heard her speak of herself in a meaningful way, so when she did, we shut our mouths, and we were happy for her. She’d been through the wringer with my father. She’d never had much self-esteem (he’d seen to that), and this new mom who was taking herself seriously, as her own entity, was touching to us.

Dad had moved to Castle Park, which was thirteen miles away and outside of our school district. The distance allowed him enough privacy that he could enjoy the secretive live-in situation with his new girlfriend. My mother, on the other hand, had been forced to stay right there in the house they’d shared when the marriage fell apart. She’d dropped out of college to provide the kind of home he’d expected of her, so she had no means of putting a different roof over our heads.

She’d taken a job at Eggs, a local eggs and coffee diner that was one of only two choices for breakfast in Blythe. It was definitely the more popular of the two. Eggs was a tiny joint, with cramped tables and chairs, capable of sitting maybe twenty-five people at a time. There were always people standing awkwardly near the door waiting to be seated and watching you eat your food in anticipation of taking a seat at your table when you finished eating. The small, dark building smelled of greasy bacon, coffee, and cigarettes—a combination that still makes my mouth water.

Eggs also happened to be the place where my father took us to breakfast on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, which might seem like an awkward situation with my mother working there; but it really wasn’t. Not for my sister and I anyway. Mom worked the smoking section, which was only divided from the rest of the place by a four-foot wall and a sign that read Smoking. The room being maybe 600 feet square made the non-smoking section pointless; we all smoked cigarettes when eating at Eggs, either directly or otherwise.

My mother was an instant hit among the gentlemen of the diner, and before too long I think my father was nervous about going in there. In the smoking section, the construction workers gathered to drink their coffee and shit-talk each other. They were the burly, rough and tough guys who were well liked and well respected, and one thing that they all had in common was that they wanted to sleep with my mother. That sounds crazy to me now, but at the time I was not paying attention to them as individuals. Instead, I saw them as a group—the same group I had known all my life. These were regular guys who worked like men in the sunshine and in the dead of winter. They were hardened excavators, plumbers, and electricians with attractive wives and big, lifted trucks that rumbled when they accelerated. They’d smoke cigarettes and talk amongst each other while scanning Eggs for enemies and beautiful women. My mother fit the definition of the latter, and they were more than cordial to her in their pursuit of her by leaving twenties for tips and always wanting a hug before they left in a pack to go out and begin their day.

I’d known most of these guys for all my life. Some of them went to our church and others were on the school board of administrators. A few of them were so successful that my little league baseball teams had born their business name in a tacky fashion like Miller Plumbing Tigers. To me, they were just friendly guys who seemed to like my mom (and me, for that matter). When they would gather up at the register to pay, they would blatantly ignore my father, rough up my hair, and say something like, Hey, Shell. You have a good day now. Be a good boy, ya hear?

Yes, sir, I’d say, grateful for the attention.

For my mother it was obviously more complex than what I was aware of. These guys wanted her, and she had to be careful with what ideas she put in their heads. She’d always been a Christian woman, living a clean life of morals; but now she was no longer Mrs. Ludo. Instead, she was just Cheryl—the brunette whose husband was an adulterer.

I cannot swear to the fact that they were eyeballing my father from the corners of the smoking section, letting him know that they knew what he was and what he’d done; but I am fairly certain of that. When the news of his infidelity spread through town, no one was spared the details, and with my beautiful mother in their midst every morning, it wasn’t something that had disappeared from their memory.

She ended up dating a few of them in a time I consider to be the weirdest time of my life. My mother was no longer listening to Christian contemporary; instead, she was listening to bands of the day like Wham and Aerosmith. That was the only period in my life when I had to try and think of my mother as a regular person, not the do-gooder-Christian woman she had always been and would return to being in a year’s time.

She was dating men (four of them over the course of two years) who were wealthy, young, and handsome. I was proud of her for the caliber of man she landed, but I somehow knew that she wasn’t satisfied with them. I don’t know what the story was for sure, but I know that one man in particular almost got her to accept his proposal for marriage. Had it not been for my sister and me threatening mutiny by saying we would go live with our father, she might have.

She was still working mornings at Eggs when she started volunteering for the Rescue Squad. She worked from 5 a.m. until 11 a.m. at Eggs and then came home for a couple hours before she went on call for The Squad. There were few calls that warranted the use of the bright green light that plugged into the cigarette lighter (which allowed her to abandon all traffic signals and rules of driving). It just sat waiting for action on the dashboard, but when she did get the call, she wasn’t afraid to drive her Corolla (affectionately named Betsy) at full bore.

The light was a hand-me-down from the guy who’d given up his position on The Squad. Family issues, or something, had caused him to have to relinquish his cherished position, and when he heard that my newly divorced mother was taking the vacant position, he was elated. He’d given her the light as a token of empathy and as a gesture of power for her to use. She’d raved to my sister and me how genuinely kind Mr. Tomlink had been in giving it to her, as she couldn’t afford to buy one on her own.

The light did empower my dear mother. When it was on and her car was careening through the neighborhood on her way to an emergency, she was at her happiest. She was needed. Someone needed my mother in a way that she could understand, in the way she’d always been needed—for care and prayer. She would visit people in the hospital, make cookies and bread, let people’s dogs out, and shuttle their kids to school. See, for my mother the emergency was just the beginning of what she could do. Her real efforts took place days after the emergency when everyone else had moved on and forgotten the victim. She didn’t know how to take; she only knew how to give.

The hand-me-down spinning light that allowed her to plow recklessly through the one intersection in town had a small defect, but my mother never realized it. Originally, it was manufactured to be mounted to the roof of the car, but the magnetic base that secured it to the metal top of the Corolla had fallen off years ago. Roof mounted lights and dash mounted lights have only one difference in design—a polished chrome plate installed in the light providing a blocking of one fourth of the 360 degree spin cycle. When it’s mounted on the roof, you want 360 degrees of spin, but when it’s mounted on the dash, you want to have it shining everywhere except directly in your face.

This particular light was a roof-mount light being used as a dash light and at approximately two spins a second, my mother looked like she was moving in quick jolting segments as if under a strobe light. When her car went