Don't Skip Out on Me

by Willy Vlautin

  ‘Me too,’ said Horace. ‘And thank Mrs Reese for the lunches she packed.’

  ‘She sure is going to miss you.’

  ‘I’m gonna miss her too.’

  The old man cleared his throat as the bus pulled up to the mini-mart and parked. ‘I just want you to know that I believe in you, Horace. I always have. I hope you know and remember that. We both love you. Best of luck in Arizona and, no matter what, you always have a home and a job and a family with us.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Reese.’

  ‘And will you call Mrs Reese now and then just so she doesn’t worry?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And remember to work on your defence and your breathing.’

  ‘I’ll work on them,’ Horace said and tears welled in his eyes. ‘It sure is hard saying goodbye to you.’

  ‘It’s hard for me, too,’ the old man said and opened the driver’s-side door and stepped down. Horace got out with his duffel and took a second suitcase from the bed of the truck.

  ‘Well, I guess this is it,’ Horace said.

  Mr Reese went to his billfold and took $1,000 from it. ‘I know it’s not much, but maybe this will help you get on your feet.’

  ‘You shouldn’t give me more money,’ Horace said. ‘You already gave me a bonus.’

  ‘The bonus was because you’re a good worker. You earned that. The thousand is from Louise and myself. Just keep it for emergencies and for maybe going to see one of your music events. Treat yourself.’

  Horace took the money and then set down his bags and hugged the old man.

  ‘I’ll never forget you, Mr Reese.’

  ‘Please be careful.’

  ‘I’ll be careful as much as I can, but a champion has to take risks. I won’t be able to be careful all the time.’

  ‘I know,’ the old man replied. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m gonna do great down there so don’t worry.’ Horace smiled, picked up his bags, and left for the bus.

  *

  He arrived in Tucson the afternoon of the next day. He stepped down into the hottest weather he’d ever felt and made his way inside the terminal, where he called a cab. The driver took him down South Sixth Avenue, where stores, buildings, tire shops and restaurants lined the sidewalks for miles upon miles. They came to Fortieth Street and Horace told the driver to pull over in front of a white adobe house with blue trim. There was a four-foot chain-link fence around the yard. The carport to the left of the house was empty. He paid the driver and got out.

  He knocked on the front door but no one answered, so he moved to the shade of the carport, sat underneath it and waited for two hours.

  It was past 6 p.m. when a green Toyota Camry pulled up to the fence and his mom’s sister, his aunt Briana, a large white woman with red hair, dressed in a black business suit, got out and opened the gate. She moved the car into the carport. She seemed neither happy nor upset when she saw Horace. She asked him briefly about his trip and then took him past the carport to the guest house. The yard around it was dirt and concrete, with one large mesquite tree giving the only shade. There were no chairs or tables, no barbecue or plants or shrubs of any kind. She unlocked the door, handed him the key and told him to make a copy. Inside, the windows were shut and the temperature was over a hundred and ten degrees.

  ‘Like I told you, I haven’t had the heart to change anything,’ she said. ‘What you might not know is your greataunt raised me more than Doreen did. So it’s hard. It’s been hard. I took out her clothes but left everything else the way she liked it. You can rearrange some things if you have to, but I’d rather you didn’t get rid of anything. At least not without asking me first.’ His aunt’s face was covered in thick, pale foundation. She wore blue eyeshadow and dark-red lipstick.

  The little house was filled with old-lady furniture. On the walls were pictures of flowers. There was a TV and a small AC unit against the back wall and a yellow-tiled kitchen in the opposite corner that had a gas stove, a refrigerator and a sink. On a yellow kitchen table sat miniature porcelain figurines, and next to it was a stainless-steel walker.

  From his wallet Horace took out a money order. ‘My mom said it was five hundred a month plus two hundred a month for utilities. So that’s forty-two hundred for six months.’

  His aunt Briana took the money order and looked at it.

  ‘And don’t worry, I won’t be here longer than six months,’ said Horace.

  His aunt was sweating in the room’s heat. Drops were running down her temples. ‘Just be careful when using the AC,’ she said. ‘It’s an old unit and it costs a lot to use. Turn it off when you go out or when you go to sleep. Okay?’

  ‘Alright,’ he said.

  ‘You come and leave through the gate, so remember to always shut it. I go to bed by eight, so if you could keep it down after eight I’d appreciate it.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And, like I told your mother, I don’t want other people around here. No parties or friends and no smoking in the house.’

  ‘My mom told me all this. I won’t mess anything up.’

  She looked at him and tried to smile. ‘I don’t mean to sound rude. I’m okay with you here. It has nothing to do with you. It’s just strange. I’ve only met you twice, once as a baby and the other time was when you came down here for the day to get your licence. And I haven’t seen your mom in years. And then, out of the blue, she calls and asks if you can use this place as an address and asks if you can move in.’

  ‘I know it doesn’t sound good,’ said Horace. ‘I don’t talk to her that often. But she called on my birthday and I told her I was thinking of moving and she mentioned Tucson and you and the house. She’s always wanted me to leave Tonopah. So when I said I was thinking of leaving, I guess that idea just came to her. I didn’t mean to impose. And I’m sorry about your aunt. I know you’re doing me a big favour. I’ll be careful here, don’t worry. And I’ll only be here six months.’

  She began to say something more but stopped. ‘I’ll let you get settled, then,’ she said and left.

  *

  The bathroom was small and had yellow tiles on the floor. Yellow bath towels hung from a rack and there was a stainless-steel railing around the shower wall. On a metal shelf above the sink sat a small mirror and next to it vials of medication. Even the aunt’s old toothpaste and hand lotion were still there. The bedroom had an electric hospital bed that moved up and down by remote control, a dresser, an old TV on a wheeled stand and a window that looked out to a rock wall. The room smelled of overheated air freshener and dust. Horace opened the window and then saw a fan in the corner, turned it on and went back out to the main room, turned the AC unit on full, and laid in front of it.

  The first night, he tried to sleep in the bedroom on the medical bed. But even with the fan and the bedroom window open it was too hot, and the plastic mattress cover made noise every time he moved. And worst was knowing that his great-aunt had died in there, on that bed, and no matter what he did he couldn’t stop thinking about that. At 6 a.m. he got up, did his run and his push-ups and sit-ups. He showered and made a makeshift bed of a blanket, a sheet and a pillow on the floor in front of the AC unit, then fell back asleep.

  When he opened his eyes next, the first thought that came to him was of his mother. He was eight years old and sitting next to her in the car as she drove. She seemed to cry the entire way and he didn’t understand why she was leaving him with his grandmother if she was crying so much about it.

  ‘It’s only for the summer,’ she had promised. ‘Your father said he could take you, but then, as you know, things came up. But you’ve always liked Grandma. It’ll be fun.’

  Two large suitcases were in the trunk and his bike and four cardboard boxes were in the back seat of the small car.

  ‘I want you to remember this is not because of Larry or the baby. I don’t want you to think they’re the reason you’re spending the summer with Grandma. I’m just so tired all the time, and going back to work’s bee
n harder than I thought. And you have to admit you were a handful all year. Leaving school, running away at recess, and you didn’t try even a little in class. And I’ve been at a loss about what to do with you this summer. Both Larry and I have to work and now we have the baby to juggle and Larry’s worn out by it all too, and he isn’t very pleasant when he’s tired. I suppose nobody is. But we both know how he gets and that makes things hard on the baby and hard on me and hard on you. We all just need a break. It won’t be forever, just the summer, and I don’t want you to think it’s your fault. It’s not. It’s my fault and it’s nobody’s fault. I think we just need a reset, a break to clean the table and get fixed up.’

  Horace looked at her. Tears streamed down her face as she drove. It was hours like that. Her talking and crying. Saying the same things over and over again.

  The only other thing he remembered was that, when they finally stopped in Tonopah, he was allowed to order whatever he wanted at the Stage Stop cafe. She never let him get milkshakes, but that day she ordered him one and let him have French toast and bacon for lunch.

  It was all tears as they unloaded his belongings into a small room off the kitchen of his grandma’s house, tears when his mother bought a twin mattress and box springs from the Senior Thrift Shop, and more tears as she hugged and kissed him and left him with a grandmother who drank Coors Light on ice from 11 a.m. until she fell asleep on the couch at nine, who chain-smoked cigarettes, who ate only frozen dinners, and who was scared of Indians, blacks and Mexicans.

  8

  It was late morning when Horace got dressed and left. He walked to South Sixth Avenue and struggled under the heat. T&T Market, McElroy’s Auto Repair and Food City shopping mall came into view. He walked on until he saw Grand Central Barber Shop and went inside to find two Mexican barbers watching TV. The younger of the two stood up and asked in Spanish if he needed a haircut.

  Horace shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Can I get a haircut?’

  ‘Sure,’ the man said.

  Horace took out his wallet and from it a picture of the boxer Érik Morales and one of Canelo Álvarez. ‘Can you cut my hair like that?’ he said, pointing to Morales. ‘But I want it to stick up like it does on this one,’ he said then, pointing to Álvarez.

  The barber nodded.

  ‘How do they get the hair in front to move forward like that?’

  ‘Hair product,’ the man said and told him to sit down. He put a black sheet around him, took electric clippers and began cutting off Horace’s hair. The two barbers spoke to each other in Spanish while Horace stared at the TV.

  A half-hour later he left with his hair short and coated in styling gel. In his back pocket he carried a plastic bottle of it. He walked down the street and came to Discount Tires. He went inside and asked if they were hiring. After that he tried Temo-Tires, Big Dog Off-Road, Discount Tire, a Mexican clothing store and finally a mini-mart. But none of them were looking for help.

  Two days passed the same way. He woke at dawn, did his workouts and then slept in front of the AC unit. In the late afternoon, when the heat began to ease, he looked for work. He went from place to place searching. On his fourth day, he began to grow worried. He even put in applications at Burger King, McDonald’s and Wienerschnitzel. But then as he walked home he took a side street and came to a small cinderblock building with a hand-painted sign that read Máximo’s Used Tire Shop. A middle-aged Mexican man sat outside it on a weather-beaten couch, under an awning, drinking a beer.

  ‘Are you hiring?’ asked Horace.

  ‘You know how to change tires?’ the man asked.

  ‘I worked at a tire place in high school three days a week after school,’ said Horace. ‘I can fix flats, put on new sets, and I can tell when used tires are good or bad.’

  The Mexican man was short and skinny and wore sandals, dirty blue pants and a stained Tucson Padres T-shirt. He looked at Horace and coughed. ‘My nephew’s my employee, but he hasn’t shown up in two days and I don’t know where he is. Can you come tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Sure,’ Horace said.

  ‘Be here at eight o’clock and we’ll see if you know anything. I pay twelve dollars an hour, but if we’re slow I’ll send you home. I can’t guarantee hours. And if you don’t know what you’re doing I can’t use you, alright?’

  They shook hands.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the man asked.

  ‘Hector Hidalgo,’ said Horace.

  ‘Habla usted español?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Nevada. I just moved here. What’s your name?’

  ‘Benny,’ the man said.

  *

  Horace walked home in great relief that he might have gotten a job. He changed into shorts and running shoes and did his afternoon push-ups and sit-ups in front of the AC unit. When he’d finished, he took a manila envelope from his bag of clothes. Inside were thumbtacks and the pictures of the Mexican boxers. He stuck them on the wall next to a full-length mirror in the main room, then stood in front of it and worked on his combinations.

  That evening he made his way down Sixth Avenue to Food City grocery store. Piñatas hung from the ceiling and the aisles were marked in English and Spanish. He bought tortillas, cheese, beans and hot sauce. He bought pre-cooked chorizo, instant coffee, a dozen eggs and a carton of milk. He couldn’t think of any other Mexican food besides rice, and he had never been good at cooking rice. He also bought orange juice and oatmeal, and filled the rest of the basket with broccoli, carrots, bananas and oranges.

  The next morning he woke at five, did his workout, showered and made a lunch of tortillas layered with canned refried beans and cheese slices. He wrapped them in foil and walked to Máximo’s Used Tire Shop to find the man, Benny, sitting on the same couch drinking a cup of coffee, eating a candy bar and reading a newspaper.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d show up,’ Benny said. He was dressed in black work pants, an oil-stained red T-shirt and sandals.

  ‘Do you still need a worker?’ Horace asked.

  Benny nodded and went back to reading his newspaper. ‘A truck will be here soon – just hold tight.’

  Horace sat on the edge of the couch and waited until a white semi arrived towing a twenty-eight-foot trailer. A stout Mexican man pulled down a ramp from the back and rolled the tires into a paved storage area that was surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The tires were high-quality brands with little or no tread wear. They seemed nearly new. Benny told Horace where and how to stack them and they unloaded the truck.

  Afterward Benny sat on the couch and went through a small book with phone numbers handwritten inside. He was on the phone for the next two hours, and each time he hung up he gave Horace a note with the size and number of tires and Horace took them from the storage area and staged them outside the shop door. Every hour, a car or truck came and they changed out sets. Benny supervised on the first three and then moved back to the couch, drank beer and watched as Horace worked. They finished at seven o’clock. Benny handed Horace $120 and told him he was hired.

  It wasn’t a great job, but Horace had accomplished the first thing he told himself he’d do. He was employed. Next was the trainer.

  *

  The Eleventh Street Gym was in a rundown strip mall. It wasn’t much to look at – only a faded white storefront. But Horace knew from movies that most gyms weren’t much to look at. Even gyms in the city, even famous gyms. The lights inside were on and he could see a ring, two big bags and three small bags. A handful of kids were running about, and he asked a boy of ten where Alberto Ruiz was. The boy pointed to a barrel-chested middle-aged Mexican man in the corner, who was yelling in Spanish at a kid working a heavy bag.

  Horace waited at a distance until they finished, and then the boy left and Alberto Ruiz sat down in a plastic chair and began looking at his phone.

  ‘Mr Ruiz?’ asked Horace.

  Ruiz looked up. He had a boxer’
s face: a nose with no cartilage, rubbery and flat, eyebrows swollen with scar tissue, and his left cheek looked larger than his right. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Hector Hidalgo. I talked to you on the phone. I’m from Nevada.’

  ‘Hector?’

  ‘I’m fighting in two weeks at the Arizona Golden Gloves championships in Mesa.’

  Ruiz shook his head.

  ‘I called a few times. You were driving once and you had your kids in the car. You were going to get pizza. I’m from Tonopah, Nevada. We talked about the heat.’

  ‘The heat?’

  ‘Yeah, about how it’s really hot here.’

  Ruiz again shook his head. ‘Well, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I was hoping you would train me for my fight in Mesa.’

  ‘I’m going to Mesa with a few of my fighters,’ he said.

  Horace nodded. ‘I know, you said that on the phone. That’s why I was hoping you could get me ready too.’

  Ruiz looked at him and then reached into his sweatpants pocket, took out a packet of Nicorette gum and put a piece in his mouth. ‘We’ll sign you up. Do you have the monthly fee? It’s a hundred to join and then a hundred a month.’

  ‘I have the money,’ said Horace.

  ‘For an extra hundred I can give you more one-on-one time before the fight.’

  ‘So three hundred total?’

  Ruiz nodded.

  Horace looked around the gym. Signs for Zumba and a boxing workout class hung from the walls. He saw five Mexican boys: one was jumping rope, two were working the heavy bag and two were in the ring chasing each other around. ‘Do you train professional boxers too?’

  ‘I train all kinds of people,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ Horace said, and tried to think. ‘Can I start tomorrow after work?’

  ‘I’ll be here until nine. We’ll talk then and I’ll see what I can do to help.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Ruiz.’

  ‘Just call me Ruiz, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’