Concrete Cowboy

by G. Neri

I got nothing to say.

  She starts talking. “I been thinking . . . maybe —”

  “Maybe what?”

  She sighs. “Maybe I made a mistake.”

  Maybe.

  I’m looking out the barn door, seeing all the guys arguing. Harper’s just staring off into space like he lost. A couple days ago, I woulda just said come get me. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m thinking, but with everything going on here, I don’t feel like talking to her right now.

  “Baby —” she says as I close the phone.

  I stand there looking at the crushed stall where Boo was. It might be easier to go back to Mama instead of dealing with all a this. But I start getting this weird feeling in my gut. The only thing I can think of is the promise I made to Boo. I know I gotta go find him. I got to get him back. I see the guys giving up, but that don’t seem like the Cowboy Way, not like Harp told it. What happened to never giving up, to having everyone’s back, and treating your horse like your best friend? What happened to banding together like cowboys and standing up to the Man?

  I head back out into the open. Some of the guys is already packing up, getting their horses ready to leave. Others is on their cell phones, trying to make arrangements. Harper’s still standing there, looking around like it’s already over.

  “Harper.”

  He ignores me.

  “Harper,” I say again.

  Without looking at me, he says, “You going home to Mama.”

  Maybe I didn’t hear him right. “We gotta do something,” I say.

  He looks at me, his eyes red and tired out. “That wasn’t a question. You got to go back. You got your schooling to attend to.”

  I’m tired of feeling like I been kicked in the face. “I ain’t going back.”

  I see a little surprise in his eyes, but it goes away. “I can’t take care of you, Cole. Not with all this going down. It’s too much.”

  I look over at Tex, who’s sittin’ on a old worn-out couch, smoking a cigarette. He the only one who’s calm.

  “You ain’t taking care of me no-how. So what difference do it make?” I say. I can tell he don’t like that I said that. “I can help,” I add.

  “No, you can’t,” he says. “This is serious.”

  I stand my ground. “You just gonna let ’em take this away too? Seem like that’s all you do when things get tough — walk away.”

  He stares into the dirt. “You don’t understand how things work in the real world. This ain’t some cowboy fantasy. Sometimes you can’t do nothing except keep moving on.” Then he turns and starts to walk away.

  “What kinda man is you?” I say, ready for a fight.

  He stops. “What’d you say?”

  I don’t back down. “I said, what kinda man —”

  That does it. He wheels around, his eyes wide, and for a second, I think he gonna kill me. “What kind of man am I?” he yells.

  Harper grabs me by the shirt. “I’m the kind of man who took care of this whole neighborhood! I’m the man who kept this tradition alive! I’m the man who saved these horses from becoming dog food!” he spits. “I’m the man —” He towers over me, out of breath, out of words, like he gonna crush me. Suddenly, I don’t wanna hear no more. I see Tex rushing over, and when Harper looks up at him, I bolt.

  I run out of the stables and down the street. I run and I run till I can’t breathe no more, till I can’t hear the yelling or nothing. I’ll go rescue Boo myself. The hell with Harper. The hell with all of ’em. They want to give up, then fine. I’ll rescue Boo myself and then . . .

  And then what? I think of them old stories Tex told us, about cowboy justice and the Chisholm Trail. What would a real cowboy do? Shoot ’em up? Run the bad guys outta town? Maybe.

  But right now, all them ideas seem a million miles away.

  I run until I hit the park. I scramble into the wild and get lost in the trees. I have this vision of me and Boo off in the country, running from the law, living off the land and having fires at night. Maybe I could take all the horses and we could go up to Brooklyn like Jamaica Bob said. Maybe there’s a whole world of black cowboys up there. I ain’t never been to Brooklyn, but maybe they have lots of land and could take us all in. I could work in their stables and maybe one day start racing Boo for real and earn my keep that way.

  “Yo, Cole!”

  I hear my name and realize I’m standing at the edge of the trees facing a bunch of guys playin’ on a basketball court. Someone yells my name again, and I see my cousin Smush standing next to one of the baskets with a ball in his hand. Snapper’s behind him, trying to take the ball away, but Smush is too quick. Finally, he rolls his eyes and tosses the ball to the others, and the game continues without him.

  He shrugs. “What you doing out here, cuz?”

  It takes me a second to refocus. He walks up to me.

  “What’s a matter, horse kick you in the head?”

  “Ain’t you heard?” I say.

  He gives me a look that says he didn’t. I tell him the whole story of the raid and them stealing the horses and how they gonna bulldoze the stables. His face gets gloomier and gloomier.

  “I saw them cops whizzing by, but I just thought it was some drug bust or something. That’s why I came out here.”

  He watches the game, but his mind is somewhere else. “That sucks for real. An’ Harper’s just gonna roll over? I can’t believe that. Somebody’s got to do something. I mean, I don’t care for them horses so much, but they part of the neighborhood, you know? Can’t let the City get away with that. We need to go and kick some serious butt.”

  Finally, someone who wants to do something! “I got a plan,” I say, and I explain about getting the horses and settin’ them free.

  He looks real skeptical, but I think he likes the danger part of it. “I don’t know, cuz. Don’t sound like much of a plan. You even know where them horses are? What kind of security you got to deal with? How you gonna ride all them horses outta there, and where you gonna go with ’em?”

  I haven’t thought that far yet. Smush frowns like he can tell my plan ain’t so planned out yet.

  He shrugs. “Still, any chance to get back at the Man is one I’m up for. Lucky for you, I’m hooked up. Let me make some calls.”

  He whips out his cell phone and hits speed dial. He walks around, talking real fast as he explains the situation to whoever he talking to. Then there’s a series of back-’n’-forths. He ends the call with “Get back to me.” Then he snaps his fingers, and Snapper comes running.

  Smush goes through the whole story again, and I can see Snapper getting madder and madder at the City, and I think I wouldn’t wanna be on his bad side. When Smush gets to the end, they both turn toward me and suddenly I realize, I got me a posse.

  “Well, cuz, you got our attention. What you wanna do?”

  I smile. It feels good to be looked up to for once. “I just wanna get Boo and them other horses out. Then we can see about keeping them dudes from bulldozing the stables. We just gotta find out where they took ’em —”

  Smush’s phone rings, and he talks for a few seconds, then snaps it shut. “My man on the inside heard the horses was took to a stable here in the park. Only problem is, it’s where the police horses are too.”

  Snapper scowls, but police don’t bother me.

  “Let’s do it,” I say.

  We head away from the court, passing over the expressway. Smush tells me they built that thing so white folks could drive right over the neighborhood without stopping. It’s real loud up there, but when we hit the other side of the park, it’s like we in real nature. The sounds of the cars get farther and farther away. Smush seem to know his way around, so I don’t ask no questions.

  We head deep into the woods, moving along a creek. I just keep thinking about Boo and how scared he must be. I mean, he spooked enough as is, but after all this, he must be a head case for sure.

  After seein’ nothin’ but trees for half an hour, we come to the edg
e of a clearing. I hear some hootin’ and hollerin’, and I see some white boys jumping off what looks like a cliff!

  “That’s the Devil’s Pool,” said Smush. “Only them crazy white kids go there.”

  We round the bend, and I can see the kids was diving into a deep pool of water way down off the cliff. It feels like we in the middle of the jungle out there with wild boys living off the land.

  We pass through some more woods, and then Smush says, “Slow up.” We come to the back of a old stone building, and I can smell it from here: horses.

  We walk around until we see a outdoor corral and stables. And sure enough, there’re a coupla cops in cowboy hats brushing down their rides.

  I can’t believe it. “You really got sheriffs here! Dag, you don’t see that in Detroit.”

  Smush don’t look impressed. “They can be on a horse or in a squad car; they still police.”

  I look around, and on the far end of the corral I hear Boo. He makes a noise, and suddenly I see him in a open stall and he looking right at me, even though we way across the way. That Boo must have bionic vision or something.

  “Boo!” I say out loud, but Smush hushes me and pulls me back behind a tree. The cop don’t see me, so we sneak around to the other side and come up on the fence of Boo’s stall. Boo sees us right away and sticks his nose in between the opening.

  “Good ol’ Boo. You okay, boy?” I stick my hand in through the fence and pet him. He neighs, which I take for a yes, then snorts all over my arm.

  Smush makes a face. “Man, I don’t know why you wanna get this old horse out. You better off gettin’ a bike. You don’t gotta feed it or clean up after it. Just gotta ride it.”

  I ignore him. “We gonna get him out, okay? If you afraid of them cops, you can go on home. I’ll do it by myself.”

  Snapper shakes his head. “Oh, now you the Terminator, just gonna walk in and walk right out with all them horses.”

  Smush sucks on his teeth. “I ain’t gonna ditch you, cuz. I’m just saying it ain’t the smartest plan in the world.”

  “I’m not leaving him in jail.”

  That makes Smush laugh. “Cuz, I wish jail was like this, then I wouldn’ta minded spending the summer there. So what do you wanna do, genius?”

  I look around. There’s one gate into the main corral area with the outdoor stalls. The stalls don’t seem to have any locks or nothing. Seem pretty simple to me. “We wait until it gets dark, then we go in.”

  Smush pulls me back down. “Okay. Saying we get the horses, then what?”

  I look at him. “Then we ride.”

  “Ride where?”

  I tell him what the guys said about the Federation of Black Cowboys.

  “Brooklyn? Now I know you crazy. That’s like two hours away by car! What, you just gonna ride all them horses on the expressway? Cuz, you lost your head.”

  “What’s the difference between Harp and them riding in the streets and this?” I ask.

  “About a hundred miles,” he says.

  I shake him off. “Look, let’s just get ’em outta here, then we’ll figure it out. Harper says this park is so big you can get lost in it. So we’ll get lost, hide out, and figure our next move. We can camp in these woods here, like we on the run.”

  “Not like. We will be on the run.” He stares at the cop through the fence. “I don’t know, cuz. I’m already on probation. If I get caught . . .”

  I give him a little push. “Like I said, if you can’t man up —”

  He pulls his fist back like he gonna pop me, then smiles when he sees I’m playin’ him.

  “You lucky you my cuz, or you’d be eatin’ dirt.”

  We sit back in the shadows and wait. Smush is playing with his phone, texting and looking at videos.

  Snapper’s looking at me, probly wondering about what I got him into. “You should really talk to Harp about this. He won’t want you breaking the law,” he says.

  I shake my head. “Look, Harp has to do what he has to do. He already got Lightning living in his house and that’s all he gotta worry about. They gonna sell off ol’ Boo for dog food — I know it.”

  Snapper makes a face. “Dogs eat horse? Man, that’s messed up.”

  Smush looks up from his phone. “Wait a sec. How come the City rescues these horses only to destroy ’em? That don’t make no sense.”

  I shrug. “All I know is, these ain’t prize horses or nothing. They has-beens. You think the police wants seconds from people like us?”

  Smush nods. “You got a point.” He glances down at his phone screen and gets a weird look on his face. He brings it up to his face and watches more closely. “Oh, damn. Check it out. We on the news!”

  He holds up his phone and shows me a video. I see the inspection dudes going through the Ritz-Carlton, examining horses, talking about the bad conditions they lived in and how the stables was illegal and all. They show everything — the hole in the roof, all the mud and muck, that big pile of crap, but worse of all, the dead horse.

  Seeing it this way, it looks bad. Suddenly, I can see how someone watching this would think the cops is the good guys and we the bad guys. Like everyone who live around here must be too poor or too stupid to take care of their pets. They’ll wonder what we thinkin’ keepin’ horses in the middle of a war zone in the worst neighborhood in Philly. That’s how it looks to me, and I know better!

  Smush stares at the video. “You can’t believe nothing you see on the news. No one has the right to do what they doing to Uncle Harp and these horses. They just looking to stir things up to make a story.”

  When he says that, suddenly I know Jamaica Bob was right — the City wants that land and will do anything to get it. “They musta planned to raid the stable after that storm, knowin’ it’d make us look bad,” I say. “And maybe they let that crap pile up just for something like this, so they could get it on video.”

  Smush nods. “Makes sense now. I mean, how else would the news even get this video, unless the City gave it to them?”

  “Dang, that’s like a conspiracy!”

  “Yeah, a conspiracy. That’s what it is,” says Smush, shaking his head. “Man, we in it now!”

  Snapper interrupts. “Look, they on the move,” he says, pointing at a few guys taking the horses into the stone building on the far side of the corral.

  I see one of ’em leading Boo inside. “Dag, now what we gonna do? We got to break in there too!”

  Smush tells me to be quiet. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, like he has no idea. “Just sit tight.”

  When the sun goes down, the park feels different. It’s dark an’ empty, the trees is kinda spooky. I ain’t never been in a forest at night, but with us being quiet, all kind of animals and who knows what seem to come alive around us. It’s like the forest is a living, breathing thing. All them pretty trees from before look kinda crazy now, like monsters.

  We watch them guys who was working with the horses drive off one by one. After they gone, it feels pretty quiet. Just a light on in one of the upstairs windows in the stone building.

  “Should we go in now?” Snapper asks.

  Smush is listening. “We should wait a little longer to make sure.”

  But I can’t wait. I keep thinking about Boo becoming dog food. “Nah, they all left.” I start climbing the fence. “We got to go in now.”

  Smush and Snapper look at each other and shrug. They follow.

  We get into the main corral and then run to the shadows of the stone building. The whole place seem empty.

  “We better make sure that main gate opens. Otherwise we’ll just be trapped in this yard once we get the horses out the building,” Smush says.

  Snapper takes out a pair of bolt cutters. “I’m on it.” He sees me staring. “What? You never know when you’ll need these bad boys.” He runs over and starts fiddling with the gate.

  We sneak to the edge of the building and try a old wood door. It opens. Inside, there’s a long line of stalls on both sides, and
I can hear horses moving about. I don’t see no guards or no cameras looking over the room. So we sneak in like a coupla ninjas, peekin’ in each stall for any of Harper’s horses. The horses watch us closely, but they don’t do nothing. Some is even sleeping standing up.

  I go down the whole row and don’t see nobody I know, ’specially not Boo. “Maybe they already took ’em away when we wasn’t looking!” I say, starting to panic.

  Then I hear Boo give a little horse neigh. I’m no expert, but I come to know Boo’s sounds. I run over to another wood door on the far end of the room and slide it open. It’s dark inside, but there, behind a chain-link fence, is Boo, his eyes all big and watery. It ain’t nice at all, not like the other horses have. Boo’s standing there, his face pressed against the fence, looking all sad. The other eight horses is in there too.

  “We gonna get you guys outta here, Boo,” I whisper to him.

  There’s a big ol’ padlock on the fence, but when Snapper takes a look, he has that thing off in two seconds flat. I’m about to open it when Smush stops me.

  “Now, you sure about this? So far, we ain’t done nothing illegal, but you take them horses, and that’s stealing.”

  I already thought this through. “It ain’t stealing if it’s yours. They stole ’em first. I’m just taking ’em back. It’s called cowboy justice.”

  Smush shakes his head. “Okay, then, cowboy. Lead the way.”

  I push open the gate and walk up to Boo. I remember the first time I saw him and how big he seemed and how scared I was that he’d step on me. Now it feels okay, like we watching out for each other. I pet his neck, and he brushes his head against my shoulder.

  “My man, Boo . . .”

  Suddenly, we hear a noise coming from upstairs. Definitely the sound of footsteps.

  Smush peeks in the door. “Cuz, we ain’t got time for no reunions. We got to get ’em outta here.”

  The horses don’t got no saddles, but we don’t got the time to saddle ’em up, anyway. “Help me up on Boo,” I say.

  Smush looks doubtful. “You ever rode bareback before?”