Don't Skip Out on Me

by Willy Vlautin

  ‘Down the glass or I’m cutting you off. I’ll take the beer from you. I’ll take the pint of Jägermeister you have in your purse. I’ll throw you out in the street like a shot dog.’

  Horace looked at the floor in front of him. He thought he might be sick.

  ‘Drink it down!’ Stew yelled and then he began making Indian sounds. He moved his hand over his mouth. ‘Woo-woo-woo-woo …’

  ‘Stop it!’ she yelled. ‘Please stop it. Please. I’m begging. Is that what you want?’

  Stew laughed.

  ‘Why do you have to be so mean?’

  Stew stood up and danced like an Indian off a TV Western and again moved his hand over his mouth. ‘Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo …’

  Gene took a drink from his glass and stared sadly at the box heater. He said nothing.

  The woman looked at Stew, flipped him off, then took the pint glass of VO from the table and drank all of it. The entire glass. Her eyes watered, she gagged and spit drooled down the sides of her mouth, but she didn’t vomit.

  ‘I told you she can shotgun whiskey!’ Stew yelled. He hit his hand against his leg and laughed. He looked at her and again danced. He moved his knees up and down. He bent over and moved his hand over his mouth and sang, ‘Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo …’

  ‘Please, goddamn it, stop,’ she whispered, her voice fading.

  Stew kept going. ‘Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo …’

  Horace got up from the couch, unsteady and drunk, and grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘That guy’s an asshole.’ She could barely walk, but she nodded. She took her purse and together they headed for the door.

  ‘Where the fuck do you think you two Injuns are going?’ Stew yelled and walked over to Horace and grabbed his arm. Horace turned around and hit him as hard as he could in the face. Stew stumbled back, his nose suddenly broken and shooting out blood, and fell into the coffee table. He didn’t get up – he didn’t even move. After that Horace opened the door, and when he did Gene took a thick metal pipe that was on the floor near the couch and swung it as hard as he could, and hit Horace on the left side of his torso. Horace fell to the floor instantly but Gene didn’t hit him again. He could have killed him, but he didn’t. He just moved back and dropped the pipe.

  Horace got to his feet. Pain shot through his side and he thought he might be sick. He looked back at Gene in shock and Gene stood motionless, then Horace and the woman got out the door and stumbled down the road, away from the house.

  With each breath Horace’s chest hurt worse, and his left shoulder began to ache. He was light-headed and his vision grew hazy. They kept walking and were nearly a half-mile from the house when the woman threw up on the side of the road. She was half-crying as they continued to walk, and finally they came to a closed plumbing store and stopped. They sat down in front of it, and the woman began crying in earnest.

  ‘Why are you with a guy like that?’ asked Horace.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered.

  ‘He’s really mean to you.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You don’t deserve that,’ he said.

  She again nodded and spit bile on the ground.

  ‘You have to build your own boat,’ Horace whispered to her. ‘You have to build it so you can move to the next level, away from here. So you can become the best person you can be. So you can be a champion. And a champion never lets things like that happen.’

  The woman laughed and then began crying again. She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Horace told her. ‘I’ll help you out. I live on a ranch and I’m going to head back there soon and you can come with me if you want.’ He felt the warmth of her. Her hair smelled like lemon and when she quit crying she held his hand and he held hers. It was warm and very soft and even though his side hurt worse and worse it felt good to be next to her, and they both fell asleep against the building.

  26

  When Horace woke, it was morning and the woman was gone and employees were arriving at the plumbing store to begin their working day. He got up, shaky and hung over, and his side, where he’d been hit with the pipe, pierced in pain as he stood. His left shoulder ached and he lifted his shirt to see his whole side was black and blue and swollen. He barely made it back to his apartment. Once inside, he ate a bowl of cereal and collapsed in bed. When he woke, it was night and his side hurt so bad he could barely get up. But, even so, he walked downtown and ate a hot dog from a casino. After that he went to a mini-mart and bought a bottle of ibuprofen and a Coke. He took five pills.

  It was past midnight and he was walking along North Las Vegas Boulevard toward his apartment when he saw a white Ford pickup pulling a three-horse slant-load trailer stopped on the side of the road. Its flashers were on and a man in a cowboy hat was looking at a blown tire on the left side of the trailer.

  Horace went across the street to find the man was just a high-school-aged boy.

  ‘Where you heading?’ Horace called out. He stood bent toward his left to ease the pain in his side. He looked rough, his face sweaty and ill, his hair dishevelled.

  The kid, who was crouched, stood up, startled. ‘Reno,’ he replied nervously, and stepped back away from Horace.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I just want to help if I can. How did you end up here?’

  ‘I was coming from St George, Utah,’ the kid said. ‘I could have gone around Las Vegas, but I’ve never been here. I wanted to see it, but I wasn’t really gonna stop. I wasn’t. Then the tire blew. I can’t believe it blew right then, but I have the worst luck ever. I only wanted to drive by the casinos and see the Strip, and now I’m in a world of shit. If my uncle knows I was driving around Las Vegas, he’ll fire me and call my dad. And the poor horses are probably having a meltdown with all these lights and noise everywhere.’

  ‘They’ll be okay,’ Horace said and leaned into the side of the truck to ease his pain. ‘They been on the road long enough that they’re probably too tired to do much of anything except worry. I can help you out if you want.’

  The boy glanced at Horace and shook his head.

  ‘I know I don’t look like it now, but I used to work on a ranch and I can change tires in my sleep. I really can.’

  The boy looked around and then said, ‘Okay. I appreciate it. I’m having a hard time getting the lugs off and I got to get the hell out of here.’

  Horace nodded and they went to work. Together they got the rim off and put on the spare. The pressure held when the boy let the jack down, and then together they got the blown tire and the jack in the bed of the truck. Horace’s side hurt so bad that he nearly collapsed.

  Under the street lights they shook hands and the boy tried to give Horace money, but Horace wouldn’t take it. He just asked if he could pet one of the horses. The boy opened the escape door and a chestnut quarter horse leaned his head out and looked at the bright lights and the people of Old Town Las Vegas. Horace ran his hand over the horse’s neck three times and smelled him. Tears welled in his eyes and he shut the door.

  ‘You think I could get a ride with you?’ he asked in a broken voice. ‘I’ll stay in the bed of the truck if you want. I won’t be any trouble. I’m an alright person. I swear I am. I just want to get out of here and you’re heading through Tonopah anyway. I’ll get out there – I promise I will. It’s where the ranch is that I used to work.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the boy said, suddenly nervous again. ‘I don’t think my uncle would want me to.’

  ‘I can pay for gas,’ Horace added. ‘I’ll pay you extra too. I won’t be any problem.’

  The boy looked at the ground. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess you can … but I gotta go right now.’

  ‘I just have to get my money and my clothes. It’ll take me less than ten minutes to get it. I’d go faster but I hurt my side and I can’t run. Will you wait?’

  ‘I can wait a couple minutes,’ the boy said, and Horace nodded and began joggi
ng the best he could to his apartment. When he got there, his side hurt so bad he could hardly breathe, but he took the money he had hidden in the bottom of a cereal box and his new clothes and ran as fast as he could back to the kid and the truck. His side was on fire by the time he got there. He could barely stand as he reached the street to see the truck and trailer weren’t there. The kid had gone.

  *

  He sat down between two buildings and began to cry. His side ached and he had trouble getting himself up, but eventually he walked to a mini-mart and bought a pint of Old Crow and mixed it with Coke and forced himself to drink it. He took five more ibuprofens. At two in the morning, with the pint gone, he began walking again. He found a payphone in the Fremont Casino and called Mr Reese collect.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into the phone.

  ‘You don’t have anything to be sorry about,’ said Mr Reese as he sat up in bed. Mrs Reese turned on the bedside lamp, suddenly wide awake. ‘Where are you, Horace?’

  ‘In Las Vegas,’ he said.

  ‘Have you been there the entire time?’

  Horace paused and looked out onto the casino floor. ‘I hadn’t seen horses in a long time, Mr Reese. I miss being around horses. Horses make everything seem alright.’

  ‘I still have ours. They’re waiting for you.’

  Horace fell silent and Mr Reese looked worriedly at his wife. ‘Can I come see you?’ he asked and shrugged his shoulders to her.

  ‘No,’ Horace whispered. ‘You should just forget about me, Mr Reese. I’ve always been trouble.’

  ‘That’s not true. You’ve been nothing but a help to us. You have to remember how much we’ve leaned on you these last years. Maybe we leaned too hard and I’m sorry if we did … But we love you, Horace. We feel so lucky to have met you. What part of the city do you live in?’

  ‘In the old part,’ he said, his voice trailing off.

  ‘Old Town?’ Mr Reese said and again looked at his wife. ‘Do you have a regular place you live?’

  Horace sighed.

  ‘I’ll come find you and we can talk.’

  ‘Don’t, Mr Reese. I shouldn’t have called. I’m just sorry, that’s all I wanted to say. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I wanted to come home – I did – but then I just couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.’ And then he hung up.

  27

  Mrs Reese was already up when Mr Reese got off the phone. She remained silent, put on her bathrobe and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Mr Reese used the toilet, put heat lotion on his back and dressed. He pulled an old suitcase from under the bed and filled it quickly with two changes of clothes and his shaving kit. When he came out to the kitchen, Mrs Reese had bacon frying and was making biscuits. Tears streamed down her face.

  ‘You’ll have to quit crying,’ he told her. He put his arms around her while she kneaded the dough. ‘If you don’t quit then I’ll start, and I won’t have it in me to make the trip.’

  She nodded and he went to the silverware drawer and opened it. From underneath the tray he took an envelope with an emergency $500 and a credit card. He put them both in his wallet, poured a cup of coffee and watched as Mrs Reese put the biscuits in the oven and made him three turkey, Swiss and lettuce sandwiches. He took a drink of coffee and his hands shook as he did.

  The sun rose across the sagebrush and mountains and he drove his truck into Tonopah, filled the tank and headed south. He listened to the radio and drank coffee from a thermos and pushed the old truck down the empty highway.

  The hours passed and it was mid-morning when he came to Las Vegas and found his way to Old Town. He parked the truck and started walking up and down Fremont Street carrying a picture of Horace with him. Any person working in a store or a casino with a view of the street, he showed the picture to. But no one he talked to had seen Horace. He looked for three hours and then he went back to his truck, ate lunch and called Mrs Reese.

  ‘I can’t walk much more without my back giving out,’ he said. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘You’ll have to get a room and take breaks,’ she said. ‘You have to remember to put heat on your back and do your stretches. Use your pills. This might take a while, so don’t do too much at once.’

  ‘I don’t like it here at all,’ he said in a near whisper, and his voice trailed off as he looked out the window.

  ‘I know you don’t. Just please bring him home, Eldon,’ she said. ‘Please find him.’

  He got a room at the Four Queens and spent the afternoon resting. At five he went out for three hours and then came back. He put more lotion on his back, did his stretches, lay on the bed and slept for an hour. When he woke he made coffee, ate another sandwich and left. But the night grew more unsettling and the people he came across more unpredictable, belligerent and drunk, so he went back to his room.

  *

  He ate breakfast the next morning and set off again. He searched farther out and down alleys and side streets. He made stops at the God in Me Ministry, Las Vegas Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities. He made photocopied pictures of Horace with his phone number on them and handed them out. He did this for two days straight and grew more hopeless as he walked up and down Fremont Street and the surrounding areas.

  On the third day, he passed Uncle Joe’s Pizza, Kabob Korner, a tattoo parlour and a bar called the Griffin. There was yelling across the street. He stopped to see two men arguing by a white van. To the left of them, against an alley wall, he saw a person who looked, from a distance, like Horace.

  He made his way across the street. His heart raced. He took off his cowboy hat, ran his hand through his hair and put the hat back on. As he grew closer, he could see that the person in front of him was a boy, and the boy was Horace.

  He was wearing dirty jeans, boots and Mr Reese’s old canvas work coat. There was a paper bag in front of him with a half-empty pint of Old Crow inside it and a can of Coke to the left of him. His eyes were closed and he was asleep. The old man bent down, stiff and sore, and put his hand on Horace’s shoulder.

  Horace opened his eyes and looked up.

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you,’ he said gently, and with difficulty he sat down next to Horace. ‘An hour doesn’t pass without me thinking about you. Mrs Reese is the same.’

  ‘How did you find me?’ Horace whispered drunkenly.

  ‘You called the house and told me you were here.’

  ‘I called the house?’

  Mr Reese nodded. ‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Hector.’

  ‘I don’t go by that name anymore, Mr Reese. I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’

  ‘I’ll call you whatever name you want. Just tell me which name.’

  Horace shook his head. Around them the city toiled on. Cars passed, delivery trucks stopped, and people walked by in endless streams. ‘Don’t be nice to me, Mr Reese. It makes everything worse. Don’t you see? It would be easier if you just went away and never came back.’

  ‘You look sick,’ said Mr Reese. ‘Have you been eating? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’

  ‘I’m still tough. I still am.’

  ‘I know you are.’

  Horace shook his head. ‘I can’t fight anymore.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘I’ll never be a champion of anything. I know that for sure now. I’ll never be anything.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I do – because I’m cursed, Mr Reese.’

  ‘You’re not cursed,’ the old man said.

  ‘But I am.’ Horace took a heavy drink from the can of Coke and poured the rest of the Old Crow pint into it. ‘I mean, why else would my mom just dump me off? That doesn’t happen to normal kids. Why would she do that, Mr Reese?’

  The old man sighed. ‘I think your mom was having a hard time with her marriage and the new baby. Sometimes a baby can wear a couple out. Maybe she was just trying to please her husban
d – I don’t know. But I do know none of that was your fault.’

  ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘I’m pretty certain.’

  ‘What about my dad?’

  ‘I don’t know why he left. I never knew him. But I know it had nothing to do with you. You weren’t the reason. I’d bet my life on that. You were just a baby.’

  Horace’s head fell toward his chest and tears streamed down his cheeks. ‘He has a wife and two kids and a cabin on a lake and a speedboat. He has a fancy house in Seattle. He has season tickets to the Mariners, but he never invites me to come. Why doesn’t he invite me, Mr Reese?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the old man said. ‘I just don’t know. You were raised to be ashamed of yourself. For all the good things your grandmother did, she did some bad things too. As did your father for abandoning you, and your mother for leaving you with your grandmother. We both know you’ve had it rough. But even so, look at the good things you’ve done, that have come from you just being you.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything,’ Horace whispered.

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It is, Mr Reese.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You helped me get the ranch back in shape when my back went out the first time. I was laid up for a long time and you took over. You ran a whole ranch and you were hardly eighteen. And remember you helped Boss become one of the best horses I’ve ever had. And I was certain he didn’t have it in him. What would his life be without you? And you inspired me to try to be my own champion. Even Mrs Reese tried to be her own champion, and while you were there she was, in her own way. You have to remember things. You graduated from high school, even though it was hard and lonely for you. You became a great horseman and a real sheep-man and you helped me so much I can’t even begin to repay you. And then you had the guts to move to Arizona by yourself. A ranch kid all by himself in a city. You got a job without anybody’s help and became a Golden Gloves boxing state champion. You did that on your own. And then you went to Texas and won a pro fight and then won two more in Mexico. And you nearly beat Raymundo Figueroa, and he went to the Olympics.’ Mr Reese paused and let out a long breath. ‘Maybe you could have been a championship boxer, maybe that’s true. I just don’t know enough about boxing to say for sure. But if you were a champion, you wouldn’t be a Mexican champion no matter what you did. You would have been the champion. All parts of you.’