Harmonious Hearts 2019--Stories from the Young Author Challenge

by Ryan Almroth

  She stopped, dizzy, and leaned against the jukebox in the corner. “Where do you live now?” he asked, and she told him all about the Saints of Christopher Street, and Felix’s old pinko aunt and uncle who had welcomed her and Rory with open arms.

  “Does this thing actually play?” She pressed a button on the jukebox—

  “Are you here to enlist?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  The hell does this guy want? “Have we met?”

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Yeah, and unless I know you—which I’m pretty sure I don’t—the answer’s none of your business. Fuck off.”

  White flash of pain, fist to the jaw what the fuck? Taste of ash….

  “Let that be a lesson to you, coward. Kraut.”

  “I’m nobody’s Kraut! My name’s Gallagher, of the County Cork Gallaghers!”

  “You’re a Mick, then, makes no difference.” Haven’t heard that one in a while. “You’re a strong guy who won’t enlist, and that means you ain’t an American.”

  What is wrong with this bird? “Don’t you ever call me a coward. I’ve gone nine rounds with plenty of guys bigger and badder than you or any of your Army buddies.”

  “Fight me, then. Go on. Here, right now.”

  “You aren’t worth it.” He isn’t worth it, he really isn’t worth it. Walk away, Reggie, walk away.

  “I know who you are! This’ll haunt you for the rest of your career, don’t you know? Just like Dempsey!”

  Don’t you get it? I want to fight. I want to fight more than anything. I wish more than anything I was born with another body, a body they would send into the field, and not just as a nurse. I’m not a coward. I’m not a coward. I’m not….

  They crossed into another room, this one a bedroom, maybe in an apartment or maybe in a hotel, Shay couldn’t quite tell which. The walls were papered in brown, dotted with little red flowers; the only decoration was a charcoal drawing of a log cabin, hanging over the metal-framed bed. Shay sat on it, looking down at her feet. The stains in the floor, shadows of many years and many feet passing through, told her it was a hotel room, or at any rate a temporary home.

  “I guess I’ve said everything,” she said, “up until now.”

  “You haven’t told me about that eye.”

  Shay had hoped he wouldn’t bring it up. Of everything she had experienced since boarding a night bus to New York City with her life in a pair of rolling suitcases, that was the one thing she didn’t want to revisit.

  “You know you can trust me, Shay.”

  She still didn’t want to tell him, but the story came spilling out anyway: the night she’d stepped out of a club, still feeling the high of a successful performance, wanting nothing more than to smoke a cigarette and watch the night movements of the city. The four polo and khaki-clad boys waiting for her in the alley. Their sneers, the malice in their voices as they told her to stay away from Brandy—sweet, kind Brandy, who accepted Shay for who she was (despite her decidedly un-punk-rock appearance, the uptown girl was the band’s biggest fan, and Shay’s in particular).

  Reggie listened in silence; in his eyes, under the smoldering rage, was compassion, empathy. Those eyes said I know. Said me too.

  “I told them to shove it up their asses, and that Brandy could make her own decisions, and that I wasn’t intimidated by them, and to shove it up their asses again in case they missed it the first time. And they beat the shit out of me. I tried to fight back at first, but it was four against one. After a while I just… let it happen. I figured it would end sooner that way, and it did. They got bored after about three minutes and left me alone in that alley. That’s when I decided to go straightedge—I never wanted to need a smoke break again. I carry a switchblade to gigs now. I haven’t seen Brandy since then. I guess they got to her too.”

  “Jesus,” Reggie growled, raking his hands through his hair in frustration. “I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised, but Jesus. I’d hoped things had changed in the twenty years that I’ve been gone.”

  “They have. Reggie, they have changed. There have been riots over our right to live like everyone else. We march for it, we picket government buildings. There are names for people like us now—transsexuals, transgenders, androgynes. There’s community. Things have changed. They just… they haven’t gotten better, not yet. They haven’t gotten any safer.”

  She watched his lips move as he turned the words over, silently, on his tongue: transsexual, transgender, androgyne. A history he was part of, a future he’d helped to shape, without ever knowing it.

  Shay leaned back, knocking her head against the wall.

  “Teach me to fight,” she said abruptly, gripping the bed frame tightly as she sat up—

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” It doesn’t make sense to me now. I’ve seen fighters get low, but it always happens after a loss—a devastating injury—a humiliation. How did I get so low on top of the world?

  “I’m trying to understand how you felt, Reggie. I want to know if you still feel that way now.”

  “I don’t. I promise, I don’t. I don’t want to die, Mags. I realized that when the damn lamp broke and I hit the ground. I want to live. I’m going to live.” God, Mags, I’m so sorry I can’t believe I would hurt you like that.

  I felt like a mirage

  a shadowplay

  like I could see right through myself. I was so, so afraid that the whole world was going to see through me too, see that I’m not the real thing not a real man hardly a real person.

  I feel more solid now. I’ve got my feet under me.

  Can you ever understand that?

  THEY RETURNED to the gym.

  Shay lost track of time as she hammered the canvas bag with her fists. She wasn’t wearing gloves—they were all too heavy for her to handle with ease—so each strike stung. She ground her teeth, using every mental guard she’d been taught to keep from being sucked into memories.

  Reggie had been shouting instruction from the sidelines, but now he waved for her to stop. “You’re a fast learner,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you want to try sparring?”

  “What, with you?”

  “Who else?”

  Shay looked at him incredulously. “Are you joking? You’d beat me to a pulp!”

  “I’ll pull my punches. I want to know you can beat some bum off the street, before I send you into the gaping jaws of the living world.”

  Shay hesitated.

  “What’s bothering you? Seriously, kid, I won’t hurt you.” He tried to tap her, to demonstrate, but she jumped back.

  “You’re not supposed to touch me,” she blurted. “Or I’m not supposed to touch you. I’m not sure which way it goes, probably both. You know the rules. That was the rule Nicky drilled into our heads more than any other: don’t ever let the dead touch you.” She furrowed her brow. “He never said what would happen if we did. I’m almost certain he didn’t know, himself, and he didn’t want to know. It’s like he thought death could rub off on us.”

  As she said it, a slow anger rose up from her stomach, from some place very deep where she had buried it. There was so much her family kept from her. Perhaps they were trying to protect her, but whatever their intentions, they had kept her in a glass box. Be careful in the world of the dead, there’s too much we don’t know about it. Turn off the television, you don’t need to see that. Cover your ears, this is grown-up business. There are some things that happen in this family that simply shouldn’t be discussed. We don’t care if you’re gay, Seamus, but for God’s sake, try to hide it a little better, stop parading around like you think you’re a girl; you’ve no idea how the world treats people like you.

  The world was dangerous. The world was dangerous and hostile and wild, but where it was most hostile, it was most beautiful too. For so long the Gallaghers had denied themselves that beauty.

  Regg
ie held out his hand.

  Shay took it.

  “Put your arms down, young lady, and don’t give me that look. Honestly, Regina, you ought to know better. Girls shouldn’t fight.”

  “Franklin’s allowed to fight! He’s allowed to want to box when he grows up!”

  “Franklin’s a boy. God knows I don’t like the thought of him becoming a boxer, but he’ll be a man. He’ll be allowed. You, Regina—regardless of what you sometimes seem to think—are going to become a woman. Women don’t box. It’s not legal, and it wouldn’t be natural if it was. Now, go wash up, and put on your own clothes. I don’t want to see you like this again.”

  She let go.

  “Feel any more dead?”

  “Not a bit.”

  He grinned. “I broke just about every rule in my time. My experience was, they’re mostly a lot of bushwa.”

  Shay grinned back. “All right, then. Let’s spar.”

  This time, she didn’t try to guard herself. She welcomed the onslaught of memories, grabbed them out of the air as she jabbed and ducked.

  Jab, miss. Duck. Hook, miss. Jab, strike—

  “Good, good! Fantastic! All right, now freestyle a bit, let me see what you can do.”

  One-two. Two-one. Step back. One-two-three. Circle around. Three. Five-four. Block, four. One. One. One.

  “You’re a hell of a swarmer, kid. You’ve got talent. You’ve got talent in spades. Now all you need is practice.”

  Shay smirked. She held Reggie’s moves in her mind, copying them as best she could. Jab-cross. Cross-jab. Step back….

  He caught on. “That’s dirty!”

  “You said it was a street fight!”

  They circled each other, hitting and hitting and hitting nothing. Shay had never considered exactly how many missed punches were thrown in a sparring match.

  A blow landed on her shoulder—

  “Sure, you lost the big fight to your brother, but there’s a war on now. Your brother won’t be around much longer, from what I hear, and America still needs entertainment. I can give you the chance to come back in a big way.”

  “I’ll be called a shirker. Just like Dempsey.”

  “The way I see it, Dempsey turned out fine. Tell me, why didn’t you register?”

  “I have a weak heart. I don’t tell the public; they’d think I was crazy for going into the ring.” Maybe they’re right. You can’t take many more poundings and you know it.

  “I think that. Why do you box if it poses such a risk?”

  Because it’s the only time I can show the world who I really am. Because it’s when I feel most in tune with myself.

  “Because it’s the only time I feel really alive.”

  Shay buckled her knees, desperately pinwheeling her arms.

  “Don’t flail. Protecting yourself is still important on the ground, especially in a street fight. Pull your elbows in. Curl up. This is important, kid. Second most important thing my trainer ever taught me was how to get knocked down.”

  “What was the most important thing?”

  “How to get back up.”

  He jabbed again, striking her in the jaw and knocking her off-balance—

  He’s down. By God, he’s down, I did it. I won!

  I won

  Nineteen fifty-seven and here I am winning again.

  Lights are real bright tonight

  God, it’s beautiful

  Catch your breath Reggie catch your breath

  I can’t

  I can’t breathe

  God my chest hurts….

  Shay took his advice; she folded in on herself and fell, with her elbows and ribs taking the brunt of it. She rolled as she landed, and sprang back to her feet a moment later.

  Reggie lowered his hands, signaling the end of the fight, and chuckled. “I think you’ve got the hang of this, kid. Not a prizefighter, not yet—”

  “Wouldn’t interest me, anyway.”

  “—but you can defend yourself. You’ll get along in a fight.” He sighed. “Although, I’ll be praying you don’t get into any more of those.”

  “I don’t go looking for them. People tend to bring them to me.”

  “I know. And I feel better knowing you can beat them when they do.”

  Shay turned to the window. The street scene had turned to evening: lovers strolled arm in arm, mothers leaned out of windows calling for their children to come in before it got too dark. The vendors were gone. In the real New York, criminals would be lurking in the shadows, but this was Reggie’s New York. His Heaven. There was no evil here, no pain.

  “I think I need to go,” she said. “I’ve got no real way to track time, but….”

  “It’s in here.” Reggie tapped his chest. “The pull, back to the living world. I remember.”

  Shay picked up her bag; the lighter and salt sitting lonely at its bottom felt like relics of another life. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t… I don’t know how to say goodbye.”

  Reggie tapped his chin. “You know,” he said, “when I was a young death-walker, there was a strict rule against stealing from the world of the dead. Do you still have that one?”

  “Yes. As far as I know, it would be impossible to bring an object through the door, even if you did take it.”

  “What about a gift? Could you bring something back if it was freely given to you?”

  “I’ve never tried. I don’t think anyone’s tried, given the no-contact rules.” Which, it turned out, were indeed mostly bushwa. Shay wondered how Tommy would react to that news.

  “Well… try.” He pulled the string of beads from under his shirt, and Shay saw what exactly it was: a medal. A dull-silver disk, a seal on one side and a face on the other, like a coin.

  “I’ve carried this with me since I was fifteen years old. It’s St. Joan of Arc. St. Joan was your age, give or take, when she died,” Reggie said. “Do you know why she was executed?”

  “Heresy.”

  “She was arrested for heresy. She was executed because she refused to wear women’s clothing in prison, contrary to the orders of the judge. Now, the church gives any number of reasons why, but I say the simplest explanation is usually true. I say that Joan of Arc wouldn’t wear women’s clothing because that wasn’t who she was. Because she was like us.”

  He pressed the medal into Shay’s hand. “Here, I think you need that more than I do now.”

  She slipped it over her head, and then she threw her arms around him.

  “I won’t let you be forgotten,” she said. “I’ll tell my brothers and my cousins what I know. I’ll tell anyone who listens. I won’t let you be erased.”

  He hugged her tighter. “You’re gonna change the world, kid. I just know it. You keep looking for Frank, all right?”

  “I will.” Already she had a few places in mind that he might be haunting. “If he gets here before I find him, will you tell him to come visit me?”

  “’Course I will.” Reggie gave her shoulders a final squeeze, and let go. “Go give ’em hell.”

  There was so much more she wanted to know.

  The pull of the living world got stronger. Shay knew she had to trust her gift. She shut her eyes, and let it draw her away. Back through the door.

  The smell of eggs frying greeted her, and the sound of Rory calling her name: “Shay? Shay! Where are you? Breakfast is on!”

  She opened her eyes. “I’m out here, Rory!”

  He stuck his head into the garage. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shook his head. “Well, breakfast is almost ready. You had better get in here before Felix scarfs down all the eggs.”

  “I’m coming.”

  The smell of something burning wafted out to them. Rory cursed, and scrambled back to the kitchen.

  Shay knew, sooner or later, she would have to look at herself, see what her latest jaunt had left her.

  She raised her hands first, examining the bruises on her knuckles; t
hey were easily as real as anything sustained in the living world, a deep plum color, aching at a touch.

  She held her breath, and touched her chest where Reggie’s medal might hang.

  Her fingers found wooden beads, a small metal disk.

  “Shay! Hurry up!”

  “Coming, Rory, coming!”

  She tucked the medal under her shirt, and she went inside.

  K. NOEL MOORE is a nineteen-year-old author from Atlanta, currently not-so-far from home studying to be a teacher. They self-published their first novella not long after graduating high school, and have since been featured in several magazines and journals, and nominated for a Best of the Net award. “The Secret History of the Fighting Gallaghers” was inspired in part by their experience as the only trans/GNC person competing in their college’s boxing team. You can follow them on Twitter over at @mysterioustales.

  Published by

  HARMONY INK PRESS

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  publisher@harmonyinkpress.com • harmonyinkpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Harmonious Hearts 2019

  © 2020 Harmony Ink Press

  Edited by Dawn Johnson

  Happy New Year © 2020 Chloe Smith

  Of Pseudonyms and Earbuds © 2020 M. Caldeira

  Blond Dahlia © 2020 Jordan Ori

  His Laugh Was Like a Melody © 2020 M.k Elford

  Wisper © 2020 Gabrielle Taylor

  Honeysuckle © 2020 Daniel Okulov

  Starlight Sundress © 2020 Alec S. Lefeber

  Metamorphosis © 2020 Ryan Almroth

  On the Clock and In Love © 2020 Alexis K Henley

  Dotting the Eyes © Oliver X. Li

  At the Party © 2020 Rhiannon Lee

  Make a Note of It © 2020 Abigail FitzGibbon

  The Secret History of the Fighting Gallaghers © 2020 K. Noel Moore