Life on Other Moons

by Roger Market

streets like a herd of Spanish bulls, and everyone scatters. They run up High Hill and stand at the top. Mostly, they wonder if the water will reach them this time. Fear is a tradition and a fact of life in this town—where the sea routinely runs in herds, washing away everything not anchored down, and even fishermen are somewhat uneasy about water.

  The town’s inhabitants are creatures of habit. They eat breakfast at dawn every day, sitting on blankets at the beach. They look out over the sea. They fish until noon and then lay sandbags in town for as long as they can. Their homes are mostly protected when the tide brings the water around six o’clock, or five if the moon is feeling especially vindictive, and the people run to higher ground.

  The girl who can’t speak is always among the people on High Hill. She is a teenage orphan, generally ignored during the day. She lost her family in waves. Nonetheless, she welcomes the waves, now, and the chance to evade them by climbing High Hill. That’s when everyone is together, looking at one another, performing head counts. She needs everyone to be looking from time to time. As if she matters, too.

  When the waters recede, she waits to leave High Hill until the last possible second. Finally, the men say, "Let’s go now," and the women say, "Come on, let’s get some peace." She has no choice but to go. They have the power of speech. Who is she to deny them?

  At the center of town is a sandbag shack, and that’s where she goes each night out of habit—and the men follow, and the women stop looking when the door is shut, and she is no longer ignored. Inside, she thinks about control. Is there a way to say no without actually saying it? In the sandbag shack, she might get an hour of sleep if the men get tired soon enough. When she emerges in the morning, no one speaks. The men come out behind her, one by one, and the women look the other way. Everyone begins the day looking.

  They eat breakfast on blankets at the beach, looking out over the sea. They fish and look at the sea. When it’s time to sandbag their homes for protection, they do so with one eye on the sea. In the evening, the waters come running. Everyone is ready.

  She is ready most of all. She stands on top of High Hill, looking out, and it might as well be a mountaintop. She is safe there. She is accounted for. When the tide recedes, she yearns to leave High Hill last or not at all. But she always leaves.

  Love the Shoes

  Harvey Brogan sat on the best stretch of pale yellow grass The Gate had to offer, knees bent, feet flat on the ground. His eyes were transfixed on the prison-issued tennis shoes he’d worn for several years now, taking them in one last time. He admired their comfortable insoles but cursed the thinness of their throats and the shoddy stitching of their welts. Today, he would be released with the shoes he’d had on when he was brought to The Gate, that old model whose soles were a mustard yellow and whose uppers were all black with a hint of red, and then he would be off to see his fourteen-year-old son, Kendrick, for the first time in many years. For that occasion, he was going to need a newer model.

  He’d had three pairs of cheap tennis shoes during his nine years at The Gate. All were originally white nylon low-tops with beige shoelaces and a cream tongue that carried his last name in permanent black marker. In the outside world, he’d always avoided white shoes. Over the years, they tended to take on the color of everything the wearer touched, even the grass on which he walked. By now, his no-brand shoes had lost some of their initial luster, though he’d done all he could to keep them pristine. For nine years, with every pair of shoes he wore, he walked slowly. He took careful steps to avoid scuffing. Some days, just for an hour or so, he pulled off the shoes and went around his cell with naked toes to give his no-brand walking shoes a break. On Sundays, he didn’t even wear shoes.

  But today was a Friday, and he was being released from prison. As he watched the guard come to retrieve him from atop the hill, he tried to imagine what his son might look like now and what he might wear. Harvey pictured a younger version of himself: blond hair, gray eyes with specks of brown, maybe tall for his age, wearing dark-colored low-tops with dark welts and dark toe caps to conceal dirt from walking. When Harvey last saw Kendrick, the boy was naked from the ankle down, so this would be a step up. If nothing else, Harvey could soon check to see that Kendrick’s arch had developed properly; otherwise Kendrick might need something with a custom waist for better support. In any good relationship with shoes, support was key. Running or walking; Velcroed or laced; black, white, or brightly colored—none of this mattered if the waist had no support. But Harvey hoped for the best. He wanted Kendrick to have options. Kendrick would be a young man now, after all, with preferences all his own.

  The guard reached the top of the hill. He tried to smile, but it looked more like he was baring his teeth to show authority. Harvey wondered if the guard was ever afraid of The Gate. If so, he didn’t blame him. The Gate was a scary place if one didn’t have his wits about him. Something, or someone, might come at him out of the blue. He stood up, and they started down the hill.

  "I bet your wife is thrilled you’re coming home," the guard said as they walked.

  And there it was, right out of nowhere. This guard was friendly but new, and he clearly hadn’t heard: Harvey’s wife had recently passed away. Having already lost her nine years prior, Harvey hadn’t needed much time to adjust. He’d made peace with it. Still, he considered what Kendrick might be going through—losing one parent and gaining another he barely knew. What would Harvey say to the boy when they met? He decided he would not bring up the boy’s mother.

  "Thanks," he said. "I’m going to see my son today. Have to get some new shoes first, though."

  "Oh yeah? How old?"

  "He’s fourteen. The shoes are ten, if that’s what you meant."

  "It wasn’t. You nervous?"

  "Terrified."

  "You just need to get him talking about something, that’s all. Ask him about girls." He winked. "See you later. Or maybe I won’t, eh? Have a great life. Or have a life, anyway."

  The guard touched Harvey’s shoulder and then walked away. Harvey stood at the counter and waited for the checkout proceedings to begin.

  Kendrick had just arrived from his uncle’s house, where he had been staying since his mom died, and gone straight to his bedroom. Harvey stood in the doorway and looked in. He noticed that Kendrick wore black Converse high-tops with what appeared to be nail polish graffiti all over the canvas material constituting the uppers. His clothes were all black. His hair was dyed black as well, and it was spiked so high that it seemed to stand a good six inches taller than Harvey.

  Kendrick himself was a mountain. Harvey remembered the growth chart they’d started on the kitchen wall. He wondered if it was still there and how high it had reached. Just under six feet, he guessed. He would look at it later to confirm.

  "It’s great to meet you, son," Harvey said, his voice unexpectedly soft. He imagined himself as a small butterfly struggling to make himself heard. He cleared his throat.

  "I guess."

  Kendrick’s voice was deep, which would have surprised Harvey if the boy hadn’t already been so tall. Harvey motioned toward the bed. They sat down.

  "Love the shoes," Harvey said. "What size?"

  "Eleven."

  "Already? You’ll be bigger than me before long."

  Kendrick took off one of his shoes and started picking at the brown rubber outsole where a large chunk was missing. It appeared to have been dug out with a knife, and Kendrick was peeling pieces away, making the hole wider and deeper.

  "It’s in our genes," Harvey said.

  "What is?"

  "Shoes. We come from a long line of shoemakers. It’s what our name means. Brogan."

  "Lucky me. Another embarrassing family fact the school doesn’t need to know."

  Harvey shrugged. "How is school? Get any decent grades? I know I didn’t."

  Kendrick threw a particularly large chunk of rubber on the floor.

  "What about friends?" Harvey said. "Any good ones I should know about?"

&
nbsp; "Good ones? What exactly are you asking me, Harvey?" Kendrick looked up and stared accusingly into Harvey’s eyes. He didn’t wait for a response, though, before looking back down and digging more rubber out of his shoe.

  "I’m sorry. I just want to know you. I want to know who you hang out with, where you like to go, what kinds of shoes you like to wear." Harvey’s hand felt heavy as he reached out to touch Kendrick’s shoulder. "If there’s someone you love, maybe."

  Kendrick stopped digging at the shoe to shrug Harvey’s hand away.

  "No, no one," he said without looking up.

  Harvey watched Kendrick continue to dig pieces out of his shoe’s outsole and throw them on the floor as they came free. There wasn’t much there to begin with, though. He’d forgotten this about Converse shoes. The sole consisted mostly of one flat piece of rubber that provided little or no comfort.

  "I bet these things are hell on your gait cycle," he said.

  Was he allowed to say hell to a fourteen-year-old? He couldn’t remember.

  "I don’t know what that means," Kendrick said. He looked at Harvey.

  "Your gait is the way you move. As long as you have legs that aren’t damaged in any way and you’ve been taught how to use them, you have both a walking gait and a running gait. Everyone walks and runs differently, of course. The gait cycle is all about the progression from one gait to another. You can move through