Don't Skip Out on Me

by Willy Vlautin

  Eru Ríos gave Horace a drink of water and said, ‘You have to hit him before he hits you. You’re not good under pressure. You know you can hit him, but you have to throw punches to do so.’

  Horace came out for the second round and threw a jab and followed with a hard right that hit Watkins in the kidney and the kid stumbled back, hurt, but once again he became enraged. He said things through his mouth guard and began stalking. Even so, Horace got him with a hard right to the face. But again Watkins forced Horace into the ropes and let off a seemingly never-ending series of combinations. Horace froze terribly and the panic grew and grew until he forgot to breathe. And then it happened. It felt as though he was falling and spinning at the same time. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he collapsed. He fell to the ground unconscious. He was laid flat in the second round of his first preliminary fight. He was laid flat while wearing full headgear at a Golden Gloves qualifying tournament in a state that barely had enough boxers to even hold a tournament.

  The officials were anxious to get him off the mat but Horace couldn’t move. The overhead fluorescent lights blinded him and a wave of despair consumed him. He could hear people talking. He could hear, in the distance, the voice of a worried Mr Reese saying, ‘Is he okay? Is Horace gonna be alright?’

  An announcer came on the PA and spoke of the upcoming raffle and that the food stand was now selling dollar hot dogs and dollar popcorn. He then cleared his throat and called the next fighters while two men helped Horace to his feet and a doctor came to the edge of the ring, where Horace leaned against the ropes. The doctor asked him a few questions, shone a small flashlight in his eyes and nodded to the referee. ‘He’s fine.’

  Eru took the headgear and gloves off, and Horace was helped down the steps while a handful of people clapped. They brought him to the locker room and sat him on a long bench. Eru wished Horace good luck, patted him on the shoulder and left. Mr Reese sat down next to him in silence and watched as the boy took the wraps from his hands and unlaced his boxing shoes. Around them were boxers of all ages. Kids were laughing and screaming, other fighters were shadow-boxing in front of the sink mirrors. Horace kept his head down as he changed back into his street clothes. When he finished, he looked at Mr Reese. ‘I guess I’m ready to go now,’ he whispered.

  ‘You don’t want to stay and see the rest of the matches?’

  ‘Not really,’ he replied. He couldn’t look at the old man’s face. He just stared at the damp concrete of the locker-room floor. ‘I guess I’d rather just go home.’

  Mr Reese put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘You gave it your best, Horace. That’s all a person in this world can do. You worked as hard as you could. You came prepared. Every morning you went on your runs and then went to the barn and hit the bags. You worked as hard as a boy could. You should be proud of that. I know I am.’

  Horace only looked past the grey rusted lockers to the emergency exit. ‘Do you mind if we go out the back way?’

  ‘There’s no reason for that,’ Mr Reese said, and stood. ‘There’s no reason for you to be ashamed. You tried your best.’

  But Horace put his gym bag over his shoulder and walked toward the red sign of the back exit.

  *

  It was dusk when Horace came back to camp with Little Roy. Pedro had built a fire and was sitting on the ground in front of the Coleman stove stirring something in a pan. Horace sat across from him and ate the insides of two of Mrs Reese’s sandwiches and threw the bread onto the fire. Pedro took a saucepan from the stove, poured stew into a cup and handed it to Horace. They didn’t speak while they ate, and then Horace rolled out his pad and sleeping bag. He sat on them and watched the fire. Pedro got in his bed and was soon snoring. Tiny and Wally slept next to him and Little Roy stayed with Horace. He fed the fire one last time and got into his bag.

  *

  Before sunrise he woke and stared up at the fading black sky, thinking about his future. To be a champion he knew he would have to sacrifice more. He’d have to quit listening to white people’s music and he’d have to quit eating fried food and drinking Cokes. Most of all, he’d have to get to the bottom of why he continued to panic under pressure.

  He got out of the sleeping bag in his underwear and stood in the cold morning. He put on his clothes and boots and started a fire. Once it had gathered coals, he walked away from camp and did push-ups and sit-ups. He drank water, ate the insides of another of Mrs Reese’s sandwiches and took the CDs out from his backpack.

  Pantera: The Great Southern Trendkill

  Crowbar: Sever the Wicked Hand

  Slayer: Reign in Blood

  Cannibal Corpse: Tomb of the Mutilated

  Metallica: Ride the Lightning

  He removed the paper booklets from the plastic cases and set them on the fire. He found a small shovel leaning against a tree at the edge of camp, and walked to where the meadow ended and the sagebrush began. He dug a pit and threw the CDs and cases into it. He covered them with dirt and went back to camp.

  6

  Mr Reese awoke in the dark to the sound of his wife crying.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he whispered.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m worrying about Horace.’ Her back was to him. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  ‘Why does he have to go?’

  ‘He needs to be his own man, you know that.’

  ‘When he gets back we only have one last night with him.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘Why does he need to be a boxer?’

  ‘I’m just not sure,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve thought about it over and over and I’m just not sure. But remember, he’s young and a lot of young men want to prove themselves.’

  ‘Will he get hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Will he come back?’ She rolled over and looked at her husband in the dark.

  ‘He will.’

  ‘Do you really think so or are you just being nice?’

  ‘He’ll come back.’

  ‘You promise he’ll come back?’

  ‘I’d bet my life on it,’ he said.

  They were silent after that and he put his hand on her hip and rubbed it until he could tell she was asleep. He lay motionless, trying not to think, but all that did was make him think more. He remembered the day he parked his truck in front of Horace’s grandmother Doreen’s little white house and walked up the gravel drive and knocked on her door. She answered dressed in a faded pink robe and stained white slippers. She was white, sixty-seven years old and frail, and pulled behind her an oxygen tank in a makeshift cart. A plastic tube ran from it to both nostrils.

  ‘I appreciate you coming,’ she said, her voice hoarse and full of phlegm. She led him inside to the living room. There was an old flowered couch and next to it an armchair, where she pointed him to sit. She collapsed on the sofa, turned off the oxygen and pulled the tubes from her nose. Beside her, on an end table, was a pack of Marlboro Reds. She took one and lit it.

  ‘I’m not supposed to, but what difference does it make now? And anyway, this conversation is going to be upsetting enough.’

  Mr Reese took off his cowboy hat. ‘So it’s pretty certain with your health?’

  She nodded. ‘I just don’t want Horace to find me, and if he stays, sooner or later he will.’

  ‘Like I said on the phone, Louise and I would love to have him. This last summer he spent with us was one of the best summers we’ve had since our daughters left. He’s a good boy, and funny, and such a hard worker.’

  ‘It’s surprising he’s a hard worker,’ Doreen said. ‘I know his father is too. It’s not ordinary, I don’t think, with Indians, especially around here, but I’m glad he is. Maybe he can be some kind of help to you.’

  Mr Reese half-nodded. ‘The plan we’ve come up with, if it’s alright with you and Horace’s mom, is that he’ll stay with the Pearsons Monday, Tuesday and We
dnesday nights after school. Thursday after classes I’ll pick him up and he’ll spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the ranch. I’ll drive him in early Monday morning before school. It’s not the best set-up, but it worked for our daughters pretty well. The Pearsons have housed a half-dozen ranch kids over the years and I think all enjoyed it more than found it a burden.’

  Doreen smoked her cigarette and listened. She wore glasses with silver wire frames, and her hands trembled as Mr Reese continued.

  ‘And I talked with the school and they’re fine with him not coming on Fridays if he does the extra work. I do worry that it’ll be a problem with his grades, but the Pearsons are slowing down and they’re not sure they can handle a fourteen-year-old boy more than three nights. If we find that him staying with the Pearsons isn’t working for them or Horace, then we’ll figure out a different plan. But he likes them and of course they love him. And then, when he’s old enough, we’ll get him a car and he can drive in each morning. We’ll have him full-time after that.’

  ‘He can have my car,’ Doreen said, and coughed. Her eyes watered from it and she used a Kleenex to wipe her mouth. ‘Horace’s dad sends me a check every month. I’ll give the Pearsons some of that money.’

  ‘They’d appreciate it.’

  ‘I’ll give you the rest,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Mr Reese replied. ‘We’re not doing it for the money. Maybe we could put that in a college fund.’

  Doreen nodded, knocked the ash off her cigarette and drank from a can of ginger ale.

  ‘And you’re sure Horace’s mom’s okay with this arrangement?’

  ‘My daughter thinks it’s best for him to stay in the same school. Horace spoke with her about it on the phone and he told her he’d rather stay here than go back to Las Vegas.’

  Mr Reese nodded. ‘I also spoke with a lawyer and we’ll need to sign some papers for guardianship.’

  She again nodded and then closed her eyes. When she opened them she looked at Mr Reese. ‘Send me the bill for that. I’ll forward it to Horace’s father.’

  ‘And he’s okay with this?’

  She just nodded and pointed to the kitchen. ‘All Horace’s food is in the freezer. I don’t care for the dinners he likes and I won’t eat them. They’ll just go to waste if you don’t take them.’

  She put her hand in her robe pocket and pulled out a folded scrap of paper and handed it to him.

  ‘Written on there are the names of his doctors. He had an ear infection not too long ago. It gave him a horrible headache for a week but it seems to have cleared up. Will you keep an eye on it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mr Reese said. ‘Are there any other medical things I should know about?’

  She shook her head. ‘I did the best I could with him, but who knows? Maybe he’ll end up a town drunk like Ricky Lonsdale or Big Tim. You never can tell with Indians – they all seem to end up drunks one way or another. But I’ve tried my best to keep him away from them.’

  Mr Reese looked around the room. ‘Well, hopefully we’ll be an asset to the boy. That’s what we’ll try to be,’ he said.

  Doreen nodded, put out the cigarette and turned the oxygen tank back on.

  Mr Reese stood up. ‘One last thing. Horace told me he’d left his shaving kit in the bathroom and a cardboard box full of things in his bedroom. He’s pretty certain he has everything else.’

  ‘His room is off the kitchen,’ she said. Her voice had grown weaker in the short time he’d been there. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Tell him to visit me. Tell him it’ll be lonely without him and that I love him.’

  Mr Reese nodded and walked through the kitchen to a small door. He opened it to find a pantry barely large enough for a twin bed. The ceiling was five feet at its lowest and six feet at its highest. He picked up a lone box off the plywood floor, carried it to the front door and set it down. In the bathroom he found no shaving kit.

  ‘I can’t seem to find his Dopp kit,’ he said to Doreen as he came back to the main room.

  The TV was now on. She took her eyes off it. ‘I don’t let him use the bathroom in the house. The one he uses is in the shop. That’s where he does his hygiene.’

  Mr Reese nodded and walked out the back door to a pole barn. Inside, in the corner, were a toilet, a shop sink and two shower curtains that hung from a badly built wood-and-wire frame. A garden hose was hooked from the shop sink and ran to the makeshift shower. He saw the canvas shaving kit, grabbed it and left.

  *

  When Mr Reese woke next, it was 5 a.m. He nudged his wife three times before she woke.

  ‘Is it time?’ she said, half-asleep.

  ‘It is,’ he said.

  She lay still for a minute and then sat up. She rubbed her face, set her feet on the floor and turned on the bedside lamp. Their bedroom was on the main floor in a room that had once been their younger daughter’s. Mrs Reese put on her robe and slippers and went to her husband’s side of the bed.

  ‘You ready?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  She pulled back the sheet and thin blanket. The old man lay in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. She took both his ankles in her hands and moved his feet off the bed. He groaned from the pain as he set his feet on the floor.

  ‘Is it bad this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘Not too bad,’ he managed to say. ‘Once I get moving I’ll be alright.’

  He put out his arms. She took his hands in hers and helped him up. ‘Got it?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said and she left for the bathroom. He walked stiffly to the main room, where Little Lana lay on a blanket near the woodstove.

  ‘How you doing this morning?’ he asked her.

  The old Border collie wagged the nub of her tail and got up. She walked to Mr Reese, licked his calf and then watched as he walked back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. Mrs Reese came from the bathroom with a jar of heat lotion, and Mr Reese took off his T-shirt and she rubbed it into his back. She then started coffee, put a pot of oatmeal on the stove and helped him dress.

  They ate breakfast while listening to the radio and they didn’t speak. Mr Reese got to his feet and again walked from the kitchen to the living room, back and forth. ‘Do you mind if we go over it one more time before they get here?’ he asked.

  Mrs Reese nodded and went to their bedroom. She came out with a yellow notepad. ‘We have $38,765 in the tractor account.’

  Mr Reese nodded. ‘And you’re sure this is a good idea?’

  Mrs Reese looked at him. ‘We’ve always grown our own hay. Always. Wells run dry, lines break, but there’s water here. Trujillo thinks so and he’s the best we know. A new well is an investment. We’ll have to go deeper but we’ve always known that. And you can rebuild our tractor now that you have Morton’s for parts. I know you can because you can rebuild anything.’

  ‘What if we just sold out?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going to talk about that again. This is our home and I don’t want to leave. You know that. You’re just nervous ’cause it’s a lot of money and you’ve been wanting a new tractor for years and now we’re going to spend it all on a well that may or may not pan out. But I think it’s exciting. That well’s been giving us a headache for a long time now and soon we’ll have good water again. We won’t have to worry about buying hay and we won’t have the constant headache about that damn well not working.’

  ‘You’re pretty optimistic that the new one will turn out alright.’

  ‘It has to turn out alright so it will turn out alright.’

  ‘You always did like to gamble,’ Mr Reese said.

  Mrs Reese smiled. ‘But let’s not tell the girls.’

  Mr Reese laughed. ‘If we told them, we’d be sunk. They’d be here packing our bags and throwing us in the loony bin. No, we won’t tell them about the well or any of it. We’ll be undercover.’

  ‘Good,’ Mrs Reese said.

  ‘Now I need help with my boots,’ he told her and pulled out a kitchen chair
and sat down.

  Mrs Reese found the boots and helped put them on. After that, she began clearing the table and Mr Reese and Little Lana left the house and walked across the long gravel drive to the barn, where he threw a flake of hay to each of the four horses while Little Lana watched quietly from the gate. It was then that he heard the sound of a vehicle parking in front of the barn. He left the corral to see a large flatbed with Trujillo Well Drilling stencilled in faded red letters on the driver’s-side door.

  7

  The pickup truck was parked outside Deyoe’s Mini-Mart as the bus made its way up the hill toward them. It was early morning and Little Lana sat between Horace and Mr Reese.

  ‘Will you give Lonnie this the next time you see him,’ Horace said and reached into a duffel bag at his feet. He took out a half-roll of Copenhagen and set it on the dash. ‘I’m not gonna need it anymore.’

  ‘You’re giving it up, huh?’

  ‘If I’m going to make it all the way, I have to change a lot of things and that’s one of the things I have to change.’

  The old man nodded.

  ‘I hate to admit it, Mr Reese, but I’m pretty nervous to get on that bus.’

  ‘It’s normal to be nervous,’ the old man replied. ‘You’re going on an adventure to test yourself. It would make anyone nervous. I’m just glad we got to eat one last breakfast together.’