Late afternoon sunlight is sliced through the metal window grate set high on the concrete wall. Puzzle pieces of blinding white are thrown haphazardly on the canvas platform, illuminating cloth the color of dirty dishwater.
“Go on,” an older man with tiny bright eyes and a lined mouth says. He lays a gnarled and disfigured hand on one of the ropes of the boxing ring. Taking a gulp of air, a boy of about twelve—tall for his age and svelte—nods his head and squares his shoulders. Stepping up on an old soapbox, the boy pulls apart the faded red ropes and gingerly steps onto the platform. Exhaling slowly, the boy sets his jaw and begins to slowly press his gloved fists against each other. He twitches slightly, resisting the urge to look back at his mentor and instead does his best to focus on adjusting his gloves which are stiff and still smell strongly of new leather. Beneath his feet, he can feel a vibration ripple across the platform. Slowly, his raises his eyes, glaring out from under dark brown brows. His eyes widen slightly, and something flickers across his face before it returns to its original stoic expression.
The creature in the opposing corner isn’t so much of a boy as nearly a man, dwarfing his opponent in both height and weight. As if engaged in some sort of David-and-Goliath-esque dance, the pair begin to circle each other in the center of the ring, their shadows crisscrossing into the stripes of sunlight. Sweat is already beading on the forehead of the smaller fighter, and the moisture in his mouth has all but evaporated. Their fragmented shadows are stretched long and jagged, wavering and rippling. One of the figures lumbers, dancing lazily; the other moves sharply, but rhythmically.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
His feet fall softly around the ring. He licks his lips nervously and tries to catch the gaze of his mentor out of the corner of his eye but is unsuccessful. The older man looks on expressionlessly, his arms crossed, brow furrowed.
Thump-thump.
Bits of sunlight, stale air, dust, and dirty concrete walls spin around the ring, faster and faster. The pouty lips of the larger boy suddenly wrinkle up like a dried prune. The younger boy chokes down a yelp and ducks a swinging fist. A wave of relief rushes over his flushed face as the breeze from his opponent’s arm ruffles his butterscotch brown hair. Grinning, he rises to his full height. A dark blur tumbles past the slight boy’s line of vision. There’s a loud cracking sound as the floor suddenly rises up under him.
Blinding white flashes.
Darkness.
Someone has pulled a dark shade over the solitary window.
The glass face of the Virgin Mary glows warmly, backlit by the morning sun. Stained glass shadows of blue, red, and gold pool at the edges of a plain pine casket and dribble onto the tiled church floor. A bouquet of white day lilies sits atop the casket; brown rot is starting to creep up the edges of the petals. There is a droning sound in Conrad Callahan’s ears. He notices the priest addressing the congregation from his pulpit, but words are not exiting his mouth. The funerary symphony—the dull buzzing of the priest, the sobs of his mother, a baby crying, the loud breathing of his sister, sniffing, and soft tears—swell and then quickly decrescendo into an underwater hum, sloshing around in his throbbing brain. Amidst the din, a jumble of words and a man’s gruff voice fight their way into the clear, drowning the other instruments into silence.
“Of course I knew you’d lose. That’s why I put ya in there.”
“Why? Why’d you want me to lose?”
“I wanted you to know how it feels ta lose, ta be humiliated. And I wanted you ta hate it... Do ya?”
“Well... I—”
“You like how it feels ta lose, boy? You like havin’ yur pride knocked out of ya?”
“No! I jus—“
“Good. Because I don’t train losers. There’s a lot ‘a money ta be made, boy. Some of it could be yurs, but don’t waste my time if yur not serious. There’s nothin’ special about ya. I could take any one ‘a those boys on the street out there and turn ‘em inta fighters.”
“I want to do it.”
“Want ta do what, boy?” The gray-haired man squinted at the boy standing at his door.
The boy blinked. “I...I want to fight.” The last word sounded strange and foreign in his mouth, said with difficulty. Softer, he added, “I need the money.”
The older man nodded, running a hand over his craggy chin. “Yur pa,” he said thoughtfully.
The boy looked down.
The man studied the boy for a moment. “Well...” he drew the world out, as if in deep thought. “When would ya like ta start, boy?”
The boy raised his eyes. “The name’s Conrad, sir.” He stared into the older man’s hard blue eyes. “Not ‘boy’.”
“Connie!” Kathleen Callahan called over her shoulder. “Connie!” Her brown eyes flashed with annoyance over her new-found discovery: she’d burned the rice. “Oh!” Shaking a few bits of loose brown strands from her sticky forehead, she began aggressively scraping at the burnt bottom of the pot, overturning crunchy, golden globs of rice.
“Connie!” Katie whirled around from her position on the stove, looking around the tiny kitchen for her younger brother. Placing the pot on the table with unnecessary force, Katie wiped her hands on her apron and stormed out of the apartment. “Connie!” she called again, clomping down the narrow, dark staircase that led from their second floor apartment to the ground floor. “Conrad...” she grumbled under her breath, her mouth setting in a hard line.
“Conrad Michael Callahan!” she screamed, bursting out the door of the apartment building and into the blinding summer sunlight. “Connie!” A slightly gangly boy was running lopsidedly down the street towards her. “Where were you!” she demanded, grabbing the boy’s arm. “Dinner’s getting cold. Do you want to upset Mother?” Katie eyed him indignantly.
Conrad sighed. “No. I wuz just--—“
Katie gasped and reached out a hand to grab Conrad’s chin. “What happened to your face?” she asked in disbelief, tilting his cheek into the sunlight. “You’re bleeding!”
Conrad gulped audibly, his hazel eyes growing enormous. “I fell,” he replied quickly.
Katie stared hard at her brother, small wrinkles forming on her forehead. Conrad returned her gaze, unblinking. “You didn’t fall,” she said finally.
Conrad didn’t reply. He just set his jaw.
Katie sighed and shook her head. “Come on. Dinner’s ready.” She let go of Conrad’s arm and stood. “Mother’s still upset. She said we’re going to have to move; we can’t afford our apartment.” She turned away and started up the front steps to the apartment.
“What?!” Conrad remained rooted to his spot, staring up at his sister’s back.
“Connie...” She turned back around, her shoulders sagging. “Daddy’s dead.” She paused for a moment, and the word hung for a moment in the air. “Where do you think money comes from?”
Conrad narrowed his eyes. “I’m not stupid. Don’t talk ta me like I’m a kid. I’m supposed ta be the man of the house now,” he added, the pace of his words quickening. “An’ we don’t gotta move anywhere.” He stomped up the apartment steps, past his sister.
“Connie, you’re thirteen! Stop being silly!” She jogged after her brother, catching the door behind him.
Conrad stopped short, just inside the doorway. “Yeah, an’ what makes you think you know so much? Ya turn seventeen an’ some boy starts tryin’ ta court ya and you think ya know everything? Huh?” He scowled at her.
“Don’t sass me like that,” she snapped, matching his scowl.
He sighed, relenting slightly. “Look. I got money.” He reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a small packet of bills. “We don’t hafta move.”
“Where did you get that?” Katie hissed, grabbing for the bills. Conrad clapped the wad to his chest protectively. She glared at him and lowered her voice. “Did you steal that?!”
“No!” Conrad widened his eyes indignantly.
“Then where’d it come from?” Katie fixed him with her brown-eyed, expectant stare.
Conrad blinked a few times, mentally debating with himself. He swallowed, glancing around the shadowy lobby. “None of yer business,” he retorted, raising his chin in defiance.
“Connie!” she snapped, hands on her hips.
Conrad shrugged insolently and ran up the stairs to their apartment, leaving Katie in the darkened hallway. “Wretched child,” she muttered under her breath, before following him up the stairs.
Sounds.
Every night they rose up from the steamy streets. Each distinct unto itself, usually familiar, all wound together into a giant knot of string—laughter, footsteps, hushed voices, the sound of carriages clacking down the street, birds crying on the water. When he couldn’t sleep, he would try to untie the knot and separate each one out, work his ear around each one. He would lie there, eyes shut, hovering just above the line of consciousness, listening. That was when he could hear the best, when the sounds seemed to sink in deepest to his brain. That was when he could hear the facets, the nuances, like he could almost touch the individual pieces of sound and feel the texture of the twine under his fingertips.
“Conrad.”
His sister’s voice resonated deeply within his ears, a piano chord reverberating up the walls of his head. They shared a bedroom. “Yes?”
“Where did you get that money.”
There was a couple talking below the window. Their voices a low, wave-like murmur. He could hear the front door of the apartment creak open. Footfalls on the steps. “I won it. Don’t accuse me of stealing. I wouldn’t eva’ do that.”
“I’m sorry.” He could feel her roll over to look at him. He didn’t open his eyes. “How’d you win it?”
For a moment, a smile played on his lips, then faded away. Voices on the landing. Man and a woman. “You can’t tell Mom.”
She propped herself on her elbow, staring at him in the moonlight. His face was blue, shadows running down the sides of his face like giant tears. “I won’t.” She waited. His chest, covered only by a thin t-shirt, slowly rose and fell. It was too hot for blankets. “I promise.”
He opened his eyes. Stared at the cracked plaster ceiling. The voices on the landing had faded away. A horse snorted in the distance and the creaking of carriage wheels floated in the warm air. “Boxing.”
“You’ll get hurt.” A hint of anxiety colored her voice. She reached a finger out to touch the cut on his cheek.
He turned to face her. The sound of his hair scraping against the pillowcase seemed deafening. He blinked his eyes at her. They shone in the blue light. “I’ll tell her I got a job. I’ll say some of the money comes from that. But you have to say some of it comes from your job, too.”
“Why can’t you just get a job.”
He studied the air just above her head. “This pays so much, Katie.”
She flopped onto her back. The mattress shuddered. “If you don’t want Mom to know, you can’t get hurt.” She looked at him. He blinked back, somber. “Not badly, anyway.” She turned away and rolled onto her side.
He stared at her back for several minutes. He could hear a bird alight from a tree. Rustling. Footsteps on the street. A chain began welding together in his head, link by simplistic link. To get the prize money, you gotta win the fight. To win the fight, you gotta hurt the other guy. To hurt the other guy, you gotta be good. To be good, you gotta practice. To practice, you gotta stay fit.
You can’t get hurt. Not badly, anyway. He rolled over.
“This,” the bright-eyed man spat, raising an eyebrow, “Conrad,” he gave the boy a pointed look, “is yur new sparring partner.”
Conrad curled his lip slightly and narrowed his eyes skeptically. “You gotta be kiddin’ me, Sull.” No one seemed to know the man’s first name—it was just Sullivan, or Sull.
Conrad eyed the boy before him with a look of faint disgust. He was nearly six feet tall and painfully skinny. His body, the color of uncooked bread dough, was liberally dotted with pink freckles, which, to Conrad, seemed to match the flaming red color of the boy’s hair. The tall boy raised his head and tried to smile meekly at Conrad, but it came across as more of a grimace of pain. Conrad noted, with some disgust, that the boy was missing both his front teeth.
Preoccupied with mentally creating an inventory of all the faults of his prospective sparring partner, Conrad didn’t notice Sullivan’s hand flying towards his face until the smack echoed in the sweaty air of the basement. He started, a stinging sensation quickly spreading over his cheek. Sullivan shot him a glare. “You ain’t allowed ta be cocky unless yur the best there is. And you,” Sull leaned his face close to Conrad’s, “certainly are not the best.”
Conrad said nothing; he shifted his weight and sighed a little, a brooding expression on his face.
“Not one ta like havin’ yur pride bruised, are ya?” Sullivan squinted at him, a graying eyebrow raised.
Conrad shifted his gaze from the floor to Sullivan and then back again. “No, sir.”
A smile slowly stretched across Sullivan’s craggy face. “Good. Now get in thar and fight.” He clapped his hand together sharply. The noise rang out in the empty room, and the two boys hastily climbed into the boxing ring.
The tall boy—Conrad took to privately calling him Freckles, seeing as Sull hadn’t bothered to mention his name—turned out to be a better fighter than expected. (Which wasn’t too difficult, as Conrad wasn’t expecting much at all.) Conrad remembered once seeing a flier for the circus advertising boxing kangaroos. That’s what he kind of felt like at times, bouncing around the ring in a never ceasing, circular dance.
Thump thump, thump, thump.
Or maybe it was more of a Boing, boing, like a spring.
Boing, boing. Look at that skinny kid. Freckles. No! Freckles the Kangaroo. Hah.
Conrad smiled at the thought.
“AW!”
A red leather gloved carved a straight path into Conrad’s nose. The shock was enough to send him onto his back. The world in the peripheries of his vision spun, jerked, and stumbled. The Kangaroo was looming over him, his pink puffy lips parted slightly, panting. They look like worms after it rains, Conrad thought in revulsion. Somewhere he could hear Sully’s gruff, Irish-accented voice in the background. It sounded like he was underwater. “One! Two! Three!...” Something wet trickled down Conrad’s lip. He licked it—blood, salty and metallic. What the hell! That skinny, ugly kid just— “Six! Seven! Get up, boy! Eight!...”
Conrad scrambled to his feet. The possibility that his nose might be broken briefly entered his mind. The thought made him livid.
They began to dance.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
He could feel the blood running over his lips, starting to dry and congeal. “Hey, Kangagroo Boy.” He said it very softly. “Kangaroooo Boooyyy...” It was a song now. The freckled boy glanced at Conrad, a look of confusion on his face.
He jabbed. Left hook.
Freckles ducked.
They danced.
Conrad fixed his eyes on his partner’s face. “Yeah... you. I’m talkin’ ta you, Kangaroo Boy.” He watched the boy twitch slightly.
Thump, thump.
“I said,” at this, Conrad did a little bit of fancy footwork, a dodge and a wiggle, “I’M TALKIN’ TA YOU! ANSWER ME!” His eyes blazed. Freckles looked at him with a mixture of shock and horror and in that half-second window, Conrad sank his fist squarely into the tall boy’s eye. The full weight of Conrad’s body had been behind the punch, and the boy landed squarely on his back. Letting out a battle cry, Conrad threw himself on top of Freckles, and attempted to further pummel the boy’s head even though the he was shielding his face with gloved hands.
“What in da the hell you tryin’ ta do, Kangaroo Boy?” Conrad grunted through gritted teeth. He smacked the boys head with alternating left and right fists. “Tryin’ ta break my nose, huh? Huh?!” Smack smack smacksmacksmack!
“CONRAD!” Sullivan thundered, but Conrad was barely aware of the man grabbing him by the shoulders and hauling him off the other boy. “What do ya think yur doin’?!” The man looked at him in shock.
Conrad scowled and wiped a glove across his bloody upper lip. He sniffed loudly, turned to his left, and spat a mixture of blood and saliva onto the ring floor. He glared at Sullivan.
“Boy, you let them take the count. Ya don’t go in after them. Ya ain’t supposed ta hit them if they ain’t standin’ up!”
A year after Ian Callahan’s death, one year, down to the very day, Conrad returned home, boxing gloves swinging jauntily around his neck, to find every flat surface in the apartment covered with loaves of banana bread, trying desperately to cool in the sticky late June heat. Conrad frantically dashed to the bedroom, trying to shove the gloves into a dark corner of his dresser, only to find three loaves of bread sitting atop the piece of furniture.
“Mom...?” He gingerly stepped into the cramped kitchen. He looked around the room, his face twisted in astonishment and horror. There was a loaf cooling in every open windowsill, loaves covering half the table, sitting in opened, empty cupboards, on the stove, on the ground, lined up along the wall, on the chairs, in the oven... The room reeked of burnt sugar and overripe bananas. A thin women with graying red-brown hair was furiously mashing an overripe banana with a fork. Tears were streaming down her face.
The woman let out a choked sob, and the hot air rang out with the sound of metal and porcelain, clanging discordantly, as the dented fork slipped from her trembling fingers. “Oh, Connie...” She turned to her son and held out her arms helplessly, vigorously shaking her head for lack of an explanation.
She didn’t need one. Banana bread had been her husband’s favorite. She baked it for his birthday, special. Or sometimes for no reason at all. Because you don’t need a reason to do something for someone you love.
Conrad stepped forward and allowed his mother to wrap her banana-scented hands and batter-speckled arms tightly around her son. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed softly, taking her son’s head in her hands. He had grown several inches in the past year; she had to look up to see his face now.
“No.” Conrad shook his head. He felt a tear drip off his chin. He knew why. And it was all right. Sniffing, he reached over, picked the fork off the table and sunk it into the creamy flesh of the remaining banana half. His mother studied him, a look of wonderment on her face. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he smiled sheepishly at her, and scraped the banana off the plate and into the uncooked dough.
Freckles the Kangaroo Boy was long gone. Now Conrad sparred with an older boy known only as Jimmy the Teeth. The other boys said he had once bitten a chunk of flesh out of an opponent’s arm during a fight and had since been banned from all organized fights, not that anyone would have agreed to fight with him after a stunt like that anyway. Conrad scoffed at the story, of course. Secretly though, he did wonder why someone of Jimmy’s bulk and skill did nothing but spar.
Not that it mattered now. The point was that Jimmy had been a good sparring partner and had hopefully helped prepare Conrad for what he was about to do today. Despite everything that Sullivan said (“Poor form, boy! Yur supposed ta dance, boy, not hop, not prance like a little fairy! What kind of punch was that? That wouldn’t even hurt a man on his last breath of life!”), Conrad has noticed him tossing him a bone every now and again (“Eh. That wasn’t too terrible, boy.”). Moreover, Sullivan had booked him for his first big fight, against a burly Polish boy named Zalenski, who didn’t speak much English. There had even been publicity—fliers posted around the neighborhood. He’s even gotten his own boxing name: Knuckles Callahan. “Knuckles?! What da hell kinda name is dat?” he’d protested, but secretly he thought it had a marvelous ring to it. Besides, the posters had already been printed.
The big men were coming to this one. That’s what all the boys called them. The big men, who placed their bets with the bookie. There would be a cash prize should he win. Certainly not enough to make anyone rich, but it would buy the Callahan’s two weeks worth of groceries. And that was all that really mattered to Conrad.
The sweaty stinking basement was about half full with spectators: the younger goggle-eyed boys awaiting their chance in the ring, the older ones, cynical before their time, with squinty-eyes, trainers, bookies, promoters, stoic men in suits, stoic men in raggedy shirts, hoping to win a buck or two. A low-pitched hum of tenors, baritones, and basses echoed off the mottled concrete walls.
In the back room, a storage closet with a few chairs, really, Sullivan checked his pocket watch. He eyed Conrad, who sat in the straight-backed chair nervously smacking his gloved knuckles together.
“It’s time, Conrad.”
He jerked his head up.
Sullivan walked to the door. “Walk tall and hold yur head high. Remember what I taught ya. Dance. It’s all up here.” He pointed an index finger to his skull, as if his finger was the barrel of a pistol. He placed his hand on the doorknob.
The din of voices receded into no more than a few hushed whispers as Sullivan and his newest boy-wonder, the great (or at least soon to be great) Knuckles Callahan, made their way through the crowd toward the ring. The Fearless Zalenski (a terrible name, Conrad thought), was already in his corner of the ring, his puffy white face expressionless.
Mean, ugly, and stupid, Conrad thought, sizing up Zalenski from the corner of his eye. This is what he thought of all of them. Maybe not always the same words, but something negative. Sometimes he’d make up histories about them, about how their mothers were whores, or that they liked to play stick ball with baby kittens. Something wretched. Something to make him hate them. Something to quantify his actions. A conscience could kill you in this sport.
He parted the ropes and climbed into the ring, a look of sheer disgust towards his opponent firmly planted on his face. The crowd began babbling again. Conrad glared menacingly at his opponent. The air in his ears became thick and heavy and the voices around him slowly died away until all he could hear was a single note, high and sustained like the call of a gull over the Hudson River, the bittersweet cry of the bell.
Like a pair of Pavlov’s dogs, the pair sprang into action at the sound. The blood beat in Conrad’s ears. He could feel the impact of his feet, each step on the ring. And in his bones, his arms, legs, entire body, he could feel the second set of feet, Zalenski’s, as they paired his.
Thump, thump.
They circled. He could feel Zalenski’s rhythm. Shuffle-tap-tap. Shuffle-tap-tap. There was a scraping. Conrad ducked the punch and sprung back, nailing his fist into the side of Zalenski’s head before he could block it. Zalenski hardly flinched and in turn lunged for Conrad’s middle before he could side-step out of the way. Conrad puffed a little, the wind knocked out of him.
This wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.
A groan went up from the crown at the outcry of the bell signaling the end of the fourth round. Zalenski’s nose was dripping blood; Conrad’s ribs were starting to ache. Dropping his gloves, Conrad walked back to his corner, as upright as he could muster. He sat down gingerly on the stool.
“How’re yur ribs?” Sullivan asked, leaning his face near Conrad’s.
Conrad choked down a grimace. “They hurt.”
Sullivan motioned for another man, Riggs, to step into the ring. Riggs might have been a doctor—hopefully he was, Conrad thought—though it was hard to say; he looked too poor and too gruff. Either way, he had a fair amount of medical knowledge.
“Ribs,” Sullivan said, and Riggs wordlessly put his hands on Conrad’s torso and poked and prodded in several areas.
“Bruised,” he finally said.
“Are they more likely ta break like that?” Conrad asked. He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. What would his mother and sister do if he broke them?
Riggs eyed him. “Yes.” He turned away and climbed back out of the ring.
“Dat’s it.” Conrad set his jaw.
“What?” Sullivan frowned at him.
“I said,” he lowered his voice, “that’s it. This is the last round, Sull.”
Sullivan looked at him as though he’d just proclaimed himself governor of New York. “Excuse me?”
Conrad stared at Sullivan, unblinking. “You’ll see.” He rose from his stool. They were about to ring the bell for the fifth round.
A pistol is fired to signal the start of a race. The runners leap forward, as if they are wound springs being held captive between some greater force. Conrad was off at the clang of the bell. A force unleashed, he unfurled his fist into Zalenski’s already bleeding nose. A marvelously loud smack-crrrraaaaak! was heard throughout the basement as gloved hand sunk into fractured bone. A thick stream of crimson spurted forth from Zalenski’s nostrils, coating his lips and chin and splashing over his smooth, white chest. The crowd tittered.
In a move only properly seen in slow-motion (for this was how it all played out in Conrad’s mind), as his left fist began to withdraw from the opponent’s now-crushed nose, his right rapidly moved in to meet it, slamming itself even harder than the first blow (for Conrad was right-handed) into Zalenski’s eye. The crowd released an assortment gasps and murmurs into the thick air. Zalenski staggered. Conrad ever-so-briefly ruminated on how much his hands smarted, despite all the padding of the gloves. However, this thought was quickly abandoned. A singular task was at hand; all else was simply scattered off the edge of Conrad’s brain for the time being.
Taking a deep breath, Conrad advanced forward and attempted to nail a blow to Zalenski’s ear. Zalenski, flinging drops of red, narrowly ducked the punch, and Conrad only succeeded in cuffing the side of his head. Now off-balance, Conrad’s weight shifted almost entirely to the balls of his feet; Zalenski sent him stumbling backwards with a hit to the chin and shoulder.
Conrad gasped, feeling all his breath thrust forward as his body banged into the ropes. Zalenski’s moon-shaped face, the lower half tainted red and his nose painfully bent to one side, leered on the rapidly shrinking horizon of Conrad’s vision. He didn’t move. The crowd rumbled indignantly. Zalenski began loping forward at an ever-increasing speed. Fresh blood was still trickling down his face, forming new rivers over the dry burgundy wasteland of his full, feminine lips.
Conrad narrowed his eyes. “Bastard,” he hissed, and just as he could feel Zalenski’s metallic-scented breath tickle his face, his pivoted sideways and sent one, two, the second more powerful than the first, blows into the side of Zalenski’s head. Zalenski stumbled and teetered like a tightrope walker searching for balance. Conrad continued to hammer Zalenski’s now swimming brain with punches. He grunted, his eyes started to tear; it felt like his hands were going to fall off at the wrists. Zalenski was starting to buckle at the knees. A mangled sound exited Conrad’s throat, a cross between a yelp and a bitter sob, and with this sound followed the final, bone-shuddering crash to Zalenski’s skull. The boy sunk to the ground and lay on his side, curled into a fetal position, blotches of his blood starting to bloom on the ring floor.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!...” Conrad turned away. Saw Sully, watching without expression, save a strange sort of gleam in his eye, which Conrad would later come to refer to as pride. Saw his peers, their faces loaded with anticipation. Saw the big men in their big suits with piqued curiosity and a glimmer of what might have been interest. He slowly turned back.
“Four! Three!...”
Saw Zalenski for what he really was. A boy. Who would have to go home to his family tonight with a battered head, broken nose, and bruised body. Because of him. Conrad “Knuckles” Callahan. A boy who thought he had to be a man, because his father was dead.
“... the winner... Knuckles... Callahan!” A hand closed around his wrist and lifted his limp arm into the air. He looked around the room, eyes bewildered and lost. It felt like someone was opening a creaky closet door... that strange noise...
The crowd was cheering.
The following June was marked with the sudden arrival of flowers. At first it was just one or two – a daisy, or a carnation. Katie tried to hide them, discard them before she arrived home. But soon there were whole bouquets, lilies, or even roses. Roses. She couldn’t leave those at work. Or throw them away. They started popping up on the dinner table, in the windowsill, and on the dresser she and Conrad shared. Mother knew something was up, Conrad was sure. They had their own secret meetings about this sort of thing – women talk. At first he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know, but when the wilted petals started showing up in his sock drawer, he decided otherwise.
“Katie…” Conrad paused to fish a brown rose petal out of his underwear drawer. “Why’d ya keep buyin’ all dese flowers?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
Katie stopped in mid-hair brush, her hand still poised in the air next to her head. Slowly, she turned to face her younger brother and fixed him with a strange look. She lowered her arm. “Connie, I thought you knew…” The skin between her brown eyebrows began to dimple.
A defensive color entered his eyes. “Knew… what?” Like his sister, the space between his eyebrows also dimpled when upset.
She set the brush down on the dresser, sighing softly to herself. She studied the petal-littered dresser surface for a few moments. Their eyes met. “About Jeremy.”
His hazel eyes widened. “Who in da hell is Jeremy?” He snapped—though he didn’t mean to.
She sighed in exasperation. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Like what?” This time he meant to.
“Like street trash, that’s what.” She glared.
He outglowered her glare. “I don’t talk like dis, nobody in dat boxin’ ring takes me seriously. I bring home money ‘cause I talk like dis, street trash or not.”
“Yes, yes. Sir Knuckles Callahan, world-famous teenage street fighter!” She rolled her eyes excessively and gestured dramatically with her hand. Sighing, she returned to brushing her hair, eyes fixed on her reflection.
There was a drawn-out pause.
Finally:
“Yer fergittin’ the part about how I’m a ‘boy wondah’.” He cracked a sideways grin.
Katie continued to gaze into the mirror, but a smile tugged at her lips. She put the hairbrush down. “Sorry. ‘Knuckles Callahan, famous teenage street fighter! A boy wonder at only fifteen!’ ” She has memorized the promotional flyers by now.
They grinned.
“So…” Conrad sat down on the bed. “Who’s Jeremy.”
Katie shrugged. “A boy…” She had returned to brushing her hair, though coyly now.
He snorted. “A boy…”
“Well… A man, really.”
“A man.” There was a hint of interest in his tone. “A man who likes ta give ya flowers?”
Katie grew pink. “Yes.”
“Oh.” He shrugged and glanced out the window.
Katie studied the image of the hairbrush as it slid through her light brown locks. Very slowly, she moved her hand to the dresser and placed the brush down. She ran a hand over the freshest bouquet of dark pink roses.
Conrad started when he felt her sit down on the bed.
She stared at him intently for a few moments. “Actually…”
He didn’t like the sound of this and bit his lip pensively.
She blinked rapidly and new furrows began to form on her forehead. Softly, she spoke into his ear. “He wants to marry me.”
The bed fell away from under him. He jaw sprang open, eyes like plates. But there was no sound. He sat back down, limp.
“He’s been coming to the bakery every day for the past six months or so. He works at the shop around the corner—selling books and magazines. His father owns it.” She looked down at her hands. “He’s been sending me flowers for the past two weeks.” She looked at Conrad. “Sometimes we eat lunch together. He keeps begging me to come to dinner with him, but…” Her brown eyes rolled toward the hallway, fixed on the open door to her mother’s bedroom.
Silence.
Her eyes fluttered. “Conrad…”
But he was elsewhere, wheels and gears gyrating and thumping inside his skull. A searing heat pounded in the space just behind his eyes. He blinked.
“Do you love him?” He didn’t look at her.
Silence.
She wouldn’t look at him.
In the past year, Conrad had fought in eight major fights, as well as a handful of casual, smaller bouts. Of the total thirteen fights, he had won all but two. There had been cuts and bruises, a broken thumb, but on the whole, he had emerged wholly undamaged; the bridge of his narrow, lightly freckled nosed remained unbroken, and his uncommonly straight set of white teeth all intact. (Secretly, he insisted his wearing own primitively designed mouth guard—Sullivan thought it an oddly vain obsession.) In addition to naturally quick reflexes and a preternatural gift for rhythm (this was enhanced by Sullivan’s insistence that Katie teach him how to waltz), Conrad has grown several inches taller and had filled out noticeably, going from thin and squeaky to broad-shouldered and bass-voiced. Within the space of a year, Conrad had developed one other thing as well: a burgeoning ego.
On the eve of his ninth major fight, Conrad waited inside a dank room with dirty white walls and a bare light dangling from the ceiling. He absently pummeled a small punching bag, also suspended from the low ceiling. The building was an old warehouse that had been converted into a ring and small training school. The floppy bag shuddered under his fists, but despite the fairly immense force he rendered upon it, there was a look of complete vacancy in his eyes. Conrad had grown to look upon boxing in general with a completely clinical air. He hurt other people for a living and tried his best not to get hurt himself. It wasn’t kind, glamorous, or pretty. If he truly broke it down, it was dirty, dangerous, and cruel. If he truly broke it down, he probably couldn’t keep it up. So he didn’t. This was normal, as far as Conrad was concerned. This was his job, and he was good at it. And he didn’t take it home, save the prize money. Sure, some of it went to Sullivan, and then there were his own equipment and training expenses. But it was still a great help around the house.
Conrad’s nostrils flared as he sunk a final hit into the punching bag. Tonight he was fighting against a boy the name of Angelini. He’d fought him in a small bout several months earlier—and has licked him good by the second round. This was going to be an easy win, short and sweet, allowing him, he figured, enough time to meet up with Katie and be introduced to his future brother-in-law. All the more reason to win this fight—a wedding would cost money—even if he didn’t necessarily agree with his sister’s reasons for marriage. (Security. Not love. But then, what did he know. He was only fifteen.)
“Conrad!” Sully poked his graying head into the room.
Conrad turned away from the punching bag. “Yeah?”
“We need ta talk about something.” He shot Conrad a reproving glance and shut the door behind him.
Conrad blinked. “What?”
Sullivan approached the boy, his hard, shiny eyes ricocheting around the room before narrowing in on their target. “How much money do ya think yur lookin’ ta make tonight?”
“Wull… I…” He stuttered, surprised.
Sully made an irritated slicing motion in the air with his hand. “Truthfully, boy! I know ya have at least an idea.” He eyed the boy gruffly.
Conrad sighed, rolling his eyes around in thought. “Truthfully, b’fore expenses and yer cut, I’d say…twenty er twenty-five.” His right eyebrow arched slightly at Sullivan.
A strange expression Conrad has never seen before flitted past Sullivan’s eyes. The boy has low-balled the figure by quite a bit, he noted, unsure if this was out of shrewdness or sheer ignorance. Sullivan (correctly) suspected the latter; Conrad threw his punches with eyes wide open, but did not look upon the sport of boxing with the same clarity of vision.
“Eighteen,” he finally said, after a prolonged study of the boy.
“Eighteen…dollars?” His eyes were wide.
“Yes. Yur cut.”
“But da fight hasn’t—“
“There is one condition though,” Sull interjected, puncturing the air with his index finger. He looked at the boy hard.
Conrad’s brow furrowed. “What?” Suspicion tweaked at the corner of his eyes.
“Throw the fight.” Sullivan’s face was emotionless.
“What?”
Sullivan repeated himself, as though speaking to someone of sub par mental ability. “Throw. The. Fight.”
Conrad grew incredulous. “No! You’ve seen dat Angelini kid fight!” He gesticulated wildly with his gloved hands. “He can’t fight fer shit! I ain’t gonna lose!”
A dark cloud had settled over Sullivan’s face. “Ya don’t have a choice,” he growled, inching closer to Conrad. His eyes were frightfully cold and empty. “Ya go out thar, and ya throw the goddamn fight!” he snapped, dead blue eyes widening.
Conrad Callahan just stared back at his mentor, shocked.
“Ya got that, boy?” Sullivan hissed, eyes boring into him.
Conrad open his lips a fraction of an inch in protest. Then he thought better of it, and shut them, allowing Sullivan to fix him with a final glare before leaving the room.
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
Five minutes until the fight started.
Conrad was led through the crowd by Sullivan, the sound of cheers and boos, whistles and applause, bouncing through his ears. Despite his inner turmoil, he flashed the crowd a winning smile and raised his right fist into the air. Cries of “Knuckles!” arose from the crowd; he was the favored contender. However, he shot Angelini a particularly menacing glower as he entered his corner of the ring. Not that he had anything against Angelini personally, it was just that he was about the beat the living crap out of him—no matter what Sullivan said. Conrad wasn’t going to destroy his reputation by getting beat up for eighteen lousy dollars when he knew he could get twenty-five, judging by the size of the crowd and the frenzied behavior of the bookies. Katie was getting married. Every dollar counted. And it was Angelini. Angelini, for Christ’s sake, he thought. Look at the kid. It’d take him six rounds to take me down even if I didn’t put up a fight!
The referee had entered the ring and began to announce the fight. Conrad paid little attention; he was an old hand at the whole bit. Putting a glove over his mouth, he slipped a homemade stuffed fabric and rubber contraption into his mouth in order to protect his teeth. It would kill his mother if something happened to his teeth. She’d always spoken so highly of his smile. He gummed it around his mouth a little, smacked his fists, and bounced on the balls of his feet, glaring at Angelini. The referee was nearly finished with his speech when Conrad noticed something odd about his opponent—something about the way his left arm hung at his side, at a slightly twisted angle, like—
Clang!
The pair jumped forward at the sound of the bell, circling one another hungrily. Conrad’s eyes burned angrily into Angelini’s olive-toned forehead. He hated him now—hated him not just because he had to beat him up, but hated him for the mere suggestion that he even throw the fight to this hack. Something tugged at his peripheral vision—Angelini’s elbow. The bone pushed up against the skin strangely… unnaturally.
Conrad swung at Angelini’s temple. Angelini managed a half-block with his glove and staggered back a bit, his left arm flopping against his side. Conrad was sure of it now: Angelini was injured. They’d pitted him against an injured fighter and one as slow and unskilled as Angelini at that. And then told him to lose on purpose. He blocked and ducked a series of three punches from Angelini, all right-handed. This wasn’t a fight. This was a joke. A look of disgust curled on his lips. Something wasn’t right.
Lost in thought, Conrad barely had time to react when the Italian boy threw a wild punch squarely at his nose. He ducked and darted right; the punch landed on his shoulder. Conrad winced, feeling the skin on his shoulder begin to swell. That punch shouldn’t have done that much damage, he thought. It wasn’t even a direct hit. Conrad glanced at Angelini’s gloves as they circled. They were not the same gloves he had been wearing earlier. Weighted gloves. His eyes flicked to Angelini’s face. Everything about it—his brown eyes, thin mouth, the set of his jaw—spelled nervous. Conrad held the boy’s gaze. And then he did something cruel. (He had no mercy for cheaters.)
A swift jab to the underside of Angelini’s left arm. The natural reaction was for the arm to snap backwards, bending at the elbow. And if Conrad’s suspicions were right, not only would this send Angelini into the throws of pain, it would probably disable his arm even further. Even weighted gloves couldn’t make up for an immobilized arm.
There was an audible crunching sound as Angelini’s arm flew backward. He let out a scream, which was cut short when his overweight glove slammed into his very own jaw. A look of horror washed over the boy’s round face and the color drained away, leaving a pale olive canvas for Conrad to sink his fist into. Angelini’s feet fell from under him; his posterior caught the fall, leaving him seated on the floor of the ring. He let out a small squeak and pawed at his face; his right eye was starting to swell shut.
“One! Two!…”
Angelini’s lips were starting to form inaudible words.
“Four! Fiv—"
He scrambled to his feet.
It would have been proper etiquette, Conrad mused, as he laid into Angelini’s already bruised jaw, to allow his opponent a chance to regain his breath and take a few beats circling on the ring floor. But this fight was already caked with dirt and, at this point in the game, Conrad saw no reason to continue playing clean. He went for the left side of Angelini’s body and face—the side he could only feebly protect. The weighted glove grazed Conrad’s cheek, but with the left arm hanging limp, Angelini’s entire body was thrown off balance, rendering the punch fairly ineffective. Conrad coldly boxed the boy in the ear and temple. Angelini swiveled and bounced away, throwing a few jabs at Conrad’s chest and stomach.
Conrad bit down hard on his mouthpiece, feeling the saliva pool towards the front of his mouth. The weighted gloves hurt, and he was certain there would be yellow and purple spots all over his chest by the end of the night. Still, sooner his chest than his face. Conrad advanced forward, bearing down on the shorter boy; he was planning to break Angelini’s jaw when a piercing cry went up in the thick air, proclaiming the end of the first round. Damnit!, Conrad thought. He scowled his darkest at the bewildered Angelini and spat in disgust before retreating to his corner.
"Sull, da damn bast—" the words caught in his throat. Sullivan refused to even look at him. He stood, cross-armed, outside of the elevated ring. What about the weighted gloves? He was going to tell him about… the… gloves… And where was Riggs? He was supposed to check him over between rounds to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
Somewhere inside his head, a glass fell off the shelf.
And shattered.
He blinked.
Two hazel windows slowly, slowly… slowly panned the room. There was nothing to say now. Not to Sullivan. Not to Riggs. Not to the referee. Not to Angelini. Not even to himself.
He was alone in it now.
The mottled brown crowd rumbled and rose up, spitting forth a young girl near the right side of the ring. He watched a tall boy with spectacles scramble after her as she squirmed up to the platform.
A wedding would cost money.
He rose to his feet. They were announcing the start of the second round.
Exactly fifty-seven seconds following the bell for the second round, Conrad Callahan broke Paulo Angelini's jaw. He was barely even conscious of the act. All he could really feel was the shudder of his glove against Angelini's face and the rush of relief as Angelini's prostrate body slammed against the ring floor. The boy's eyes rolled back in his head; his arm lay twisted at a strange angle, and his mouth hung slightly open, unable to shut. Conrad's shoulders sagged. He didn't even care anymore. It was over. He wanted to get his money and go home.
Conrad was retreating to his corner when the referee reached the count of ten and declared him the victor. He stared blandly at the crowd as his name was announced, the ref holding his fist in the air. The crowd rumbled with cheers, applause, and something else. Something new and soft, noticeable only because it had been absent prior to this fight. A dark electrical pulse was making its way through the crowd, passed via a hand placed on a shoulder, or a pair of lips to an ear.
Numbly, Conrad stumbled down from the platform, past Sullivan, past Riggs, towards the room he emerged from only a handful of minutes earlier.
"Connie!"
He walked right into her and didn't speak. Just stared.
"Connie," she blinked. "Congratulations." She said it hesitantly, studying her brother's face with concern. "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head. "No." The word was barely whispered out of parched pink lips.
"Connie, I want you to meet Jeremy." She stepped back, indicating the man next to her.
Conrad stared at him with hollow eyes. Tall and thin, with curly hair the color of dried oak leaves. He has glasses and a green checked vest. His blue eyes looked watery, like that of a dead fish.
"It's nice to meet you," Jeremy said. He reached out his fragile-looking right hand.
Conrad stared at him for a moment. Fine hands, he noticed. Long fingers. Finally he raised a gloved hand at him, his lips curling on one side into a half-smile. "Nice ta meet ya."
Jeremy withdrew his hand, slightly flustered. "Sorry, I forgot you couldn't..." He started to go pink.
"It's all right." Katie placed a hand on his arm, silencing him.
Conrad just nodded. "'Scuse me. I gotta get dressed..." Distracted, he turned away, toward the dressing room.
There was a small mirror in the dank room. It was hardly bigger than Conrad's face, and dimpled with dark silver tarnish spots. A spidery crack crawled its way down the lower half of the glass. He stared at his distorted, speckled reflection in it, watching his hands-barely swollen except for a light cherry wash forming over his knuckles-as they fingered the buttons of his cotton shirt. He tucked the edges into his pants, throwing the belt over his shoulder. He was about to slip his gloves and fight clothes into his canvas knapsack when the door swung open, no knock.
Sullivan tossed an envelope on the chair. "Yur money." He looked at him coldly.
Conrad looked at him sideways, his eyes empty, mouth wounded. Slowly, he closed his fingers around the smooth paper and drew it up to his body. It was unsealed, but the scraping of the flap as Conrad lifted it seemed ten times louder than any ripping. He stared at the contents for several seconds, a new expression slowly dawning on his face.
He dropped the envelope, curling his fingers away as though it were poison.
He turned to Sullivan, voice wound tight, on the edge of bursting. "You sold me out," he growled, taking a step towards the old man. "Do you know how much money," his eyes were enormous, "is in dat goddamn envelope?"
Sullivan returned Conrad's burning gaze with merciless blue eyes. His mouth was a hard, thin line.
"Two dollars!" He was screaming now. "Two lousy dollars, Sull! You sold me out!" He searched his mentor's face for something-anything... and found it utterly barren. "My sister's gettin' married!" He practically shrieked. "I need dat money!" His voice had reached fever pitch, high and strained.
The old man looked away, arms crossed.
"Sully! Look at me! Damnit!" He was crying. "Damnit..." He shoulders shook, voice reduced to a whisper. "It was all rigged... da whole damn fight was rigged..." Conrad rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes. "An h-how much," his voice was quavering, "how much were they gonna give you?" He jabbed an accusing finger at the man, his face red and contorted, bloated with tears. "Huh? How much, Sullivan? How much if I threw da fight?"
Sullivan wouldn't look at him.
Conrad shook his head, and a great sob welled up inside his bruised body. And burst.
"Get out!" he screamed. "Get out…" Softer now, hurt. He crumbled into the chair, heaving tearful gasps into the thick air.
The door clicked shut.
"Damn you, Sullivan," he muttered. Angry tears sliced a path down his face. "Damn you."
“Connie, are you sure?” Katie looked up at her brother with wide eyes. “Jeremy was going to buy us all ice cream…”
Conrad shook his head. “No, I… thanks, but…” He shrugged. “I’m jus’ too tired.” He smiled weakly. And he wasn’t lying—he was tired. Just not in the manner Katie and Jeremy thought he was.
Katie nodded, laying a sympathetic hand on Conrad’s shoulder. “I’ll see you at home then.”
She looks like Mom from that angle, he mused, staring at her face in the yellow puddle of the streetlight. She didn’t understand. He didn’t want her to. “All right.” He nodded at Jeremy. “Nice ta meetcha.” He smiled toothlessly before turning away and heading down the shadowy sidewalk.
Conrad listened to their footsteps, echoing behind him, and the soft murmur of their voices. Jeremy. He didn’t seem like a bad guy. Not quite what Conrad had envisioned though. He was expecting (or was it hoping?) someone sturdier, kind, and friendly. With a sense of humor. Someone who smiled a lot. Someone like… like their father. He felt a tightening in his throat. No, that was silly. Besides, who’s to say Jeremy didn’t have a sense of humor? He just seemed… so quiet. And so… frail. So? So what? There’s nothing wrong with being quiet or thin, he told himself. And Jeremy has a future; he has a steady job. And he must love Katie; otherwise they wouldn’t be getting married, right… Right?
A woman’s siren scream shattered his thoughts, and a flurry of hair, silk, and high-heeled shoes came darting across the sidewalk toward him. She skittered on the concrete, flailing in a half-circle before tumbling onto her knees and emitting another shriek.
“Whoa…” Conrad bent to help the woman up, but before his knees had even started to flex, she began to scramble to her feet, and the pair knocked heads. The woman brought a hand up to her forehead following the collision, and Conrad realized it wasn’t a woman at all: It was a girl, probably no older than himself. Red lipstick was smeared about her lips, and the black kohl around her eyes was staring to run in streams down her rouged cheeks. Her black hair was in twisted shambles, and the expression in her eyes was of terror.
“Sorry, I gotta—“ Her eyes darted around, and she flicked her head over her shoulder. Whatever she saw must have been displeasing, because she lunged forward, ready to tear down the sidewalk. In her haste, she nearly crashed into Conrad a second time, narrowly scraping by, the side of her face and body brushing past his shoulder. Conrad turned to watch her go, the wind from her forward motion ripping past his face.
In the distance, the corner of his ears picked up the sound of a second pair of footfalls, running this time, their volume rapidly increasing. “Get back here!” A young man swathed in dark clothes barreled past Conrad, charging at the girl and pinning her body up against the wall of the building.
The girl wailed, cries mingled with sobs rising up from her crimson-smudged lips, and violently squirmed against the man’s body.
“Hey!” Conrad placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let her go!” He dug his fingers in the man’s shoulders and wrenched him away from the still-whimpering girl. The girl took off down the street.
“What the hell are you doing?” the man spat, glaring at Conrad out of glittering black eyes.
Conrad blinked. “Let her go. She don’t like you doin’ that.”
The man sneered. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I paid for her — she’ll do whatever I want!”
Before Conrad could respond, the man rushed at him. The entire motion was strangely dream-like. It was as if he has stepped into a third dimension outside his body and could see the events move at half-speed: the air splitting and wrapping around the man in the wake of his forward motion as he placed his hands on Conrad’s shoulders, the way his own body seemed to sink and double over from the force like a down-filled pillow, and the wall suddenly rising up to meet him as his breath tumbled forth from shocked lips.
He’d never fought anyone outside of the boxing ring.
And yet, deep in the pink-gray pathways of his throbbing brain, he knew. Instinctively. What had to be done. It wasn’t about money this time.
He could feel the sting of raw skin as his knuckles scraped against the brick building, and he gasped for breath lost from the sheer force, the sheer shock, and the sheer fear. Pinned against the wall, his arms were rendered useless, until the man released his grip on one side, wheeling his free hand back for a punch to the face. Conrad dodged, head banging against the wall, and raised his left arm, catching the man by the wrist. A look of surprise entered the man’s dark eyes. Gritting his teeth, Conrad thrust his weight into his free arm, swiveling and twisting the man’s arm behind his back in one swift motion. The man grunted in shock as Conrad pinned both arms behind his back.
Now what?, Conrad thought frantically. He had a hold on the man—but only barely. The man squirmed and growled in annoyance; he kept kicking at Conrad’s knees and lunging forward, trying to wrench free. Muttering under his breath a request for forgiveness from a higher being, Conrad thrust his body towards the wall, slamming the man’s head against the cold bricks. The man let out a distorted scream—more like an animal being tortured than a man in pain—and Conrad noticed streaks of dark liquid on the wall as he stepped away.
You could kill a man this way, he thought.
The man had quit struggling.
Conrad numbly released his grip on the man’s arms. Sweat was running down his face. The man crumpled into a ball on the ground, groaning softly in pain. Conrad just stared, dumbfounded. The man rolled over slightly, hands clutching a bloody head. Conrad stumbled backwards, eyes still fixed on the man. He was shaking. He’d never fought anyone outside of the boxing ring.
Even in the dim, tea-stained light of the hallway, Conrad could make out their form. Steel blue translucence shafted sharply through the crack left by the door standing ajar, and he could see them swinging from the doorknob. The crackled brown surface, stretched tight in the rounded, puffed shape of a fist: boxing gloves. But the silhouette was disfigured; he reached his pale fingertips out to touch them. He felt his mouth go dry, his body cold and numb. The gloves had been slashed open, their white innards bared naked, shamelessly pushing at the seams.
His arm dropped woodenly to his side, fingers brushing against the grain of the door on the way down, giving it a stuttering push. It swung in, throwing a triangle of diffused sunlight onto hallway floorboards. He placed an aching leg over the threshold.
Silence.
He placed a second foot inside the room. Another stride left: His and Katie’s room. One to the right, his mother’s; straight on was the kitchen. These were true facts, he insisted silently. Somehow, the dimensions of the apartment seemed inflated and skewed at odd angles; it swelled and glared down at him with a blinding brilliance.
He was shivering and slick with perspiration when he silently entered his bedroom. Conrad bit down on his tongue. A breeze rushed past his face as the door slammed shut behind him.
He hadn’t closed it.
“Well, fancy meetin’ you heah, Mistah Callahan,” a condescending voice piped up from behind him.
Conrad turned and felt his knees go weak. Lined up against the far wall were two large, dark-haired young men. With them was a teenage girl. Anger was painted on her eyelids. Fear was painted on his.
“Wh-who are you?” he managed in a hoarse whisper. He felt paralyzed.
The first man narrowed his eyes and suddenly charged at Conrad, slamming him up against the doorframe. Conrad shrunk back as the man jutted his olive face into his own. He could feel his chest tighten, the breaths coming in short, painful stabs.
“Didja motha’ teach ya ta ask such stupid questions?” the man growled. He wrapped his fingers around Conrad’s collar, inching the boy towards him. Conrad winced as the man’s hot, tobacco-scented breath washed over him; the wince gave way to a grunt as the man brought Conrad’s head crashing into the oak door.
“The question really isn’t who,” another voice broke in, “but why. And I think you know the answer to that already.”
Conrad rolled his half-shut hazel eyes upward at the second man who was gazing down at him under heavy-lidded eyes. Like a stone hitting the glassy surface of a lake, ripples of pain were reverberating through his skull. He groaned softly.
The man shook his head. “You don’t like to listen, do you? You should have just thrown that fight like Sullivan told you, but, no.” He studied his hands thoughtfully before transferring his gaze to the boy. “Obstinacy. Pride. Call it whatever you like. Personally, I call it stupid.” An ironic smile curled on his lips.
Conrad glowered at him. The man raised an eyebrow and snapped his fingers. Quick as a good right hook, a pair of hands closed around Conrad’s neck. A high, strained noise escaped from his lips; his hazel eyes bulged. Instinctively, Conrad clawed at the hands encircling his throat, but a second pair of hands wrapped around his wrists and wrenched his arms behind his back. Only then did the first man release his neck.
Conrad wheezed for a few seconds. “Why are you doin’ this?” he gasped. The first man cuffed him across the head. Conrad strained against the second man, kicking at the first man’s shins.
“Don’t struggle,” the second man hissed in his ear, his grip tightening painfully. “If you relax, it won’t hurt as much when I break your arms.”
Conrad could feel himself choking on his own saliva.
“Of course,” the man added, “bones heal.” His accomplice snickered. “But reputations… Ah, now those are much more difficult to repair, aren’t they?” At this, the girl seated on the bed smiled gravely. “Connie—that is what your dear sister calls you, isn’t it?”
The color leaked away from Conrad’s chilled face. His jaw dropped open slightly.
The man smiled tightly. “We’ve been watching you. And, you know, Connie, prostitution is wrong, especially for a boy your age.”
“W-wha—” Before he could get the word out, the first man lunged at him, clamping a hand around his neck. A small rasping noise rose up from his constricted throat.
“A well-constructed lie is as good as the truth.” He turned his head towards the girl. She rose. In her hand was Conrad’s shirt from the night of the fight. The sleeve and collar were smeared with red and black blotches of makeup.
Conrad gawked at her, recognition flashing in his eyes. “N-noo…” he wheezed.
The man clucked his tongue. “Boxing’s golden boy takes a fall. That’s bad for your career, Knuckles.”
Snorting through his nostrils, Conrad dug his feet into the ground and threw his weight sideways. Surprised, the man’s grip loosened, but the effort was in vain; suddenly Conrad felt his feet lose their grip on the ground as his body was lifted, neck-first, into the air.
“Connie!” The sound of the front door slamming rang through the house. “Connie!” The female shriek rose up only a few yards away.
“Shit, Frankie!” The first man dropped his grip on Conrad’s neck. “What are we gonna do?” he snapped, indicating the voice in the hallway.
“The fire escape! C’mon, Frankie!” The girl was already half-way out the open window, beckoning the other men to follow.
“Damnit!” Frankie growled, dropping Conrad to the ground. “We’ll be back for you, Callahan.” He gave the boy a parting kick, and Conrad groaned as the toe of Frankie’s boot sank into the flesh of his stomach.
Beneath his flushed cheek, Conrad could feel the rumble of the floorboards under frantic footfalls. He lay still, gasping for much longed for breath, as the tinny notes of bodies on the metal fire escape died away.
“Conrad!” The door swung open suddenly. Katie dropped to her knees beside him. “Connie, what’s going on?” she demanded.
He lay still, chest still heaving against the floorboards.
“I can’t stay here,” he whispered in the darkness.
“Connie…” Katie stared at him under furrowed brows. She wrapped the blanket around herself tighter.
“The men said they’d be back for me,” he hissed. He was fully dressed. Under his arm was a pillowcase, stuffed with clothing and various mementos.
“But you don’t know that for sure—”
“Yeah, I do,” he cut in. He turned his head away from her. The moonlight shone down on him; dark purple finger-shaped marks were visible on his white throat.
“Con…” She gazed at him, tortured. Her eyes were wet and dribbling over onto her cheeks.
He looked up sharply, silencing her with a look. But his eyes were watery too.
Katie lowered her head, nodding slightly. She sighed heavily. “Where are you going to go?” Her voice was thick.
“I…” He swallowed. “I don’t know. An’ even if I did… it’s better I not tell ya.” In case they come looking for me, he finished silently.
“What will I tell Mom,” she mumbled.
“Tell her… that I went ta find work. I’ll write when I… when I find a place.” He swallowed again. “Don’t worry. You an’ Mom got Jeremy now.” He sniffed.
Katie wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. “Be careful, Connie. Please, be careful.” Her eyes were pleading. “And write soon.” She embraced him.
“I will,” he whispered hoarsely. “Shh. Go ta sleep, Katie. I’ll be gone by morning.”
Later, in the gray-blue tinged space that lies between sleep and dream, on the edges consciousness fading into heavy numbness, she would swear she heard the sound of a window opening and footsteps clanging on the cold metal fire escape.
