Raw Deal

by Bella Knight

  Geiravror shook her head, a broad woman with long arms, wiry black hair, narrowed blue eyes, and hair dyed blue. "Potato skins."

  "Better," said Skeggold.

  They ate like pigs, then rode back to the shop. The Valkyries parted, forehead to forehead. The soldiers watched, except for Zinna, who joined in.

  With a final "With your shields... or on them!" they parted.

  "What's with the shield thing?" asked Queenie, as the women roared off.

  "What Spartan women told their husbands when they left for war," said Spear.

  "We're here," said Queenie. 'We're not fighting a war anymore."

  Spear rounded on her. "We have racism. Sexism. LGBTQ issues. The damn VA didn't want to pay for my damn foot. The fact we have to fight for every damn dollar they spend on us. Can't get our fucking PTSD medications without going to the media. We got storms destroying cities, and states, and islands, and the government does shit. So, we've gotta shit-ton to do, and we're it."

  "Well, fuck," said Queenie. "Didn't mean nothin' by it."

  "Think before you speak, soldier," said Spear. "We're gonna do something for ourselves. Kick ass and take names. Are you with us?"

  "Yes, Ma’am," said Queenie.

  "Good," said Spear. "Now, let's get going. We've got bikes to learn to build."

  "Oo-rah," said Lestra. They all followed Herja in, heads held high.

  Queenie hung back. "Xenia, I done got off on the wrong foot. I don't try to put my foot in my mouth, but I do. My mama said if I ain't got nothin' nice to say, don't say it, but I didn't think it was bad."

  "The wars riled some up, made some hate war. Gave some a sense of purpose, killed thousands after they got home. The best wars are against injustice, and that's what we fight here." Xenia patted Queenie's broad back. "You're sisters. We make allowances for sisters. Now, come on, you've got bikes to build."

  "Yes, we sure do," said Queenie. They went in.

  Spear made sure everyone was doing their assigned jobs. They split into crews, with four staying and two going out to the apartment house. The two-story, stucco building was white --turned yellow, with wide cracks in the outside walls. It had a completely trashed yard with old tires and trash strewn around the front, with garbage inside, and holes in the walls. There were six, one-bedroom apartments. They traded off in shifts, pairs going to remove trash the first week, Iron Knights and Valkyries helping Tito and his crew. Then it was demo time, and they actually fought over who got to wield the sledgehammers. Herja solved the problem by going to the hardware supply store herself, and buying two brand-new sledgehammers for the women to use. The old stucco went off and new render was mudded up on the outside, and walls ripped down to the studs on the inside. The women had to be prevented from working sixteen-hour days. They wanted to do it all; learn it all, in the first week. Herja put timers on their phones to get them moving from activity to activity without argument, including breaks, meals, and sleep.

  Tito had a talk with Spear. "You look after your people," he said. "Pace yourselves. We're buying two more of these apartment houses. You'll have a lot more work ahead of you."

  "Good," said Spear. "My mother had me shucking beans on her porch. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm used to action."

  Tito nodded. "So are we. We'll keep you busy."

  "Exhaustion helps us sleep," said Spear. "It's why we try to work too long."

  "Lots of other stuff to do," said Tito. "Rock babies at the hospital, for one. Lots of parents here have other kids at home, and may live two hundred miles from Children's. They can't hang around the sick babies. Or kids, too, they need reading buddies."

  "Can do," said Spear. "And Habitat for Humanity?"

  "Not yet," said Tito. "But it's a great way to acquire homebuilding skills. We got literacy skills, adult and children. Programs for kids to read to dogs. The dogs don't correct their grammar, so they lose their fear of reading aloud. Physiotherapy with kids. 3D printing artificial hands for kids. Got programs that get the price down on those. Food banks, shelters for abused women, Meals on Wheels to bring meals to the elderly. Just lay off the building trades, for now. No use actually killing yourselves with exhaustion. Find out what the needs are, then who wants to do what. There'll be training. Make sure everyone shows up for training, and what they are supposed to do, and when."

  "On it," said Spear.

  The women did volunteer work in pairs. They decided they liked rotating, so they all received the training for the 3D printing, kids reading to dogs, reading to kids at the hospital, rocking newborn babies, and the shelter for abused women. They rotated days, keeping the programs staffed on days they had trouble getting coverage.

  They did have some blowback. One mother was infuriated that a woman with an artificial arm and hand was holding and rocking her baby. A nurse explained that Wren had better control of her artificial hand and arm than anyone she'd seen.

  "It's a Luke arm," she explained. "The best."

  A volunteer was nervous about the "lady with a blade leg" near the dog, a five-year-old spaniel. The boy that was reading to the dog loved Reece's leg, calling it "cool."

  One really rude woman said Queenie was "too fat" to work at the food bank. Spear rounded on the woman. "You are talking to a soldier. She put her life on the line for your ass, over and over, and over again. She's overweight because she got sepsis when the chunk of her leg the insurgents took out wouldn't heal. The medications they put her on caused her weight to balloon." The blonde with the ponytail squeaked when Spear stepped even closer to her. "Maybe you should keep your mouth shut, and only open it when you have something intelligent to say." The woman turned and fled.

  The volunteer coordinator, Beam, was a young woman with thick blue glasses and a shock of pink hair. She said, "That's Missy. Hasn't had an intelligent thought since the seventh grade. Thank you for running her off. She doesn't do a lick of work, just tries to tell everyone else what to do."

  "Then, we've done a service," said Spear. "What do you want us to do?"

  "This is a grocery store," said Beam. "We need the shelves stocked. The aisles are labeled. Just grab a box, and fill 'er up!"

  "Let's go to a row, figure out what we need, and go in back and get boxes to put on this cart," said Spear to Queenie. "Then, you work low, and I'll work high."

  "Thanks for standing up for me," said Queenie. "Being back in the land of the diet meals in a box is letting me drop the weight. Plus, all the lifting."

  "Well," said Spear. "Let's start with the peanut butter on this shelf, shall we?"

  They stocked for two hours, until their phones chimed. They went out for mini veggie pizzas and tea, and went back to Herja's shop to put together "their" bike. Spear had asked to be paired with Queenie, hoping to keep an eye on her loose lips. She'd scored. Queenie, despite her bad start, ended up being the strongest one. She loved lifting heavy things, and was always ready with a wrench to torque off a difficult nut. They worked fast, tearing bikes down, then building them back up with new parts, painting, and welding.

  Queenie loved the welding, but Spear was meticulous about taking turns. "I need the skills too," she said to Queenie.

  "Mad skills makes for great work," said Queenie. "I'll do the left, and you do the right."

  "Let's go," said Spear. "We're wasting dusk."

  Queenie laughed, a loud, bright sound. "Gotta love swing shift," she said.

  The veterans became fixtures at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Chapterhouse. One man, a sixty-nine-year-old Vietnam vet, was delighted. "'Bout time we got some female faces in here," he said. "We're already planning the Fourth of July parade. Wanna help?"

  Queenie stepped up. "I'll do whatever you need."

  "Good," he said. "Name's Quincy. Corporal."

  "I'm PFC Queenie. Got blown up before I could make it very far," she said.

  He smiled. "You didn't get dead. That's what counts."

  "Oo-rah," said Queenie.

  "Oo-rah," said Quincy. "You here for s
ome PT? We've got Tristan. Loves to make us suffer." He pointed to a man with long, blue-black hair kept braided in a queue, with a wide face and tilted eyes. He wore a gi and his muscles rippled as he did a kata.

  "Right," said Queenie. "Excuse me, Sir." She went over to the blue mat in the corner, took off her tennis shoes, and stood in front of him. She began to mimic his.

  "I'll be damned," said Spear. "Lust as an exercise method."

  "Works every time," said Quincy. "The gay guys love him, but he's straight. Put a dollar in the box, buy a soda from that cooler, and get the hell over here, woman. Give me the lowdown on your crew."

  Spear put in two dollars, and brought over a root beer and a cola. She popped both tops. Quincy took the root beer, and Spear began to talk.

  Ride

  The Nighthawks settled on Monterey for their next ride, up the Pacific Coast Highway. The Iron Knights and the Valkyries pitched in to be sure all the Soldier Pack members had working bikes for their trip. They went from Pahrump to Vegas to pick up the Nighthawks, and then over to just below Los Angeles, to Long Beach, then up to Malibu, Pismo Beach, and Monterey, then back. They wanted to do the Grand Circle through Utah, but were waiting until slightly warmer weather.

  They hit up Stateline first, and ate a fantastic lunch. Once the truckers found out veterans were on the ride, they were followed, from diners to truck stops and everything in between. There were high winds in the pass, and the truckers blocked the winds for them. They had fun finding the diners on the way. They had to split up more than once, as there were so many of them, spreading out to eat everything from Chinese to Italian, or fast food to diners, and truck stops, in small Californian towns.

  They hit Huntington beach, and the leather came off and beachwear came on. Ace joined them, Kieran and Pavel in tow. "Where's the dogs?" asked Henry.

  "Sold most of them," said Pavel. "We are waiting until we get back to start the new training. We are taking our spring break a week early so the others are watching the few we have left. It is a good program we have."

  "Paid for all their expenses," said Ace. "In the black already."

  "Wow," said David. "And you're helping so many children."

  "What's with the dogs?" asked Queenie.

  "We raise them to help children. They're seizure dogs, therapy dogs."

  "Like the ones that children read to," said Queenie.

  "No," said Spear. "No more projects. We're shaking our tail feathers as it is."

  Queenie looked mutinous. Tito went over to her, and looked her in the eye. "Aren't you the same one that's pushing me to work for Habitat for Humanity, eve before we've finished your own house?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Where would we put them?" asked Spear. "The drywall and stucco are drying. Let it be for a little while."

  Tristan came over to Queenie. "Feel like a beach run?"

  "Sure," she said. They began to jog away.

  "Girl's lost four kilos on the lust diet," said Spear.

  "Good plan," said Danger. Reeves laughed. Danger took off at a slow jog, and Reeves followed him with his eyes.

  "Move it, soldier," said Spear.

  "Yes, Ma'am," said Reeves. He laughed, and jogged to catch up to Danger.

  "Nice view," said Spear to Tito.

  "You know they're gay, don't you?" said Tito.

  "Doesn't prevent me from enjoying the view."

  Tito laughed. "Got lots of that around here." He waved in a general direction of the Iron Knights.

  "Sadly, there's more of us than of them," said Spear.

  "I can tell you which ones that, as far as I know, aren't taken… or gay."

  Spear grinned. "I knew I liked you."

  They jogged up and down the beach, the soldiers and the non-soldiers alike. They had ice cream and fries, and fed fries to the seagulls and told terrible jokes. They had an amazing seafood dinner, and bought shell necklaces, and laughed like loons.

  They rode farther up the coast, and found a grouping of inns. They took them over, and spent a ton of time getting ice and sodas, and determining who was going to watch which movie in which room. They split up, shoved beds together, traded chairs, and engaged in movie marathons. There was the hero room, the science fiction room, the cartoon room (that one that had the most laughter), a drama room (filled with tissue boxes), an action movie room related to driving cars really, really fast, and a romantic comedy room.

  Several other rooms had rather vicious card games, and the board games came out, Monopoly and Stratego, Splendor and the Ticket to Ride train game, Dominoes and Chinese Checkers. People went back and forth between rooms when they hit a movie that bored them, or when they wanted to switch to (or from) board games. Finally, some of the rooms were designated sleeping rooms, and some of them slept.

  They spent another day there, because they were having a disgusting amount of fun. They ate hash browns and sausage-biscuit sandwiches. They drank coffee and colas, and went for long, lovely walks. They played volleyball, badminton, and soccer, and ran and walked in the water. Some swam. They split up into groups and pairs, and wandered all over. They caught some spring baseball, watched movies, played carnival games, ate cotton candy, and fudge, and laughed their heads off.

  They split up for lunch, and met for a huge dinner at a seafood house. They ate crab cakes and fish stuffed with crab and shrimp. Then shrimp scampi with fresh, French bread, popcorn shrimp, cornbread with honey butter, and hush puppies. They passed around platters, and laughed until their sides hurt. They grabbed tea, coffee, and sodas, and went out on the beach to watch the sunset. They clapped when it was over, then got on their bikes.

  They rode along the coast to Malibu. They found several hotels, and some actually slept, but most watched movies and played board games. They got up early to watch the sunrise, and spent a wonderful day flowing up the Pacific Coast Highway on their bikes. They hit up the boardwalk. They split up. Some took scuba diving lessons. They hit up galleries, pigged out on hot dogs and seafood, and went shopping.

  The Valkyries met for a huge beachside cookout, with grilled steak, shrimp, chicken, and corn. They roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. The guitars came out, and Ivy and Herja's voices merged.

  Into the silence, Spear said, "I wake up screaming every fucking night. I don't want to drug myself into addiction to stop it. I know it's PTSD. I get it. Nightmares, jumping at loud noises, free-forming anxiety. Anger --rage. I want to kill someone, anyone, but there's no one to kill. No bad guy, no boogeyman. No one I can point to and say, 'That's the one! That guy caused it all!' Because that guy is me. I signed up. I wanted to pay for a degree. A degree I finished in a tent. A degree I can't use now. I don't want to code. I don't want to sit in front of a computer. I don't want to fucking sit still at all. And so, here I am, with my two hands, scraping my knuckles bloody and volunteering every fucking place I can think of, just so I can get some sleep. Fucking sleep." She laughed without mirth. "I. Just. Want. To. Sleep."

  Herja said, "We did the shop thing because there is no fucking excuse for there to be a waiting list for a program to help veterans find work that satisfies them. We knew the symptoms of PTSD."

  Wraith said, "I have it. Got shot, my husband's been shot. I work undercover, locking up the fucking scum of the earth. The problem is that there's always, always, always, more scum. People buy other people, like Skuld's daughter. She had to testify, in open court, about what was done to her, which was another rape. People sell drugs that kill kids at a rave. They buy and sell weapons that have only one purpose --to kill a lot of people at once. They trade in life and death for only one purpose, to line their own pockets. I see sociopaths and psychopaths every damn day. They've come after me, after my family. They rape and maim, and kill, and I get up every day and go after them again. I have trouble sleeping, too. But, I go out there, and fight for a purpose. For my niece, and for the other people they try to maim and kill. It hurts, and lots of times it sucks. I've paid with my own blood. But, I'm a warri
or, and I will fight."

  Skuld said, "You fought for our country, and our country responded horribly. But you keep fighting, every day. Coming home doesn't end the war. It just means you are a warrior. We salute all warriors, and welcome them. We can spar with you, give you things to do to help exhaust you so you can sleep, give you our sisterhood, our blood in the sand if that's needed. Most of us here walk the same path. We fight the same fight. Take our rest, and then wake up another day, and fight again. We are your sisters, and we fight with you."

  Ivy sang again. Their voices rose together. Spear wiped her eyes, and her voice rose to merge with the others. They sang well into the night. They rolled out their sleeping bags and put up tents, and talked and sang. Some slept, some didn't. When the screams came, they took turns waking up the PTSD victims, and holding them in their arms.

  They woke everyone for the sunrise, and Henry, David, and Numa came out, standing in between the various camps, and sang the dawn. They had more sausage rolls, coffee, and juice, and then they went to Monterey. They went to the aquarium, watched the otters and seals, went kayaking, went shopping, and relaxed on the beach. They rode to Pinnacles National Park. They then rode back to the Pacific Coast Highway, and listened to road songs. They stopped off to eat and relax. They went to Santa Barbara, and looked out over the gorgeous water.

  "I'm sorry about last night," Spear said to her sisters.

  "Shut up," said Herja. "Never apologize for feeling real feelings, or speaking the truth."

  "What she said," said Skuld. "If you can't tell your sisters, who can you tell?"

  "Shutting up," said Spear. "Now, what are we gonna do today?"

  "Ever been cliff climbing?" asked Rota.

  "Of course I have," said Spear. "Ex-military, remember?"

  "Cliff climbing here!" yelled Rota. Both women and men jogged up and surrounded her. "I brought my climbing gear and a shit-ton of harnesses."

  "How much is a shit-ton, exactly?" asked Reeves. Danger punched his arm. They found a climbing service to rent equipment and instructors. Rota took point, and off they went.