Homestretch

by Paul Volponi

  “Gracias,” said Rafael, spilling some of his beer too.

  I took the full bottle I was holding and lifted it high.

  I poured every bit of it onto the ground and watched it seep in.

  “For the dead,” I said, hoping Mom would be riding Rafael’s horse in heaven.

  “Sí. Por el muerto,” echoed Nacho.

  The next morning at the barn Dag didn’t say a single word to me. But every time he passed by, I could see that toothpick rolling around in his mouth start to pick up speed.

  “Could be special day for you today, bug,” said Paolo, grinning wide. “Who knows, you might win your first race. Has to happen sometime.”

  I did nothing for hours but walk horses in circles. And every time I passed Bad Boy Rising’s stall, his huge, fiery eyes seemed to zero in on mine.

  Later on I saw the webbing up in front of Bad Boy’s stall as the other horses were getting fed and he wasn’t.

  He was raising his voice about it too.

  One of those sparrows nesting in the cracked wall of his stall was perched on the webbing, listening to him, until that sparrow finally spread its wings and flew off.

  When I got to the jockeys’ room, Parker had already covered up the flames on El Diablo’s boots with black shoe polish.

  “Maybe this will give you a brand-new start on things, boss,” said Parker, showing me the boots. “Lord knows, you really need one.”

  “You’re right,” I said as the ceiling lights glistened off them.

  Gillette and Castro were both in my race, and the two of them were already riding me hard.

  “I hear this will be your last day in the saddle, bug,” said Gillette.

  “You mean his last day out of the saddle, don’t you?” piped in Castro. “And that’ll only be funny if nobody gets hurt but him.”

  Samuel was in the race too. But I didn’t see him anywhere.

  His son was sitting alone by Samuel’s locker, and something made me walk over there.

  “Don’t matter what those guys say,” he said, looking up at me from his chair. “You’re lucky. I wish I was small enough to ride.”

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “My great-grandfather was a rider, my grandfather rode races, and now my father. I ruined it by being tall. I can’t play basketball, and I’m scared to death of horses,” he said, shifting a worried eye over to the bathroom door.

  “I was scared of horses once,” I said, looking at the faint outline of a bruise on his chin.

  I could feel my own bruises, even the ones that had faded and disappeared. And I knew I needed to do something about them, so I headed for the bathroom.

  It was empty inside, except for one stall with the door closed.

  I could hear someone puking his guts up in there.

  Then I heard a flush.

  Samuel stepped out of that stall glaring at me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Nobody likes to get smacked,” I said. “Especially kids.”

  “Yeah? I’d slap you down right now, but I hear the stewards are getting ready to do that and boot you outta here,” he sneered. “So why should I risk the fine?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “I’m staying right here.”

  “Where? The can?” he said with a smirk, his voice echoing off the white tiled walls as he walked toward the door. “You just stay right here, bug. We all got a dump we need to take. Don’t we?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A HALF HOUR BEFORE I was supposed to ride Bad Boy Rising, the clerk of scales paged my name over the loudspeaker, “Gaston Giambanco Jr., report up front.”

  I passed through the swinging doors, and Dag was standing there.

  He put an arm around me and walked me out of the jockeys’ room into the hallway. I was already wearing his black silks with the coiled-up cobra on my chest. Then Dag settled us alone and out of sight behind a vending machine.

  “This is for you, Gas,” said Dag, handing me a betting ticket. “I plunked down fifty bucks to win on Bad Boy Rising for you. He’s thirty-five to one right now. That’s eighteen hundred you’ll get back when he wins. But the odds are sure to go up before the race.”

  “So he’s got a chance today?” I asked.

  “He’s got more than a chance,” he answered. “Just make damn sure you hold on to him. That’s all.”

  “If he’s such a good thing, how come I’m riding?” I kept at Dag.

  “Think there’s any other reason you’re in the saddle except that I’m looking for a big score?” he said low. “After the horses I’ve set you up on, and you falling off left and right, people wouldn’t bet a dime on Gaston Giambanco Jr. if he was riding the only Thoroughbred in a pack of mules.”

  I felt like an idiot, and smaller than a bug. I couldn’t stand the sight of myself in Dag’s mirrored shades anymore, so I dropped my eyes down to El Diablo’s boots with the covered-up flames.

  “You don’t look away when I’m talking,” said Dag, slapping my face.

  I could feel the fire start to rage inside me. I thought about tackling Dag on the spot. But I knew everything he held over me, like how old I really was, living in the dorms, and my job at his barn.

  “Now, you just deliver for me today, Gas,” he said in an easy voice, rubbing his fingers across my stinging cheek. “Because you’ll really be delivering for yourself, too. Comprende?”

  I nodded my head, thinking how Bad Boy Rising was probably milk-shaked to the top of his stomach.

  Then Dag walked off, and I stuffed that betting ticket into one of my boots.

  As I entered the paddock, Parker had just finished helping Dag saddle Bad Boy Rising. Then I watched Dag check the saddle twice, making sure it was tight enough not to slip.

  Parker started back in my direction.

  “Moment of truth, boss,” Parker said, walking past. “Just hang on to what you really want.”

  Bad Boy was so pumped up that he couldn’t keep still. His eyes were wild and his nostrils flared. Then he began bucking like he’d just been fed an entire case of Jolt cola.

  Nacho already had him on the walking ring, but nothing outside of racing three quarters of a mile on the dead run was going to burn off what was churning inside of Bad Boy.

  Paolo was bouncing around too, probably waiting to cash in on his bets. Only Dag was playing it cool on the surface.

  “Riders up!” called an official.

  Dag never shook my hand for good luck. But the last thing I felt before I climbed aboard Bad Boy Rising was Dag’s coldblooded grip on my leg, hoisting me into the saddle.

  Nacho was shaking almost as much as Bad Boy.

  “This no good, Gas,” said Nacho as we got out of Dag’s earshot. “My family no treat horses this way. Es muy malo.”

  As we headed for the racetrack, I saw Tammie outside of the paddock fence looking in. I knew she could read the signs all over Bad Boy Rising.

  Tammie shook her head at me one time before she turned away, and I couldn’t remember when I’d felt more ashamed.

  Then Nacho turned us loose on the track, and I was left to wrestle with Bad Boy Rising on my own.

  I saw we were 73–1 on the odds board now.

  I thought about that ticket Dag gave me. How it was burning a hole in my boot. I couldn’t even begin to multiply seventy-three times fifty. But I knew that kind of money would solve lots of problems for me.

  I couldn’t control Bad Boy in the post parade past the grandstand, and he just galloped off ahead of the other horses.

  But I heard every catcall from those bettors.

  “It’s ten to one that you can even stay in the saddle, Giambanco.”

  “Ten? I’ll give you twenty to one this bug don’t make it out of the gate.”

  I wanted to show them all. I wanted to win by the length of the stretch and send them all home broke while I filled my own pockets.

  Only, I knew that would make me the same as Dag.

  We reached the s
tarting gate, and Bad Boy Rising was so hyped up the assistant starters couldn’t get him inside of it. Finally two of them stood on either side of him, locking their arms together behind his rear end.

  Then they tried to bum-rush Bad Boy into the gate.

  But Bad Boy reared up on his hind legs.

  He went up so high I had to jump off his back, afraid he’d flip over.

  “Stay there. That’s where you belong, bug,” cracked Samuel as I picked myself up off my ass.

  “It’s his home away from home,” laughed Gillette.

  All the other horses went in without a problem, and everyone was waiting on us. I kept my feet planted on the ground until the assistant starters won their tug-of-war with Bad Boy and got him into the gate.

  An ambulance pulled up, ready to follow behind the field.

  I looked just over the inside rail and saw a single yellow rose growing on a bush there. It was stretching toward the sky, with its petals opened wide, shining in the sunlight.

  And right then I remembered the best part of who I was.

  I was Gaston Giambanco Jr., with a name that sounded like music if you said it right. The way Mom did.

  So I kissed the tattoo with Mom’s name on it, right through Dag’s silks. Then I climbed that iron monster and got back into the saddle on Bad Boy Rising.

  The sound of a bell split the air and the metal doors sprang open. Suddenly, I felt like I was on a rocket sled instead of a racehorse. Bad Boy exploded to the lead, and only a sparrow flying off my shoulder for the first forty yards was ever close to him.

  The wind was rushing at me so fast I had to clench my teeth closed to stop the breath from being sucked out of my lungs.

  There were nine other Thoroughbreds strung out behind us as I shifted my weight left, leaning into the turn.

  I was holding on for my life more than I was riding.

  I could feel every muscle in Bad Boy’s body twitching, and I would have believed he was hooked up to a car battery. And even if some other horse did try to run us down from behind, Bad Boy Rising was so juiced up on that illegal junk he’d probably savage him, tearing into that horse’s throat with his teeth.

  We straightened away into the homestretch at nearly forty miles per hour, and I could hear the track announcer’s echoing voice: “They’ve all got Bad Boy Rising to catch at big odds!”

  I shot past the grandstand in front by five lengths, and I knew those big-mouth bettors would be choking on their words now.

  But in my mind I could hear Gillette saying how I’d never win a race, not unless somebody handed it to me.

  I remembered the smack Dad gave that horse on the behind before it ran off and dumped me. And I could almost feel the sting of Dag’s slap across my face again.

  So I squeezed the whip tight inside my right hand. Out of pure anger I raised that whip up, ready to crack Bad Boy Rising a good one for no reason except maybe to feel better about myself.

  But something from deep inside me fought that feeling back, pulling the whip down just as quick.

  An eighth of a mile from the wire I peeked over my shoulder.

  No horse was getting any closer.

  In fast-forward I could see Mom smiling as she galloped a horse along a trail, the shame in Nacho’s eyes, and Tammie turning away from me in disgust at the paddock fence.

  I took a deep breath, and then seventy yards from the finish line I jumped.

  Bad Boy Rising went scorching down the track without me.

  For a second I swore I’d sprouted wings.

  Then the ground came rushing up fast, hitting me hard in the mouth. A sharp pain shot through my neck and shoulders as I skidded to a stop, with my face plowed into the dirt. On my arm I could feel the tattoo of the cross with my mother’s name burning.

  I heard the hooves of the other horses rumbling toward me, like an earthquake about to hit. I couldn’t tell the trembling of the ground from my own.

  I felt the first hoof hit my helmet. And as I went rolling, the next slammed me in the chest, shaking me to the core.

  After that I must have blacked out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I OPENED MY EYES in the ambulance. I was wearing a clear oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, and the sound of a siren was screaming through my brain.

  Nacho was there with me, squeezing my hand and praying in Spanish.

  Looking up at him, I’d noticed for the first time that his eyes were the exact same shade of brown as Mom’s.

  The next time I regained consciousness was in the hospital.

  It was just doctors and nurses around me. I guessed they’d pumped me full of drugs, because I wasn’t feeling any pain. And when I shut my eyes, I felt like I’d just jumped from Bad Boy’s back and was still flying.

  When my head finally cleared, I felt Tammie’s lips go flush against mine.

  “You’re going to be all right, Gas,” she said, with her eyes full of tears.

  I had to focus hard to figure out if that kiss was real or part of some dream. Cap was there with her. So were Nacho, Rafael, and Anibal.

  I was dressed in a blue hospital gown, with my right arm in a sling and a wide bandage wrapped so tight around my chest and ribs that I could barely breathe.

  “The protective vest you wore most likely saved your life,” said the doctor on duty. “A hoof hit you directly over the heart. Without that protection it probably would have penetrated into the chest cavity. As it is, you suffered a bruised heart, some cracked ribs, and a broken collarbone. You’re a very lucky young man.”

  The EMS workers had cut Dag’s silks off of me when I got brought in, but on the nightstand to my left were El Diablo’s boots, with the flames beginning to peek through the black polish.

  “Why’d you do it, Gas?” asked Cap. “Why’d you jump?”

  “I couldn’t win that way,” I answered. “Not like that.”

  That’s when Tammie pulled the fifty-dollar win ticket from her pocket.

  “The doctors told us this was inside your boot,” said Tammie, crumpling the ticket in a fist.

  “Dag bet it for me,” I said. “With whatever money he put on Bad Boy for himself.”

  “Well, Bad Boy Rising crossed the finish line first,” said Tammie. “It’s too bad for Dag the racetrack doesn’t pay off on a horse that finishes without a jockey on its back.”

  “How’s Bad Boy?” I asked.

  “Good. Still mean. Thinks he won race,” said Nacho.

  Dag never showed his face at the hospital, or even called once to see how I was. But that first night, way past visiting hours, I looked up and El Diablo was standing in the doorway.

  “I see you earn your badge of honor,” he said, pointing to my collarbone as he stepped inside.

  I started to explain why I’d jumped. But El Diablo broke in and said, “No matter what anybody say. No matter what stewards do. You’re a winner. No one ever call you bug again in front of me.”

  Then he reached over to the nightstand and picked up one of the boots. His eyes ran up and down it like he was looking for something lost.

  “I know you’ll be needing those back,” I said.

  “No more borrow,” he said, scratching away some of the black polish with a fingernail. “Boots yours to keep.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Nobody’s ever gonna let me ride again.”

  “Not important now,” El Diablo answered. “They needed clean start. That you already give.”

  By the middle of the next day, Tammie told me, all the TV stations had played the video clip of me jumping, and there were pictures of it in all the newspapers, too.

  The stewards pulled my jockey’s license and ordered that Bad Boy Rising’s urine be tested.

  “Yeah, but the only way they can prove a milk shake is to test for carbon dioxide. The one test they don’t give here,” Tammie said in a frustrated voice. “So Dag’s gonna come off smelling like a rose.”

  Cap and the police got to the hospital at about the same time that
afternoon. And I saw that one of those officers was wearing a Texas Lone Star badge.

  They talked in the hallway for a while with Cap.

  I figured that Dad had seen me on TV and I was about to get nailed for being a runaway.

  But Cap came into my room alone with a sad look on his face.

  “Gas, I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said, removing his Kangol. “Your father’s passed away. They say he’s been gone about a week. Neighbors found him in the house a few days ago.”

  For a minute or two I sat up in bed, stunned. I guess my brain was busy searching my feelings from top to bottom.

  Then all at once the tears came.

  I loved Dad, and losing him shook me hard.

  But I started thinking about another side of it too.

  Dad had drunk himself to death, almost like he wanted to. And maybe he was finally going to find some peace.

  I didn’t think about the times he hit me, or everything he’d taught me about how “beaners” were ruining our lives.

  Instead, I remembered him leading those two big horses around the riding stable, with them acting like they loved him to death. And how happy it made Mom to ride again.

  Then I wondered how long he’d been watching Nacho and his brothers look after me, and if Dad had learned as much as I did.

  Epilogue

  AFTER FOUR DAYS I left the hospital, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services placed me in a foster home about a mile from my old high school so I could get ready to start my senior year.

  It didn’t matter to Tammie that I’d lied about my age, or anything else.

  “You had every reason to hide the truth,” she said before I left. “Besides, Grandpa taught me never to put too much stock in what people say. He taught me to watch what they do. And I don’t have any complaints from what I’ve seen in you.”

  That’s when I kissed her, and she didn’t back off a step.

  Nacho brought my clothes over to the hospital from the dorm, and I let him keep my yellow ID from the racetrack.

  “You see him,” I said, pointing to the Polaroid of me on it. “No brothers when he came here. Now maybe three—Rafael, Anibal, and Ignacio.”