Concrete Cowboy

by G. Neri

  “Them your kids?” I ask as we move on.

  He smiles. “My kids? Well, I practically raised ’em since they was pups, but nah, they ain’t mine. My kids is too busy working for their corporate masters to be concerned with horses.” He sees I got no idea what he talking about. “These kids here come off the streets. They got nowhere else to go, ’cept gangs.”

  A stray cat comes wandering up to him, and he picks it up. I notice there’s a lot of strays running around here. “Kids and cats. They seem to find their way here, and they keep coming back. What’re you gonna do?”

  He hobbles around a corner, where I see a homemade shack. “Well, here we are.” The “clubhouse” is a old one-room shed with a dirt floor. We go inside, where the old man has a coupla plug-in cookers going . . . but it actually smells pretty good.

  “Got some Texas chili with cowboy potatoes over rice and homemade corn bread. You like corn bread?”

  “Right now, as long as it ain’t movin’, I’ll eat it.”

  He blows the dust out of a old bowl and fills it up. “Boys got to eat!” he says, laughing.

  We sit down on some old folding chairs, and he watches me dig in. Food’s good too, not like what I normally eat. It makes my stomach feel all warm.

  He sees me looking at some old pictures of a black cowboy on the wall.

  “That’s me, back in the day. Used to be the number-one bull rider on the southwest tour.”

  I think he musta watched one too many cowboy movies on TV. “Sure thing, mister. . . .”

  “What, you don’t believe me?”

  I swallow my food. “Look, you guys might think y’all is cowboys, but all I know is, real cowboys is white.”

  The old man shakes his head, like I’m a fool. “Son, don’t you know black cowboys is a tradition that goes back to before the Civil War?”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  He looks disappointed. “Not whatever, man. The word cowboy started as a black word. Wear it proudly.”

  “So how come I never seen any black cowboys on TV then?”

  He waves his hand. “TV. Humph. Can’t trust the media to tell the truth. The truth is, the white man always gets his way. Looky here. . . .”

  He pulls out a book from a dusty shelf. It got pictures and drawings from a long time ago. He shows me some old black-and-white pictures of black dudes dressed in homemade clothes doing cowboy stuff — roping, riding, and cleaning horses.

  “Back in the slave days, the slave who worked in the house was called a houseboy. The slaves who worked with the cows was called cowboys. Get it?”

  No, but he just getting started. He points to a picture of a black cowboy riding a horse out in the wild. He got one of them cowboy rope things whirling in the air like he about to catch some bull. “That’s Bill Pickett, son of a slave and the most famous black cowboy of all. Back then, there was almost nine thousand black cowboys out West, working cattle and driving ’em up the Chisholm Trail and such. And these cowboys was so good that eventually, the whites took the name cowboy for themselves. Stole it, really. Now we’re just trying to take it back, is all.”

  He straightens his hat, like he in a movie or something.

  I shake my head. “You guys is funny. We in the city, with cars and computers and stuff, and you think you back in the Wild, Wild West!”

  He smiles, like I’m the one living in a fantasy world.

  I shrug and start eating again. He watches me for a long time until I say, “Why you gotta stare at me for?”

  That makes him laugh. “You got your mama’s eyes, but your daddy’s attitude.”

  I choke on something, and he lean over and smacks me on the back. “You know my mama?” I ask.

  “Know her? I’m the one who drove her back to her folks in Detroit.”

  This is definitely news to me. “Why’d you do that?” I say, my face gettin’ all hot.

  He looks at me like I hurt his feelings or something. “I didn’t drive her away — I just took her home to her people, like she asked me to. See, sometimes young’uns aren’t up for the things they get themselves into. I know your daddy well, known him his whole life. He can take care of a horse better’n anybody, but a wife and a kid? He was useless. It was the best thing for you.”

  Just thinking about Harp caring more for a dumb horse than us gets me seein’ red. “What’d I ever do to him?”

  He bends down close to me and whispers, “You didn’t do nothing, son. You was only a tiny guy. Some people just relate better to animals. But your mama, she don’t got horse in her blood. She tried, but I knew it was gonna end badly. It don’t make either side bad; it’s just the way it is. Sometimes you gotta move on.”

  That makes me even more mad ’cause I realize me and Harper got something in common: we both drove Mama away.

  The old man pats me on the back. “Harp said he and your mama are gonna talk again tonight on the phone. We’ll get this mess cleaned up, don’t you worry. Meanwhile, eat up, then come on out and ask for me. Name’s Tex.”

  I watch him shuffle out, and I just sit there, shakin’ my head. Great. Texas in Philly now. I finish up my bowl, and just when I start thinkin’ about what I’m gonna do next, Harper walks in.

  He has a brush in one hand and a rake in the other. He hands the brush to me. “If you gonna be here today, might as well make yourself useful.”

  I look at the brush. “I don’t think so.”

  He acts like I didn’t say nothing. “It’s a horse brush. Go out front and help brush down the horses. The kids’ll show you how.”

  I shake my head. “Nah-uh. I ain’t going near them horses. I seen how you almost got stomped on this morning.”

  He smirks. “That’s whatcha call re-starting a horse. Some of ’em that we bring in are pretty nervous and out of control ’cause of what they been through at the tracks.”

  I can see he not going to go away. “What’s wrong with ’em?” I ask.

  “Nothing, they just been abandon —” He catches himself, starts again. “They’re old racehorses that normally get sold off for meat. We pool our money to buy what we can at auction before the slaughterhouse gets ’em. Then we bring ’em here so they can live out their days — the kids learn to ride, and we get a few more horses to race with. ’Course, with money being tight an’ all . . .”

  But my mind’s still stuck on the meat part. “People eat horses?” I ask.

  “Dogs. They get sold for dog food.”

  I feel like I been sold for dog food, but I still ain’t getting near them things. “I’ll just stay here, thanks,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “The heck you will. If you here, you gotta help out. Everybody works. All those kids work and so will you.”

  I don’t say nothing, just stare hard at that brush.

  He can see I really got my mind set, ’cause after a few seconds, he holds out the rake. “Fine . . . then go muck the stalls in the Ritz-Carlton instead.”

  I’m confused until I find out the Ritz-Carlton is what they call the main stable. They call it that as a joke ’cause it’s definitely not a luxury hotel. In fact, when I see it, I know this as far from luxury as a horse can get. It looks more like a dungeon, all dark and cramped. And a homemade dungeon at that, since it’s held together by old doors and scrap wood from torn-down buildings. And it smells funky.

  When I see what needs cleaning up, I think, No way. There’s piles of muck all over — and I mean the kind that come out of a horse. Man, these things must eat a lot. Harper leaves me there, with the rake and a wheelbarrow and says I got till sundown to finish picking up all this crap.

  I stand there for five minutes, then decide I’ll do what he says for today . . . but tomorrow, I’m outta here. I don’t know how, but one way or another, I’ll get back to Motor City. But the second I step into one of them stalls, I know I made the wrong choice to work in the barn. My white Nikes is all covered in greenish-brown you-know-what in about a minute. I’ll never get ’em cleaned.


  I start working. Even though this sucks for sure, I just keep going, nonstop, ’cause if I stop, I’ll start thinking about how my mama just up and left me with a stranger. And a strange stranger too, even if he supposed to be my dad.

  So I work and feel the burn in my arms, the sweat on my back. I don’t care. I’ll make her feel sorry for leaving me behind to clean up this stuff.

  The only good thing right now is all them horses is outside. But just doing the one stall takes me ’bout a hour. When I fill up the cart, I wheel it out to find out where to dump it. I run into Jamaica Bob.

  “Where do all this go?” I ask him. He waves me to follow him, but don’t offer to help me push. We turn the corner, and my jaw drops open.

  Behind the barn is a mountain. Not a mountain like with snow on it and stuff. This is a mountain of horse crap. I ain’t kidding you. This thing is about fifteen feet tall and fills up a huge part of the yard.

  Bob scowls. “City used to come and haul it away, just like it did for all the stables in Philly. Then about two months ago, they just up and stopped, saying something about budget issues and how we ain’t legal —”

  “Legal? What you mean?” I ask.

  He makes a face. “We own some of these structures here, but all of this land,” he says, pointing from the Ritz to the corral and the clubhouse, all the way out to the fields, where some teenagers are running horses. “The City owns all that. But it never did anything with it, ’cause nobody ever wanted nothing to do with this neighborhood. For decades, they just let it rot. Buildings would sit here empty and vandalized, just waiting to become crack houses and gang hangouts. But this our home turf, and we decided to make something of it. So we took it back. Made it our own.”

  My eyes bug out. “You stole it from the City?”

  He leans in real close to make sure I hear him right. “No. We reclaimed it. It’s called homesteading — that means if they don’t use it, they lose it.”

  I look around the spread. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “We turned something ugly into something beautiful, Cole. Turned it into a real neighborhood. It’s the only safe place around here, the only place a kid can go without worrying about messing with guns. And it’s all ’cause of them horses.”

  My eyes come to rest on that smelly mountain in front of me. “But what you gonna do now? How much bigger is that pile gonna get?”

  He laughs bitterly. “A lot, because the City suddenly decided it wanted to build a mall and condos out here. Now it wants the land back.”

  I’m confused. “What’s that got to do with this?” I say, pointing at the pile.

  He takes his hat off, wipes his brow. “Everything.” He looks up and sees a neighbor staring out her window at him. She don’t look happy and shuts her curtains.

  “See, the neighbors always liked us, but now they see this . . . pile . . . growing in the heat and humidity of summer, where it smells ten times worse and . . . well, you get the picture. City stopped service in order to divide us. Then all they gotta do is wait for the complaints to start rolling in, and next thing ya know, BOOM, they swoop in with health code violations —”

  He stops, must see he lost me. Shrugs.

  “Just shovel this onto the pile. It won’t matter much, ’cause they’ll be coming to shut us down soon.”

  Before I can say Why? he gestures over to something covered with a tarp.

  My jaw drops again when I see a hoof sticking out from underneath the tarp. “Is that —?”

  “Yep. But we got nowhere to take it, just like we got nowhere to haul this pile. And it ain’t even our horse.” He spits. “Yep, the end is coming, that much I know. . . .”

  I start rolling that wheelbarrow back and forth. Fill it, empty it, fill it, empty it. I don’t care.

  Slowly them other kids bring back the horses they was washing to put them in the stalls. The oldest one smiles when he sees me working. “I guess Harp told you everybody works if they come in here.”

  “I just felt sorry for y’all. I still ain’t stayin’,” I say as I roll up to the last stall. I hear a noise and peek into the stall where that horse Harper broke is standing — big, black, sweaty, and staring me down.

  I freeze in my tracks just as Harper comes strolling in with a bunch of hay. “You ’bout done?”

  He takes the hay into the stall, but the horse is still staring right at me and starts backing into the corner.

  “I think he’s scared of you,” says Harp.

  Yeah, I don’t think so. He just wants me to come closer so he can stomp on me.

  Harper sees me frozen there. “Boy, if you gonna be around horses, you gotta learn they ain’t gonna hurt you unless you scared. A horse can smell fear; it makes ’em nervous. You scared?”

  I look at him. “Who you calling scared?”

  He shakes his head. “Nobody, unless you are scared. Now, come here.”

  I take a few steps in, and the horse snorts and backs up to the wall.

  Harper hands me some hay. “Hold it out for him.”

  I look at Harper like he crazy.

  “He’s not gonna bite you. Just do it.”

  I hold it up, and the horse looks at it.

  “Say something to him. He’ll come.”

  My mind goes blank. “Like what?”

  He rolls his eyes. “What would you say to a dog?” he asks.

  That is one big dog. “Uh . . . come here, boy?”

  “You got it.” He nods.

  And with that, Harper walks out.

  “Hey.” I turn around, but he gone. Then I feel a tug on my arm. I turn slowly and see the biggest head I ever seen on anything right in front of my face.

  I can’t move.

  The horse’s big ol’ nose is sniffing me. I can feel it huffin’ and puffin’, its nostrils opening up like they gonna suck me right in. Then it raises its head and CHOMP, these giant teeth start pulling at the hay in my hand, chewin’ away, his big ol’ eyes staring at me. It bites closer to my hand, and I let go. He follows the hay to the ground and he keeps eating, like I ain’t even there.

  This thing is huge. I just stare at his giant yellow teeth as they crunch away. He do kinda act like a dog, so I slowly put my hand on his neck like Harper done. He don’t flinch. His hair is rough like doll hair, but the fur on his neck is soft and smooth.

  “Good boy . . .” I whisper.

  I think about how Harper talked to the horse earlier. I let my hand move up to his neck and keep saying, “Good boy, good boy.” He moves his hoof and almost steps on my foot. I can feel his weight when that hoof goes down. That makes me nervous, like maybe he don’t know how big he is. But when I look back up at his face, he looking right at me, and then I know he knows that I’m there. And suddenly I don’t feel so scared no more.

  I finish up and wait for Harper. Outside the barn door, I can see the sun turning orange as it gets low in the sky. Sun feels different here than in Detroit, bigger maybe. I can see the downtown buildings way off in the distance, the freeway hustling nearby.

  I hear a bang go off in the distance. I think it’s a car backfiring, but then a few more go off and I know it’s gunshots. That much is the same as Detroit. Pretty soon, I hear a ’copter chopping overhead. I can feel it in my body as it whooshes by. It ain’t going far.

  Harper pops his head in. “Time to go.” I’m covered in dirt and who knows what. He nods, like he approves. “You’ll feel it in the morning.”

  Harp closes up the barn and puts some other stuff in the storage room while I spend about ten minutes cleaning the muck from my Nikes.

  When we walk out onto the street, I notice all the kids is gone. About ten of the guys is left, gathered around a fire in a trash can on the vacant lot across the way, sittin’ on a old couch and chair somebody left behind. Some of them is Harper’s age, but they dress different — wearing goatees and shades, black cowboy hats, Levi jackets, and boots. They look tall and serious, like a cowboy Malcolm X. They knocking back s
ome brews, talking trash about some race coming up at a place called the Speedway.

  The Muslim guy, who ain’t drinking, waves to Harper. “Hey, you letting Lightning out tomorrow?”

  Harper smiles, all sly. “Who wants to know?”

  The Muslim dude laughs, points to another guy I ain’t seen before, a dude as big as Notorious B.I.G., wearing a red Phillies jacket.

  “Big Dee says he’s got a hundred riding on a Lightning-Rocket rematch.”

  Tex pipes in, egging Harper on. “That is if you ain’t too scared. . . .”

  The other guys start chanting, Race, race, race.

  I can tell Harper likes the attention.

  Big Dee holds up his big hand. “When you gonna grace us with your presence, Harp? It’s been three months, man!”

  Harper smiles. “You know, once you been king for so long, it gets kinda old. Besides, Lightning’s just been resting up till y’all recover from your last humiliation.”

  The guys all bust up. They know a good smackdown when they hear it.

  The Muslim guy pipes in. “I don’t know, man. Rocket’s been looking goood lately. Big Dee got a new rider an’ all.”

  Harper raises a eyebrow. “Yeah? And who that be?”

  Big Dee grins, his eyes hidden behind his shades. “Come on down and find out for yourself, man.”

  Harper acts all amused. He glances at me, winks. “Maybe I will, just to show the boy here what speed really looks like.”

  That gets a big reaction. The guys really whoop it up. Harper starts walking away, and Big Dee adds, “Maybe your boy can handle that horse better than you.”

  Harper laughs at that one. A little too much. I give him a look, but he keeps walking and laughing like that’s the funniest thing he ever heard.

  I follow Harper to his house. The sky is turning purple and darkness is coming on fast. People who was out earlier is now clearing from the streets. If it’s anything like where I’m from, I know you don’t wanna be out after dark or some fool might clip you by accident.