Shadowboxing: Art Gallery

As I wrote Shadowboxing, I couldn't resist sketching Asher and Roy along the way. I've compiled all of the art into one post here. Enjoy! Please note that a few images are mildly NSFW.

Shadowboxing is now available as an ebook, although the sketches don't appear in the book. 

Shadowboxing: Table of Contents

Shadowboxing is a moody, slice-of-life-y novel featuring Asher and Roy, two men who fall for each other after a dramatic late-night rescue incident. Asher has cerebral palsy, and Roy has a stutter. Character illustrations are scattered throughout.

Shadowboxing is now revised and available as an ebook & paperback: 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

The first six original chapters will remain here as a preview, plus all the character art.

Chapter 1: Joyride
Chapter 2: At the Bus Stop [art: Roy]
Chapter 3: Scheherazade
Chapter 4: View from the Morning [art: Asher]
Chapter 5: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Chapter 6: Night [art: Asher + Roy]
Chapter 7: Amy Opines [art: Asher + Roy, mildly NSFW]
Chapter 8: Past is Present
Chapter 9: And the Night Came On [art: Asher + Roy, NSFW]
[interlude art post: Asher + Roy]
Chapter 10: Aftershocks
Chapter 11: Bobbing and Weaving
Chapter 12, pt. I: Meet the...
Chapter 12, pt. II: Meet the...
Chapter 13: Killing Time till the Day of Execution
[interlude art post: Asher + Roy]
Chapter 14, pt. I: All Rise
Chapter 14, pt. II: All Rise
Chapter 15, pt. I: A Black Door
Chapter 15, pt. II: A Black Door
Chapter 16: Be Where You Are
Chapter 17: Orion

Full Art Gallery: All Asher/Roy sketches compiled here

Shadowboxing, Chapter 1: Joyride

It was ten to two in the morning, I had just about closed down Zeke’s. I could hear the bartender and waitress laughing, punch-drunk, as they cracked jokes and slung garbage bags into the clanking dumpster out back. Cold air stole in from the metal door they’d propped open. I should have been exhausted after a long week at work, but wasn’t. I was drumming my fingers on the bar and thinking about where to go next. I pushed back from the bar, checked I’d left more than enough tip. I called a good-night to the staff out back but didn’t stay to see whether they’d heard me.

Out front, I pulled up my coat collar, tipped my head up to breathe the frosty air deeply. It rushed in against the nerves jangling inside me, seemed to only coax them higher. I set out fast. It was three miles home from here, down Charleton until I hit the main drag of Fairway, but I needed the walk, or I was going to get myself into a fight for no reason at the nearest opportunity.

With who? I laughed at myself softly. Even on a Friday night, the city was quiet, stuck to early hours; Zeke’s was one of the only bars that stayed open past midnight.

Charleton was old, winding its way down a steep hillside, cluttered with decrepit small businesses built off of spidery alleyways. I strode past them in a rush, one of the expected scant handful of people still out. Streetlights glinted off of smeary storefront windows and the occasionally patches of cobblestoned sidewalk. I went faster and faster, smelling snatches of wood-smoke and garbage curling through the frosty air.

Soon I was only one or two turns away from the bottom of the hill. I would have rushed right by the last alleyway if I hadn’t heard a clatter, the rustling of shifting bodies, and a distinct gasp, which might have been a choked-off cry.

Shadowboxing, Chapter 2: At the Bus Stop

“Your stop’s on Fairway?” I asked as we moved off down Charleton. After a quick glance to confirm the absence of cars in either direction, Asher had abandoned the sidewalk for the street itself; I guessed he wasn’t a fan of the stretches of cobblestones. I paced alongside him; his wheelchair could go at a good clip.

“Yeah, the Ridge St. stop,” he confirmed, which put us at about a 10-minute walk, and then however long it would take the bus to come. Thanks to taxpayers with an enthusiasm for public transit, buses ran every 30 minutes even this late at night, but that still meant it could take an hour end-to-end for him to get home. He must have been thinking about the same thing, because he said, gesturing vaguely at the sky overhead, “Honestly, I think I could use the air and stuff. I need to chill out after that. I don’t think I’d be able to settle down if I called a cab, went home right away.”

I shrugged, not comfortable making a recommendation either way. At that point we hit Fairway, turned left onto its broad, well-lit expanse. I noted, as he regained the sidewalk, that his shakes had subsided.

Shadowboxing, Chapter 3: Scheherazade

“Once upon a time,” Asher said, “on the – what is it? – the seventeenth day of the tenth month of the year, a young man found himself in the happy circumstance of having arranged for himself a date. Now, this young man, being a big ol’ queermo – “ I snorted, and his smile widened “ – had resorted to use of the magical rite known as Grindr to find himself said date. He had also, for the very first time, made himself a dating profile – magical, of course – that didn’t mention the fact that he was in a wheelchair, because he was sick of not getting any dates.

“It felt like giving up, but also like not that dumb of a move. Also, I did use one photo where you could see pretty much the whole situation, so.” I had been wondering about that, and pulled my mouth to one side. Asher sighed, with heat, and thrust his hand back through his hair before composing himself again.

“Lo,” he continued, with a desultory prophetic gesture, “came the night of the date. The other guy had seemed cute and smart and interestingly employed, and they had exchanged many a humorous missive via the mystical Grindr. Our young man was way excited, got himself dressed up real nice, but not nice enough to look like he was trying too hard, and headed out early for the tavern they had agreed upon for their amorous encounter. This meant he had many, many a minute to find a seat that would sort of but not totally hide the wheelchair, and to freak out over how this guy was going to react when he saw it, the arm, etc.”

Asher paused here. Somewhere along the way he had stopped meeting my eyes. I gave him a little while, before deciding that he might appreciate a push. “So?”

Shadowboxing, Chapter 4: View from the Morning

Of course I ended up falling asleep right before the sunrise; so much for that romantic notion. Luckily, somewhere along the way I had ended up having the sense to tuck a pillow under my knees, so I didn’t completely hate myself in the morning. Still, my back and neck were killing me when I woke up, not to mention my wrist; it had to be from the stress of last night. It was also 11 AM, later than I could remember waking up in at least a year. Outside, the sun was shining weakly through an even, milky haze of cloud, which was about how I felt.

I swore to myself for a while before I even tried getting up, just feeling the deep, pulling pain as I shifted my back and arms minutely. Finally I got myself up onto my one elbow, levered up from there to a sitting position, groaning continuously. The only good thing that I could immediately see was the fact that I had gone to bed in nothing but boxers, which meant there was very little between me and a scalding-hot shower.

Shadowboxing, Chapter 5: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

On the bus ride over, I learned that Asher was 26 – four years younger than me. (That was how much he’d been forcing – no, coaxing – me to talk about myself at the café, that I hadn’t learned even his age till then.) He was an only child, and hadn’t moved out from his parents’ until just last year, but not for lack of encouragement. He was close with his parents, not just of necessity, and they’d always pushed him to be independent. But it had taken him a bit longer to finish college, and after that, it had still taken him a few more years to feel ready to leave home. Once he did, his parents had helped him find an apartment – one closer to his job, and reasonably accessible – and had helped him negotiate renovations with the landlord that would help bring it to fully accessible.

He worked as a web developer for a large company. I didn’t understand entirely what that that entailed, which hardly offended Asher; he admitted that he was in it largely for the job security. “I’m not ashamed to admit that good medical insurance is slightly more important to me than being passionate about my job right now. It would be nice to find something I’m more excited about in the future, but for now I’m happy to work with nice people, at a steady job.”

I nodded slowly. I was savoring the process of building out a picture of Asher’s daily life, his family, how he thought about things. It was already clear that he was more of a thinker than me, or more of an intellectual, I guess the word would be. (After all, I spent most of my time thinking to myself, even if I hadn’t bothered finishing college.) He read a lot, for example, which I didn’t have that much patience for, and especially about art, which had always intimidated me. But it struck me that even when he went somewhere in conversation I couldn’t quite follow, I liked the nimbleness and excitement with which he thought and spoke, the way he could sort of dance back and forth across a topic, come at it from different angles. I could almost see his thoughts moving over his face like a flickering light.

Shadowboxing, Chapter 6: Night

It took me a while to realize that the way Asher had said “we’ll do it in the morning” implied, even assumed, that I was going to stay over the night. We had just about finished cleaning up after dinner, so it would have been a natural point for me to start saying good-night. Perplexed, I turned to him, working out what to say next.

“Asher, w-were you interested… in me staying over?”