Homestretch

by Paul Volponi

  Then one of the vets took a needle out of a black bag and gave that horse an injection.

  I didn’t know how much time the horse had left. But without Rafael there it probably wouldn’t have been worth living.

  Inside of a minute that injured horse had collapsed dead to the ground.

  I looked at Rafael’s face, and except for myself over the last five months, I’d never felt more sorry for anyone in my life.

  The four of us walked back toward the finish line together without saying a word. We didn’t have to. That empty lead strap slung over Rafael’s shoulder said enough.

  I turned back around at the sound of an engine and saw a tractor shoving that horse’s lifeless body into the ambulance.

  That picture stuck hard in the pit of my stomach. “I’m sorry,” somebody from the crowd told Dag, who just nodded his head politely.

  Only, nothing had really touched him.

  Chapter Eleven

  I SIGNED INTO THE jockeys’ room for the clerk and stepped onto the main scale. The needle behind the glass swung up slowly and then jerked back again, settling into one spot. I’d gained a whole pound from the day before and was up to 106. But I didn’t feel like I had any more weight to me.

  Then I passed through the swinging doors, heading toward my locker, when a rider named Samuel cut me off.

  “My horse breaks from the starting gate right next to yours today, and I want you to know something,” he said with breath that reeked like ammonia. “Don’t get in my way on the track, or I’ll hurt you. I got a family to support. I don’t need to be looking over my shoulder for a bug who can’t control a horse.”

  I stepped back, nearly gagging from his breath. I could almost see his tongue pushing through his paper-thin teeth.

  “You see these fingers? I’ve broken every one,” Samuel kept on, with his anger building and his voice getting louder. “Broke my right kneecap, ribs, elbows—both of them. And the point of this collarbone was sticking through the skin one time a quarter of an inch. That was a badge of honor no one else here could match. But I’m forty-three now, and these bones are too brittle to take much more. God forbid I get hurt because of you. God forbid!”

  That’s when a kid around my age, and nearly six inches taller, came through the doors waving a magazine.

  “Pop, look at this new model XL with the blacked-out windows and titanium rims,” he said, excited.

  But Samuel blew, slapping him hard in the back of the head.

  “What did I tell you about interrupting?” he ripped into the kid. “I’m talking business here. The business that puts food on the table for you.”

  The kid cowered away and said, “I’m sorry, Pop. I’m sorry.”

  I could almost feel myself standing in that kid’s shoes.

  Then Samuel turned back to me, but Parker rushed in between us, pushing me toward my locker.

  “He’ll keep clear of you on the track,” Parker told Samuel in a soft voice, like he was trying to calm a crazy man. “Don’t worry. You just go about your business now.”

  “What’s eating him? And his breath?” I asked Parker at my locker.

  “Yeah, ‘eatin’s’ the right word,” he answered low. “Just be thankful you’re not his son. How many times I seen that boy get smacked for no reason, I can’t count.”

  I raised my eyes to see Samuel still lecturing his son in the corner.

  “Samuel’s got trouble holding his food down. A few of the riders in here do. His emotions are tied up tighter than a knot from all the vomiting he has to do to make his riding weight,” Parker said. “That’s why his breath smells like that, from all the stomach acids that come up with his food. It eats away at the teeth, too. That’s why they wanted to shove that submarine sandwich up your ass yesterday. Some of the jocks in here would kill to be able to eat like you and not pack on the pounds.”

  “Well, somebody should stop him from smacking his kid,” I said.

  “That’s for the clerk or another jock or his own valet to do—not me, and especially not you. Truth is you’re as far on the bottom ‘round here as it gets,” said Parker, shoving a white towel at me. “Now, go hit the steam room and drop that pound you picked up. You’re listed to ride at a hundred and eight pounds today. You need to be three pounds lighter than that to make up for the saddle and things.”

  I stripped down to my shorts and headed for the steam room with that towel draped across my shoulders, covering the bruise I’d got from El Diablo. On the way I passed by Samuel and his son, who were looking at that car magazine together. The kid was smiling like everything was all right now. But I wondered how many cracks would have been showing if I could have seen his feelings on the inside.

  I opened the door to the steam room, getting hit with a wave of heat that nearly knocked me flat. I stepped through the foggy steam and saw Gillette and Castro. They were both sitting there naked on the wooden benches, with their towels spread out beneath them.

  “This room’s for men, not bugs,” said Gillette, chewing on ice chips from a plastic cup.

  “That’s right. You’re not even man enough to lose those shorts,” cackled Castro. “Probably needs to hide all his shortcomings.”

  So I took them off without saying a word and sat on my towel too.

  “How’d you like that mud bath yesterday, bug?” asked Gillette, rattling his ice.

  “Wasn’t what I planned,” I answered, with the sweat starting to pour out of me.

  “Well, you better get used to it,” said Castro. “From what I seen of your skills, you and the ground are gonna become good friends.”

  I was really starting to wilt in that heat when I saw the outline of Dad’s face coming through a cloud of steam. Then the rest of his body came. He was sitting there naked, right next to them, with a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

  Every part of me tensed up at the sight of him.

  “So how much weight you need to lose, bug?” asked Castro.

  “One pound,” I answered in a shaky voice.

  “Must be that diet catching up to you,” said Gillette. “Not that you’ll last at this game, but when you get a little older, you’ll see how hard it is to keep the fat off—to keep that wolf from your door.”

  Then I heard Dad begin to howl at Gillette.

  AAAAWWWOOOOOOO!

  “But you’ll never win a race. Not one that’s run on the upand-up,” Gillette said. “You got ‘loser’ written all over you. It’s probably in your genes.”

  Dad balled up a fist and pounded at his chest like Tarzan. And I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of every thump.

  “Gi-am-banco? I’ll bet he comes from some trailer-park trash,” said Castro. “The kind that hates Mexicans like me ‘cause we outwork them.”

  Dad’s face turned so angry, like he was ready to rip Castro a new one.

  Then Dad smashed that bottle on the seat.

  Castro was still talking. But his words were just a jumble to me as Dad stood up over him.

  I dug my fingernails on both hands into the damp wood.

  I’m not sure how it happened, but Dad must have turned all that anger inside himself, swallowing it whole, because I watched him turn the jagged edges of that bottle toward his own throat.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Stop it!”

  “Hey! Lower your voice, kid!” demanded Gillette. “People will think we’re puttin’ a beatin’ on you in here!”

  I wiped the stinging sweat from my eyes, and suddenly Dad was gone. I didn’t know where that scene had come from—probably my own mind. I just knew it shook me to see. And it felt so real I couldn’t turn away or close my eyes to it, like a truth I had to accept.

  Gillette and Castro wrapped towels around their waists, getting up to leave, as Parker’s black face appeared in the door’s glass window.

  I followed right behind them—I wouldn’t stay in there by myself for a second.

  I was still shaking over that vision of Dad as Parker shined my riding boot
s and laid out my silks on a hanger. Dag didn’t own Rose of Sharon. Someone else did. Their silks were white with a big red heart on the front that was almost the width of my chest.

  I put on my protective vest and those silks, and I strapped on my riding helmet. Then I took the whip and cracked myself once in the chest and head just to prove I couldn’t feel a thing and nothing could get to me.

  That’s when I heard somebody playing a horn from the other side of those swinging doors. I stepped through, and it was the track bugler, wearing his fancy red coat and black top hat.

  “What do you want to hear, kid?” he asked. “I know a million songs.”

  “Anything pretty,” I answered.

  “Yeah, everybody likes pretty,” he said. “You know this one?”

  Then he pushed his lips together and played.

  Right away my ear hooked into it, and the clerk of scales started singing along—“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high …”

  I was smiling, and the bugler stopped in the middle to ask, “So, kid, you win a race yet?”

  “No,” I answered, hanging my head.

  “First time you do, and they lead your horse into the winner’s circle, I’ll play that song for you,” he said, before walking out the door to the racetrack.

  I had that tune in my head, tapping the whip on my boots to it, as I entered the paddock to ride Rose of Sharon. Nacho was leading her around the walking ring, and I could see she wasn’t pumped up like before her last race. She was back to being her easygoing self.

  “This is Mr. and Mrs. Heidel,” Dag said, introducing me to Rose of Sharon’s owners.

  They were probably both in their eighties, and the man wore glasses as thick as old-fashioned Coke bottles.

  “Good luck, son,” he said in a gravely voice. “Bring her back safe.”

  “I will,” I answered. “I like your silks.”

  “We’ve been married fifty-five years,” he said, pointing back and forth between his wife and himself. “That heart’s a symbol of our love.”

  Then his wife called me “Gillette.”

  Dag just grinned as the man explained twice into her good ear that Gillette was riding another horse in the race.

  “This filly might be on a down cycle,” Dag said, pulling me off to the side. “Her last win was a tough one. So don’t punish her too much with the whip if she comes up empty.”

  If that was true, I couldn’t understand why he was running her back on just three days’ rest. Horses usually race every two or three weeks. But I knew better than to ask.

  “No red tag,” said Nacho, leading Rose of Sharon and me out to the racetrack.

  A red tag gets put on a horse’s bridle after a race if they’ve been claimed. Then another groom takes the horse away to a new barn.

  Dag had practically put a FOR SALE sign on Rose of Sharon by dropping her so low in price after a big win.

  “Rafael lose one horse to God. No lose this one to money,” said Nacho, turning us loose and crossing himself. “No rojo hoy. Please.”

  The bugler snapped to attention, blowing his horn, as the field of fillies stepped onto the track.

  Dut-dut-dut-da-da-dut-da-da-dut-dut-da.

  Da-da-da-dut-dut-dut-da-da-dut-dut-da.

  A crowd was lined up against the rail for the post parade, and the odds board had Rose of Sharon as the betting favorite at a little less than 2–1.

  “My grandmother could win on this horse, kid. Don’t screw it up!”

  “I wouldn’t bet counterfeit money on you, Giambanco!”

  “That’s what Dagget does. He puts some nobody on a good horse, so everyone’s afraid to bet. Then he cleans up.”

  “Can you just stay in the saddle on this one, kid?”

  I couldn’t shut those voices out.

  Every word cut right through me.

  After that mud bath I took, I wasn’t sure how much confidence I had in myself.

  I warmed up Rose of Sharon. But she felt almost numb beneath me, and she barely wanted to pick up her feet.

  “If that filly had a shot in hell of winning today, I’d be riding her. Not you,” sneered Gillette, jogging his horse past mine.

  In my heart I knew that Gillette was right.

  Rose of Sharon and me were loaded into the starting gate, and Samuel was on the filly in the stall to my left.

  “Just don’t get in my way, bug,” he said, with his teeth nearly moving inside his mouth.

  The gates sprang open and Rose of Sharon shot out first.

  We were in front for maybe three strides, and every ounce of blood inside me was pumping just as fast.

  But that was all the speed she had to give.

  Suddenly, she started to feel like a bicycle I’d put into eighteenth gear to climb some mountain of a hill. The other fillies went flying past her, and I could see the tail end of every one of them.

  I shook the reins at her. Only, she was too tired to run.

  We passed the spot where Rafael’s horse had broken down and had to be destroyed. And I never even thought about raising the whip to her.

  By the time we came off the turn into the homestretch, Rose of Sharon was so far behind, it probably looked like we were winning the race that started after this one.

  But we made it past the wire, and I’d finished my first race in the saddle.

  I jogged her back toward the grandstand to a chorus of boos and comments.

  “You’re garbage, Giambanco!”

  “Dead last!”

  That’s when I lost my focus, and maybe something spooked her, but Rose of Sharon dumped me on my ass. Then she took off running through the stretch the wrong way, without me.

  “The race is over, you idiot!”

  I just remember somebody bringing Rose of Sharon back and fixing a red tag to her bridle.

  Cap Daly had claimed her for $10,000.

  Tammie led her off the racetrack, screaming at Dag, “You ruined her with your damn milk shakes. She’s too sore to run.”

  Dag never lost his cool. Not even with me.

  “You just brush off your pride, Gas. And make sure you’re ready to ride Bad Boy Rising tomorrow,” he said.

  Before I got back to the jockeys’ room, Parker intercepted me.

  “This way, boss,” he said, turning me down a long hall. “The stewards want to see you in their office.”

  The stewards are racing’s referees.

  There were three of them sitting around a big oak table, looking at me like I was a joke and a menace on the track.

  “This is simple, Mr. Giambanco,” one of them said, with Parker standing by my left shoulder. “You’ve had two rides and been on the ground twice. You get one more chance. If something goes wrong tomorrow, we’ll suspend your license. And if I were you, I’d find a way to cover up the flames on those boots. El Diablo disgraced this sport, and you’re not winning any sympathy points with us by wearing them.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THAT NIGHT RAFAEL WAS near tears over losing his horse. Nacho and Anibal took him to the cantina, trying to cheer him up. There was nothing left in front of me except an empty dorm room, so I decided to tag along.

  The place was packed tight with beaners, and both TVs were blaring the replays of the races at Pennington.

  “Qúe lástima,” said Rafael, shaking his head. “Era un caballo con mucho corazón.”

  “Sí. Con mucho carazón,” said Nacho, tapping his chest. “Much heart.”

  Anibal brought four opened bottles of beer to our table and slid one in front of me. I wrapped my fingers around the neck of the cold bottle, but I wouldn’t take a sip.

  Tammie walked through the front door and right over to where we were sitting. She came up behind Rafael, dropping her hands on top of his shoulders like she could squeeze the sadness out of him.

  “Lo siento,” she told him. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then she took the chair next to me, looking at the beer in my hand.

  “You want to drink it
?” I asked her.

  “Not really. And it looks like you don’t either,” she said, seeing how much was left.

  “Rose of Sharon. She o-kay?” asked Nacho.

  “Her feet are sore. I had her standing in warm water and Epsom salts,” Tammie answered, pointing to her own feet. “Agua caliente.”

  Nacho lowered his eyes to his beer, like he was the worst groom in the world.

  But everybody at that table knew it was really Dag’s fault.

  “Maybe my grandpa will let you ride her someday, after she gets healthy,” Tammie told me.

  “Yeah. If the stewards don’t yank my license first,” I said, feeling sorry for myself.

  That’s when El Diablo arrived. As he walked past us, El Diablo saw the tears in Rafael’s eyes and said, “Solamente un caballo—just a horse, no a person. Be a man—un hombre.”

  Rafael flew up from his chair, grabbing El Diablo around the collar with both hands, shoving him back a few feet.

  I jumped up as fast as Nacho and Anibal to help, before El Diablo wiped the floor with him. But El Diablo never picked up his hands, or even tried to fight back.

  “Soy un hombre!” Rafael hollered, with the rest of us trying to pull him away. “Soy un hombre!”

  “Sí, ahora,” said El Diablo, nodding his head. “You acting like man now.”

  I heard those words from El Diablo’s mouth, and something deep inside my chest hardened like a rock.

  Everyone in the cantina had stopped to watch that scene, and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of the TVs in the background.

  On both screens the horses were loading into the gate for the race that Rafael’s horse had broken down in.

  Rafael let go of El Diablo and watched as the field streaked down the straightaway. It was only for a split second that you could see his horse take a little hop-step, pulling himself up, as the camera followed the rest of the runners around the racetrack.

  Then Rafael grabbed his beer from the table and left the cantina, with Nacho, Anibal, Tammie, and me following behind.

  We had just made it down the steps when El Diablo came outside.

  “Era un caballo bueno,” El Diablo said, raising a beer bottle before pouring some out onto the ground. “Por el muerto.”