Ghetto Cowboy (2 page)

Mama stops the car, and my eyes focus in the side mirror. I can see we in the city somewhere, on some run-down street.

Is this Philly? I musta fallen asleep just watching them cars go by and listening to Mama’s old Mariah Carey CDs. My face is sitting in drool on the windowsill.

Suddenly, something big and white bumps up against the car, and I jump. I think I must be dreamin’, ’cause I just saw a horse run by.

I spin around just in time to see something disappear around the corner. Then I see a dazed old woman in a bathrobe walk past us. About five or six guys come running out of a house half-dressed, and disappear around the corner too.

What’s going on?

Mama pays no mind. She staring at a building across the street.

This is definitely the ’hood. The buildings is all row houses cramped together, made of old brick and dark windows that feel like they watching us. The place is crumbling apart — overgrown vacant lots stand empty between buildings, some boarded up, some barely holdin’ on.

“Wait here,” Mama says.

She gets out and walks up the stoop to the place she was staring at. Stands there awhile, then knocks. No one answers.

She knocks again, louder.

Finally someone opens the door. It’s dark inside, so I can’t see who it is. She goes in, the door closing behind her.

Where she going?

I get outta the car and think about going after her. Then I notice something move behind me. A coupla sleepy-eyed gangbangers have come outta one of the buildings, looking around.

The tall skinny one sees me and elbows his friend, who’s built like a bull. They both older, maybe eighteen or something. They stare at me, and I get back into the car. Maybe they seen I was wearing my Pistons jersey. Dag. I know Philly is no fan of the Pistons.

When I see them coming over, I slouch down. They don’t look happy, checking out the car like it’s some alien spaceship that just landed on their block. They looking at the plates that shows we not from here.

Mama comes outta the house. She looks dead, like a zombie moving toward me. But that don’t stop the guys behind us making comments, like how she so fine and all a that.

She ignores them, opens the trunk, and starts grabbing some big trash bags full of stuff.

“What you doing?” I say through the window.

She drags a few bags across the way and dumps them on the stoop. One of ’em tears open, and I see it’s full of
my
stuff!

“Mama?”

She come back, grabs two more bags.

I jump outta the car. “Mama, what’s going on —?”

The guys behind me is making fun, crying,
Mama, Mama.

I run after her and grab her arm. “What you
doin’
?”

She drops the bags, stares at the ground. “You’re staying here with your daddy.”

My heart stops.

“You really gonna leave me?”

She starts back to the car.

I hold on. “You can’t leave me here.”

She stares at the ground. “You stay with your daddy. I can’t help you no more.”

“But Mama!” I cry out.

The guys laugh at me. “Mommy, Mommy!” I wanna kill ’em, but I don’t have time.

She gets in the car and closes the door.

I bang on the window. “You can’t leave me!”

She looks at me, tears in her eyes. She says something all quiet, but I can’t hear what she talking about.

Then, in the reflection of the car window, I see a man behind me on the stoop.

I swing around and see a dude dressed — well, he looks like a cowboy.

Got a big ol’ white cowboy hat, western shirt, big gold belt buckle, and cowboy boots. He looks like a cowboy except for the gray dreads coming down to his shoulders and the fact that he as black as me.

He picking up the bags and starting back into the house.

“Hey!” I yell, running over.

He looks at me kinda funny.

Then it hits me. “You my . . . daddy?” I ask.

He laughs, I guess ’cause he too old for that. “Not me, boy. They call me Jamaica Bob, on account of the dreads. I work with your daddy.”

I take the bags from his hand. “I ain’t staying.”

I hear the car start up and swing around. “Mama!”

She looks at me scared. She mouths —
I’m sorry.

Then it’s like everything happens all at once.

A horse — that big white horse I thought I saw before — jumps out from around the corner just as Mama’s car takes off. She looking back at me and don’t see this monster coming.

There’s a bunch of guys chasing the horse, and they see what’s gonna happen before Mama or the horse can —

BOOM!

Mama’s car sideswipes the horse. It hits the front of the car and the hood, then tumbles like a ton of bricks.

I can feel it hit the ground, and it’s a awful sound — flesh and bone and metal all crunching together with the smell of burned rubber.

“Mama!”

I run toward the car. Mama looks in shock at the blood on the hood of her car. Her hands is shaking.

The horse is lying on its side, foaming at the mouth, its hoofs scraping at the brick street, trying to get up. All the guys is frozen like someone took a picture of ’em, their jaws hanging open.

I try to open the car door, but it’s stuck. I bang on the window. “Mama! You okay?”

The only sound I hear is that horse kicking and scraping as it rolls around in pain.

And that’s when I see my daddy.

I can tell it’s him ’cause as soon as I see him walk onto the street, it’s like I’m lookin’ into the future or something. He looks exactly like me, only taller and older. And he definitely ain’t in a good mood.

I’m about to say something, but he just brushes past me.

Then I see the gun in his hand.

Holy
—

I think he gonna go after Mama, but he stops in front of her window, and when she forces the door open, he just pushes it back closed and points her away, like she done enough damage for one day.

Her eyes is red with tears, like her heart been ripped in two. She tries the key and pumps the gas until the engine chokes to life. The car backs out slowly, her bumper half off and grating on the street, leaving a small trail of sparks. She stops when she knocks into some trash cans. It feels like she can’t do nothing right today.

Mama stares at me, like maybe this’ll be the last time I’ll ever see her. Then she turns down a alley and is gone.

I look at the skid marks on the empty street and feel everyone behind me staring at my back. I hear that horse gasping for breath, and it feels like me — like I had all the wind sucked right outta me. I can’t breathe.

The horse moans and groans, getting louder and louder until I hear the cock of the gun and a loud
BANG!

Then it’s quiet again.

I
t seem like a year passes before someone says something.

“Where Mrs. Elders at?”

Someone else says, “I saw her wandering. I told her to fix that gate, but no. Now look.”

Jamaica Bob butts in. “That’s a shame, man. This one coulda been one righteous horse if Mr. Elders was still here, bless his soul. Can’t blame a widow for this mess.”

Then the man I think is my daddy says, “Better get it off the street before the City hears about it.”

“But Harp, it ain’t our business.”

“Ain’t our business? You know anything that goes down on Chester Avenue, they’ll be blaming us. We can’t give ’em any reason to close us down.”

They argue back and forth, but my daddy gets his way. I can hear them trying to move that horse as Jamaica Bob walks past me toward a old beat-up truck.

I stare at the ground as he passes, and something catches my eye. It’s a bracelet, thin and gold with a little butterfly on it. I remember when Mama bought it when we went to the fair one time. It musta come off when I was grabbin’ at her arm.

I pick it up and pocket it. It’s like a little piece of her she left behind.

Jamaica Bob’s getting a rope outta the back of the pickup truck and tying it to the legs of the dead horse. It takes six guys to help out. Some neighbors watch from their stoops or windows, none too happy, especially when they start hosing off all that blood on the street.

My daddy stands silent, his back to me. He’s wearing a white T, old jeans, and Timberland boots. His hair is short and nappy, his arms lean and strong. The gun still hangs by his side. The others get the horse tied to the bumper of the truck and start dragging it down the street.

Bob says, “Just put it behind the corral till we figure this out.”

Everyone follows the horse and truck, leaving only me, Bob, and the man who’s supposed to be my daddy.

Bob finally looks at me, then him, then back at me again. “Man! He even looks like you, Harp.”

Daddy turns to me for the first time, sighs. He looks me up and down, makes a face. “Can’t be mine. Too scrawny.”

“Harp, I remember when you was twelve, and let me tell you, you was no Mike Tyson.”

Harp grimaces at me, nods. “Coltrane.”

I shake my head. “Nobody calls me that. It’s Cole.”

He smiles. “Yeah. Well, it seems like I been nobody to your mama your whole life, so I’m gonna call you by your proper name, since I gave it to you.”

That’s a new one.

“
You
named me? Why would you call me something stupid like Coltrane? Who ever heard of a name like
that
?”

Bob fans his face with his hat. “Man, the boy clearly don’t know his jazz history.”

Harp scowls. “Well, you can call me Harper. Then we’ll be even.”

He stares at the brick street, kicks at a old brick sticking out. “Look, I know you don’t want to be here. And I can’t say that I want you here neither. Heard you was in trouble . . . or maybe you
was
the trouble. Which is it?”

I shrug. He don’t know me.

He shakes his head. “Before last night, I haven’t heard from your moms in forever. Then she just calls me up out of the blue. . . .” He kicks the brick outta its hole in the ground.

I don’t know what to say.

He mutters some swear word, picking up that brick and throwing it into a vacant lot. Then without looking at me, he says, “You can spend the night, and after that . . . we’ll see what’s what.” He gazes up at the sky like he can’t believe all of this was dumped in his lap on the same day. “In the meantime, you do what I say, and maybe I’ll make it through the next couple days. Now get your bags and go on inside,
Coltrane.
”

He already gettin’ on my nerves. But he the one holding a gun, so I just shut my trap and pick up my bags off the stoop.

T
he front door’s open. I walk in and the first thing I smell is . . . 
horses
? I ain’t never smelled a horse before, never even saw one up close before a few minutes ago. But if a horse got a smell, I think this is it, ’cause that’s all that’s in here: horse stuff. A coupla old saddles, blankets, brushes, work boots, horse things like you see on TV. Instead of furniture, there’s even them square things of hay to sit on.

This ain’t no house — it’s a
barn.

To top it off, there a big ol’ hole from floor to ceiling knocked into the side of the living room, leading into the place next door, like he just wanted to expand his crib and took over the abandoned one next to his.