Homestretch

by Paul Volponi

  Before he left, Paolo slapped me on the back and mocked, “Gringo, say hello to your new familia. These are your long-lost Mexican brothers.”

  Chapter Five

  I’D JUST GOT HOME from school when a sheriff’s deputy banged on our door. At first I figured it was because Dad had lost his temper again, getting into another fight at work. Only, it wasn’t.

  “Does a female Caucasian here drive a red Honda?” the deputy asked.

  “My mom, Maria Giambanco,” I answered low.

  He said there’d been a traffic accident but wouldn’t tell me anything more about it.

  “We need an adult to go to the hospital,” he said.

  I was trembling in the backseat of the squad car, thinking Mom was in surgery or a coma, as that deputy drove me down to the riding stables.

  Dad was outside brushing the saddle marks off a horse when the deputy jumped out. All the windows of the car were shut tight, and I watched their mouths move until Dad hustled that horse inside the barn.

  When Dad came back out, he got into the front seat, next to the deputy, instead of sitting with me.

  “She’ll be okay, Gas. You’ll see,” he said in a strained voice as I sat alone, behind the steel screen that separated the cops from the criminals.

  “There was an illegal behind the wheel of a stolen car, and an officer in another car was involved as well,” said the deputy. “I just know that it’s serious.”

  “Damn these bastards!” exploded Dad, punching the dashboard so hard I was scared the air bag was going to fire off.

  A cold shiver shot up my spine, and I wished for anything that Dad knew how to hold me. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because I could barely squeeze my fingertips through the openings in that cold metal screen between us.

  The deputy hit the siren, and the sound of it pounded at my eardrums. Then that squad car picked up more and more speed, and everything around me became a blur.

  At the hospital Dad found out before I did that Mom had died.

  But when I saw Dad’s face, he didn’t have to say a word to me.

  I knew by his blank stare that she was gone, and I sank down deeper into the cushion of the waiting-room chair, never wanting to get up again.

  Then Dad went berserk after he saw some beaner in a white uniform cleaning the hospital floor.

  “You lousy bastard! You and all your kind!” he screamed, kicking over that beaner’s water bucket and chasing him with the mop.

  I ran out of that hospital while the deputies were wrestling Dad down. I felt homeless, like I had no one left and nowhere to go.

  I walked alone along the side of the highway, crying my eyes out, with the cars roaring past.

  Vrrrm…. Vrrrm…. Vrrrm…. Vrrrm….

  And it felt like getting socked in the gut a thousand times over.

  Our dorm room was basically four walls and two single beds. There was a nightstand with a reading lamp, and in the top drawer there was a Bible, like in a motel. Only that Biblia was written in Spanish.

  I grabbed the bed closest to the window, cracking it open so I could breathe some fresh air.

  On the wall next to me was the Scotch-tape outline of a picture that used to be there. It was important enough to the beaner who’d slept there before me to take it with him. Maybe it was of his familia, the horse he groomed, or some gorgeous angel like Tammie. All I know is that empty square kept staring back at me and wouldn’t quit.

  I blinked first and turned away from it.

  “Look,” said Nacho, pulling out a plastic see-through container from underneath his bed. And I saw that there was one under mine, too.

  There wasn’t a dresser or closet in the room, so that was where you were supposed to keep all your stuff. As we both unpacked, it started to sink into my brain. I’d been in this country my whole life, seventeen years. I figured it had been just a couple of days or so since Nacho crossed the border into the United States. Only, now we both wore the same yellow ID card. And he had as much as I did—some underwear, shirts, pants, and a better job to boot.

  “Mi madre,” said Nacho, showing me a tiny picture from his pocket.

  I didn’t want to see it. But I didn’t want to insult him over his mother, either.

  I held it gently by the lower right corner, afraid I’d bend it.

  Then I brought it up close to my face.

  She had the same straight black hair and cocoa-colored skin as Nacho and his brothers. Her eyes were big and bright, and she smiled, raising the muscles in her cheeks, without opening her lips.

  “Beau-ti-ful,” I said, handing it back. “She’s in Mexico?”

  “Ah, sí,” he answered. “Mi padre en California—at racetrack, groom horses. One day me, mis hermanos, mi madre—all go to California.”

  That’s when I realized that Nacho had a lot more than me.

  There was just one bathroom to a floor, and that was in the hallway. So I had to wait in line behind a parade of beaners to take a shower. When I finally got inside, I eyed that shower stall up and down, checking for cooties. I didn’t have my own bar of soap. One was sitting in a soap dish, all lathered up. But I passed on the idea of using it and decided steaming hot water would work good enough.

  For dinner I had a Snickers, a 3 Musketeers, and two cans of Dr Pepper from the vending machine in the dorm. Even with all that sugar pumping through me, I was exhausted and slept for almost twelve hours.

  The next morning, before the sun came up, I was back working at Dag’s barn.

  I walked horses in circles for hours, with no sight of Tammie in that courtyard.

  El Diablo passed a couple of times without giving me a second look. He was probably busy pressing somebody else that day for no good reason.

  Just when I thought my work was done, Dag pointed me toward two huge buckets of shit.

  “Haul those over to the manure pits, about a quarter mile up the road. Bet your daddy at the riding stable never saw that much manure. It’s high quality, too. That’s Thoroughbred shit,” he said, grinning. “Couple days of workin’ for me and you’re probably twice the horseman he is.”

  I was going to say something back, but I didn’t want to talk about Dad anymore and have something I didn’t want anyone to hear slip out.

  The buckets were so heavy I had to make two trips, balancing each one on my shoulder. I was praying I wouldn’t run into Tammie right then. And even after I was finished, the stink seemed to hang in the air around me for a while, not wanting to leave.

  Before I left, I noticed Rose of Sharon’s feed bucket hadn’t been filled, and there was webbing up in front of her stall so she couldn’t reach her hayrack.

  “She race today,” said Nacho when he saw me looking. “No full belly. Run faster. Muy rápida hoy.”

  I was starving for a real meal to fill my own stomach, and started over to the cantina, where I’d seen a food truck parked outside.

  The guy who drove it was American, but all the food he had was beaner slop.

  His truck was loaded up with tacos, burritos, and enchiladas.

  “Don’t you have any hamburgers?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, at my house,” he laughed, clicking the silver coin holder on his belt to give some beaner change. “Exactly who would I sell that to here?”

  So I passed.

  There were forty or fifty bikes leaning up against the cantina, and the sound of Mexican music, filled with wooden guitars and accordions, was pulsing through the walls.

  I opened the door and felt like I needed a passport to step inside.

  Beaners were crowded around the Ping-Pong and pool tables, watching and waiting their turn. The two big-screen TVs were both tuned to Spanish stations. One was showing the news, and the other, some kind of soap opera with a slinky chiquita in a low-cut dress.

  The food counter inside had the same crap to eat as that truck. I went around the whole place twice before I decided I’d walked in enough circles that morning. And as I left, I watched that littl
e white Ping-Pong ball fly over the net as fast as I’d ever seen it, picking up the same rhythm off those paddles as the music that was playing.

  Outside, the guy at the food truck pointed over to the tall grandstand and said, “Hey, kid. Try the track. There’s racing this afternoon. They’ve got what you’re lookin’ for.”

  He was right.

  It was like a carnival over there, with barkers in front of the main gate hawking five-dollar tip sheets that promised to pick you the winner of every race.

  I could smell the charcoal burning and the burgers sizzling on a grill inside.

  The man at the turnstile saw my yellow ID and waved me in for free.

  The front side of the racetrack was filled with regular people.

  There were old folks sitting in lawn chairs with coolers at their feet. Teenagers were tossing a football. A guy was walking with his arm around his girl, and her hand was stuffed down into the back pocket of his jeans. There were a bunch of hard hats with their sleeves cut off drinking beers, cursing and slapping at each other for fun. And there were long betting lines everywhere, jammed front to back with people holding money in their fists, ready to pick a horse.

  Every Mexican face I saw was either behind a stand serving food or taking tickets. It was like the world I’d always known had been turned right side up again.

  “Double fries with the two cheeseburgers, mister?” asked the beaner who served me.

  “That’s what I like to hear, Pee-dro,” I answered, dropping fifty cents into his tip jar. “Supersize me.”

  I was stuffing my face at a picnic table when the horses came onto the racetrack for the first race. The jockeys—none of them any bigger than me—paraded those huge Thoroughbreds past the grandstand.

  Dag even had a colt in the race that I recognized. One I’d walked the day before.

  Then the jockeys jogged their horses over to the starting gate on the far side of that one-mile track. Lots of people moved up closer to the outer rail for a better look, and so did I.

  “The final horse moves into line,” echoed the track announcer’s voice. “And they’re off!”

  Suddenly, voices began buzzing all around me in that crowd.

  People were hollering, clapping, and whistling for the horses they’d bet on to cross the finish line first.

  “Let’s go, number six!” screamed some fatso, slamming his program against his palm, like that would make his horse run faster. “Let’s go!”

  The field raced around the far turn, maybe a quarter mile away, still too small to really see. Then they turned into the homestretch, running straight toward me and getting bigger with every stride.

  Dag’s colt was in front, with two other horses breathing down his neck.

  I could hear their hooves thundering across the hard ground.

  Another horse charged up from the outside, but Dag’s colt wouldn’t let him by.

  The rider on Dag’s colt was pumping his arms, and I could feel mine moving too.

  The sweat was starting at my temples, and at the first crack of the whip I swear my heart skipped a beat.

  My toes pressed into the ground, with my weight leaning forward. I felt as excited as the first time I ever galloped a horse with Mom.

  Then twenty yards from the finish, as he raced past where I was standing by the rail, Dag’s colt took a bad step. He lunged inside, and I lost my balance along with that jockey.

  I was pulling back on the imaginary reins, trying to gain control, when a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.

  “Hey, Gas,” Tammie said as I nearly fell backward into her arms.

  Chapter Six

  TAMMIE TOOK ME ON a tour of the racetrack’s grandstand and told me how she was in college at the University of Arkansas.

  “That’s in Fayetteville, close to where I live with my mom,” she said. “I’ll be starting my second year there soon, studying animal science. But I’ve spent every summer here with Grandpa since I was twelve. That’s what I love best, riding and taking care of the horses.”

  Her voice trailed off, like it was my turn to tell something about myself.

  “I’m from Texas. That’s the second-biggest state there is,” I told her. “And I’ve been riding horses for a while now.”

  Then I saw the flashing lights from the arcade games against the back wall of the grandstand, and instead of telling Tammie any more, I said, “Come on, I’ll challenge you at any game you want.”

  For fifty cents a ride Tammie and me climbed aboard two big plastic horses and raced each other around a track that was projected onto a video screen.

  “Don’t try to come up on the inside of me,” she said, smiling. “I’ll put you over the rail.”

  “You’ve been hanging around El Diablo too long,” I told her.

  By our third game I’d really got the hang of it. We set the screen for Churchill Downs and raced against each other in the Kentucky Derby, with eighteen other horses in our way.

  We both broke our horses fast from the starting gate and were running neck and neck going into the first turn.

  I took my eyes off the screen for a second, just to look over at her.

  Even with her teeth clenched and lower lip curled up as she tried to leave me in her dust, I thought she was the sexiest girl I’d ever seen. And every part of me was screaming out for her.

  Tammie got ahead of me coming off the turn, starting down the backstretch. I began pumping my arms quicker, trying to catch up. Then, heading into the far turn, I pulled almost even with her again.

  As we raced into the homestretch, there was just one other horse in front of us.

  “Let me show you what it takes,” she said, breathing harder. “You just have to want it bad enough.”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  She was rocking furiously in the saddle and so was I. We both zipped past that horse in the lead like it was standing still. I was pumping away on instinct, without a clear thought in my mind.

  Then, with a hundred yards to go, Tammie went to the fake whip, slapping at her horse’s right side. She brushed my shoulder by accident with its long cellophane straps, and that sent a chill down my spine.

  I could see the finish line and had to get there first. I pushed with all my might, harder and harder, and in the final stride I let out an “Aaggghhhh” as I shoved my horse’s long neck forward.

  Bells went off on my side of the game. And I watched a bead of sweat drip down Tammie’s cheek to the corner of her mouth.

  On the video screen a beauty queen came rushing out of the crowd and draped a blanket of red roses across my horse.

  “Well?” I asked, still panting.

  “Can’t believe you won, Gas,” she answered. “Last summer I did this a dozen times with my boyfriend, and he didn’t beat me once.”

  That word “boyfriend” stuck in my chest, like Tammie had just slammed me with a claw hammer.

  “But he’d never been on a racehorse in his life. Not like you have,” she said. “Anyway, I haven’t seen him since he went back to school in September—almost a year now.”

  That’s when I knew I had to find a way to get back on a horse for real.

  The people who worked at the hothouse with Mom made a five-foot cross out of purple flowers for her funeral. Right down the center of it, in yellow roses, they spelled out her name: M-A-R-I-A.

  The morning after she was buried, I got up early and went to the cemetery alone, while Dad slept off the whiskey he’d drunk. There wasn’t anything to mark her grave yet, just a rectangle of soft brown dirt where the grass was missing. The wind had scattered most of the flowers we’d left, and even that big cross was down on its side. But I stood it back up where a headstone should be, shoving the cross’s metal stand deep into the ground so it couldn’t get blown over again.

  It was the tallest marker of any grave there, and you could see it from all the way down the hill and outside the wrought-iron fence.

  I’d closed my eyes and smelled those roses
.

  It was just like having some part of Mom there with me.

  I visited her for nine days straight and even started dragging a garden hose over from a workers’ station to spray those roses with water. But after the first week they were all wilting. Then the wind stripped lots of petals away, and I could see the Styrofoam skeleton of that cross underneath.

  I took one of those roses home, pressing it between the pages of Mom’s Bible, right at the start of her favorite story, about Adam and Eve.

  Only, Dad was pissed off when he realized where I’d been going.

  “You think she loved you more than me? That why you go there by yourself?” asked Dad, smelling of alcohol. “We’re family, you and me. You don’t do that to family. Cut me out that way.”

  A few hours later, when he was much drunker, Dad took a swing at me. That was the first time he ever hit me, and it was the first and last time I ever swung back.

  I wound up my arm, pulling it back as far as it could go.

  Then I closed my eyes and let my fist fly.

  “Is that all you got, Gas?” he said. “What? She never taught you how to fight? You went to her for everything else.”

  “Don’t say that!” I screamed as his arms swallowed up my punches.

  Hitting him didn’t make me feel any better. It made me feel even smaller and weaker.

  When it was over, I had a mouse under my right eye that turned black and blue by morning. I felt so bad over what Dad had said that I didn’t go back to the cemetery for two days.

  But the next time I went, that cross was gone.

  The groundskeepers must have thought it was garbage, because I found it sitting upside down in one of their green trash bins, snapped in two.

  In my heart I blamed Dad for that.

  Tammie’s grandpa had a filly entered a few races down the line, so she started back toward his barn to help get her ready.

  “Rose of Sharon’s running in that same race. It looks like she’s in way over her head today. But you can never tell with Dag and his bag of tricks,” she said, walking away. “Hey, maybe we can have a rematch, me and you, out on the track in the morning sometime, exercising horses.”