Ghetto Cowboy (7 page)

My head is suddenly up near the cobwebs. I ain’t never been this high before. And I definitely ain’t never been on the back of a living thing like this.

“You okay up there?”

I nod.

“Just relax. Breathe,” he says. “Don’t hold on to the saddle so tight. Use this.” He hands me the rope. Then he guides Boo slowly out into the open.

I gotta duck my head, but when we get outside, it’s a whole different view from up here. It’s like I’m ten feet tall all of a sudden. With each step, Boo’s body swings back and forth and I think he just gonna fall over and that will be that. I think about the horse Mama hit and think if Boo falls on me, I’ll be a goner.

Harper swings up on Lightning and moves over next to Boo. “We just going to take it slow, maybe go a few times around the corral, then head out.”

It feels like I’m sitting on one of them giant walking machines in
Star Wars.

“Just pretend you’re part of the horse. Be like Jell-O — swing your hips the way he walks, but keep the top half of you straight. Don’t worry — I won’t let you fall.”

I don’t say nothing. We go around the corral a couple a times, nice and easy, but just as I feel like this is all right, a plastic bag blows in front of us and Boo freaks out and bolts.

I grab on to the saddle, and he start running around in circles, almost squishing my leg against the fence. I’m bouncing up and down, barely holding on, the saddle hitting my butt. I’m thinking of jumping — but suddenly Harper’s right there, riding alongside. He grabs the reins and slows Boo up till we come to a standstill.

My heart is beating a million miles a hour.

“You okay?” he asks.

I’m still alive, so I nod. “I’m done,” I say, looking for a way down.

“Hold up there, Coltrane. You’re okay. Just had a little excitement is all. For some reason, plastic bags unnerve the horses when they first get here. That’s just one of those city things they never seen before. But when we head out, I’m going to tie a leash to Boo and that won’t happen again. Promise.”

Before I can change my mind, he ties a long rope to Boo’s saddle and holds the other end, like he’s gonna take us out for a walk. Tex comes out with a white cowboy hat. “Don’t forget your lucky hat.”

Harp smiles and puts it on. I give him a look, but he just tips his hat, all cool. “Gotta represent,” he says.

When Lightning starts to amble out, Boo follows. “Nice and slow. You’ll see,” Harp says. We start heading to the street as a car zooms by.

“We going out there?” I say.

What is he thinking?
I seen what happened the last time a horse was in the street.

“It’s cool,” he says. “We just gonna take a little neighborhood tour on the way to the Speedway. I’ll take the quiet streets.”

Next thing I know, we out in the streets. The horse hoofs is making a loud clip-clop noise on the brick road. Boo catches his hoof a coupla times on a brick, but he don’t trip. I keep my eyes out for any runaway plastic bags.

Jamaica Bob comes out of one of the houses and gives a holler. “There they are: the champion and the protégé. You going to let him race today?”

Harper laughs. “Who, Lightning or Coltrane?”

Bob rubs his hands together. “Well, I know Lightning is running. Big Dee’s in the hunt today.”

Harp shakes his head. “The only thing Big Dee is hunting is his next Big Mac. So maybe I’ll give Coltrane a shot.”

“Uh, I don’t
think
so,” I say.

Bob waves as he gets into his truck. “Yeah, well, as long as Harp races first. I’m planning to double my money today so I can pay that feed bill. Don’t let me down!”

Harper waves as he drives away. We ride on, but his mind seem to be somewhere else.

We amble down Chester Avenue and turn down another street. I see Smush sitting on a stoop.

He holds up a fist. “Cuz! You still here? Don’t let my uncle ride you too hard. I used to clean out them stables too, and let me tell you —”

But Harper’s in no mood. “Smush, your daddy know you still a corner boy?”

Smush’s smile disappears.

Harper gives him a look. “Maybe if you hung around the stable like you used to, you wouldn’t be getting hassled all the time by the cops.”

Smush waves him off. “I don’t do that no more, Uncle Harp. I told you.”

I can see Harp ain’t buying it. “That’s not what I hear, Smush. I better not see you out there, or I’ll kick your butt back to the stables and you’ll be working for me 24/7. You hear?”

“Yes, sir . . .” he mutters, then sits there silently as we ride by.

We pass a big ol’ mural someone painted on the side of a building. It shows a street called Horseman Way and has all the riders hanging out on their horses. It’s like a shot of the Old West, except instead of country, you got city, and instead of white folk, you got black cowboys.

I look closely and see Tex and Harper in the background.

“Is that
you
up there?” I ask.

He nods. “Yeah, that was from back when we must’ve had four hundred horsemen around here. But most of the stables been closed down by the City over the last few years. We one of the last ones in Philly to survive. There’s probably less than eighty urban riders around here now, and most of them is struggling to find a place to put their horses. There might not be any of us left soon, if things keep going the way they are.”

I think about what Jamaica Bob said yesterday. “Bob says the end is coming for all of you.”

He grunts. “Maybe ten years from now, someone will pass this mural and think it’s just a painting instead of a way of life.”

W
e go a few more blocks. Folks pass us in the streets, smiling, waving. A car pulls alongside and a little girl says to me, “Are you a cowboy?”

I shake my head, but Harper says, “Yep, and we gonna race today!”

A block later, a group of kids come out, all asking for rides. He stops and gets off the horse.

“Who wants to ride?” he asks.

All their hands shoot up. He leans down to a coupla girls who look like sisters. “You wanna ride?”

They nod their heads. He lifts them up onto Lightning and starts guiding them gently, talking them through it. He seem like he got a way with kids. So how come he wasn’t that way with me? I think of the first time I saw him with that gun, and he actin’ so much nicer now.

For a half hour, we give rides. He even starts putting kids up on Boo with me and leading both horses around. They start asking me questions, and I answer what I can. One kid with a ol’-school Afro and gold necklace that says
CJ
on it asks why my horse don’t got no bling. I don’t know what he’s talking about until he points to Lightning and I notice he got little shiny things braided in his mane and hanging off the saddle.

I ask Harp about that, and he says every rider tries to make his horse special, kinda like trickin’ out a car. I look at Boo, and he ain’t got nothin’.

Then I remember Mama’s bracelet in my pocket. I ask this kid CJ if he knows how to tie a knot. He nods, and I give him the bracelet. He ties it onto Boo’s hair and smiles. Bling.

CJ and them kids is looking at us like we rap stars who just stopped and gave them a ride in a limo. They all ready to race — “I can beat you!” CJ already saying, even though he can barely stay in the saddle.

Harper says they’re all like that — ready to throw down before they can walk. They’re all about speed and who can go fastest . . . until they grow older and get interested in girls, then they’re all about
that.
“A girl beats a horse any day,” he says, and laughs.

We show ’em a good time, but after a while, Harp looks at his watch.

“Gotta go!” he says, cutting them off. “Gotta earn my keep. But you all come down to Chester Avenue and you can learn to ride for real. How’s that sound?”

They all jump up and down, asking if they can come tomorrow. Harp smiles and says he’ll be there. On the way out, I see CJ still watching us.

“Save one kid by getting them into horses and it’s all worth it,” Harp says to me. He got a strange look in his eyes that makes me think maybe he was one of them kids that Tex took in a long time ago. “You never know what someone will do with his life once he finds himself.”

We ride a little farther, past a few pretty girls sitting on a stoop. “Morning, ladies,” he calls out.

I nod too.

Philly girls is hot. They all smile and wave, and I remember how much girls like horses.
Man, is this all I need to get a fine one like that?

We ride on, and I’m starting to like this. It still feels weird up here, but I can’t help but think what it woulda been like if I grew up this way. Would I be like Harper, all into horses, working in the stables every day, keeping busy? How would it be growing up with him and not Mama? Would we do more man stuff, being cowboys and hanging with the guys? Would it be any better? Or would I just end up like Smush, some corner boy with a mouth on him?

W
e turn a corner and at the end of the street, I can see it: the park. After a few minutes, we leave the city behind us, and it’s like we in the country all of a sudden. Trees everywhere. I can hear the wind blowing on the leaves as we make our way across the grass.

We pass a swimming pool with a bunch of kids in it. Some of ’em see the horses and press their faces up against the chain-link fence to get a look. We mosey down a trail, past some tennis courts. The sound of the city is far off in the distance. I can hear birds chirping, something I ain’t heard in a long time.

I ease up, feel okay on Boo’s back. Harp tells me Fairmount Park is one of the biggest parks in America — so big, you can even get lost in it. We ride, and for a good while I can’t see no buildings no more, only trees. We could be anywhere, a thousand miles from the city. I ain’t never seen so much trees and stuff.

Then I hear it. Laughing, music, cheering . . . and a rumble. We come out through some trees into a clearing, and I see what the rumbling is: two horses racing toward us faster than I ever thought a horse could go. They fly by us, two young guys, hootin’ it up, and one of ’em raises his fist like he won.

I look down the other way, and all the guys is there — Tex, Bob, and then some — cheering, cursing, paying off money. Behind them is a bunch of cars, some women sitting on beach chairs with coolers and stuff, a few kids running around chasing each other.

“This is it. The Speedway,” Harp says.

“
This
is the Speedway? It’s just a strip of grass in a park.”

“You was expecting Churchill Downs? This is where the real deal is.”

I shrug. “Whatever you say.”

He laughs at me. “Boy, what do you know? Black horse trainers started racing retired Thoroughbreds here a hundred years ago. How do you think the Chester Avenue tradition got started?”

The two racers come galloping up to us. “Harper! We ain’t seen you around here for a while. So it’s true, you gonna race?”

I look at Harper, who scratches his head, glancing over at the crowd across the way. “Maybe. What’re they saying?”

The guy who won smiles. “Big Dee saying you too old. Past your prime. And that Lightning’s racing days are over and done.”

“Who’s racing his horse?”